Sunday 14 October, 2018

27 Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. 2 So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor. 3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. 4 “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” “What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.” 5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. 6 The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. 8 That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, 10 and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”

So this is a crazy specific set of circumstances which led to the fulfilment of a prophesy made in the Old Testament hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth.

Judas was paid by the chief priests to betray Jesus, and now, filled with remorse, he gives back the money that he was paid.

One can only assume that the chief priests would NOT have wanted to purposely do something to fulfil a prophesy that points to Jesus as being the Chosen One, and yet they did just that. They used the 30 pieces of silver to buy a field from the potter, which fulfils this very specific set of verses:

Zechariah 11:12-13 “I told them, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.

¹³ And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price at which they valued me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the Lord.

 It strikes me how God ultimately always gets his way, even when there are people like the chief priests who don’t want to cooperate with Him! Or people like me who actually do want to cooperate with Him, but still mess up on a regular basis.

This fills me with a great sense of peace in the ability of God to run the show for this world, but more specifically in my life.

When I think that I’ve messed things up and disappointed God and myself, I need to remember how good God is at fulfilling His plans in spite of my failings. For that I am very thankful!

 

Written by Shelley Witt