Judas’ Painful Goodbye

Open the Bible UK Daily

While [Jesus] was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper...

Mark 14:3

While Jesus was reclining at the table in this man’s home, a woman expressed her love for Him by pouring a jar of perfume (worth a year’s wages) over His head. Some of the guests thought this was wasteful. They thought that something so valuable could have been put to better use.

After this, Mark tells us that Judas, “one of the twelve” (14:10), went out to betray Jesus. The phrase, “one of the twelve,” is repeated three times in this chapter, emphasising the pain for our Lord that this betrayal came from one of His closest followers.

Jesus had appointed the twelve to “be with him” (3:14). In other words, Judas was in Christ’s inner circle, one of His closest friends. Jesus loved this man, and yet this man resisted that love. He had been with Jesus for three years. He had been trusted in leadership and sent out in ministry, but this man would be lost forever.

Judas went to the Garden of Gethsemane to betray Jesus, and he kissed Him (14:45). The kiss was his last goodbye, a final parting that will never be reconciled. Judas will spend eternity away from Christ. He didn’t know this, but Jesus did.

There was unique pain in this moment for Jesus. Christ knew He would see the other disciples again. After He had risen, He would go ahead of them to Galilee (14:28), but Judas would not be there.

Try to imagine the pain in the heart of Jesus as He receives the kiss of a man on his way to an eternal hell.