THAT THOU DOEST, DO QUICKLY

His hour had finally come. Numerous plots, attempts, and threats against His life had failed, because it had not been God’s time. Now, it was. The Passover meal had been completed and the Lord Jesus solemnly announced to His twelve men that one of them would betray Him. Matthew records that they were consumed with sorrow. Eleven of them asked ‘Lord, is it I?’ Only one asked, ‘Master, is it I?’ Jesus had never been Judas’s Lord, for Judas had never been a believer. Now, he was to become His betrayer.

John’s account tells how Jesus, as host of the Passover meal, identified the one who would turn Him in. He took a morsel of bread, dipped it into the dish, and handed it to Judas. As Judas took the sop, he allowed Satan’s full and final entrance into his doomed soul. Apparently, not once in three years together did Judas give the other eleven a single opportunity to know he was not real. Now, it was evident, if not to all. Then, he went out into the night, to complete his evil plot.

The Saviour had been born to die. At His birth, He had been wrapped in the garments commonly used for burial. Thirty silent years had prepared Him for the three public ones, all to culminate in the cross. He had set His face to go to Jerusalem, Luke 9. 51. Years later, Paul would head towards Jerusalem, ‘not knowing the things that shall befall me there’, Acts 20. 22. How much more courageous was the Lord as He headed to the same city! He had said to His men, ‘Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished’, Luke 18. 31; cf. John 18. 4. He knew every prophecy, each prediction: the shame and the spitting; the buffeting and the scourging; the thorns and the nails; the billows of God’s wrath and the darkness. He knew all of what was coming - and still He went.

Our hearts bow in overwhelming devotion to this Saviour. What courage He displayed in these words. What love! With heavenly dignity, He went forth to meet the traitor; and, as one has said, on that dark and fateful night, Judas kissed the Door of Heaven, and passed through the door of hell.