Matthew 26:57-27:10 – Peter, Judas, and a New Day

It may seem redundant for me to say that the path leading toward the Father’s kingdom often runs through the valley of the shadow of death and close to our enemies who are enmeshed in evil, but redundant or not, it is true. A seminary professor once told me that the truth, even though it has been proclaimed before, needs to be spoken again and again. I am not, however, the only one repeating this truth. Matthew, as he continues his telling of the gospel, repeatedly emphasizes the fact that God’s glorious mercy passed through the shadows of the darkest of evils. Matthew writes,

57 Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered.

Matthew 26:57

Evil can come at the hands of those who guard and protect the Word of God. The priests, coming from the tribe of Levi, had no land inheritance from God (Deut. 10:8-9); their inheritance was the LORD, his word, and the temple. They were called to protect and implement the righteous judgments of God in their own generation as well as convey them to the next. Part of their inheritance and duties was that they were the ones who would arbitrate any sort of accusations of wrongdoing in the nation of Israel. As such, even though the accusation and arrest of Jesus seem to be a bit sketchy, it was right for Jesus to be taken to the high priest so the matter of his guilt or innocence could be decided. But, before we get to the trial, Matthew sneaks in a comment about Peter, one of the disciples. He writes,

58 And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end.

Matthew 26:58

The disciples fled from Jesus when he was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, but Peter seems to have regretted his actions and followed the crowd to the house of the high priest. If we were reading this story for the first time, at this point, we might be wondering if Peter was going to completely redeem himself and, regardless of the consequences, stand up and be counted as one of Jesus’s followers. However, before we know what Peter will do, Matthew returns his focus to Jesus. He writes,

59 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, 60 but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward 61 and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’” 62 And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” 63 But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” 65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” 67 Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, 68 saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?”

Matthew 26:59-68

The chief priests and the council were apparently trying to do the right thing by finding multiple witnesses who could corroborate the false accusations against Jesus. Even while they are falsely accusing Jesus, they appear to be striving to follow the Law of Moses which requires at least two witnesses (Deut. 19:15-21). It is only after two witnesses make an accusation that the high priest stands up and questions Jesus. This is not an attempt to pardon the high priest and the council, rather it shows the depths of evil to which apparently good men will go. Even while fabricating lies against Jesus, they maintained the appearance of doing good by seeking to comply with the Law of Moses.

I have no doubt that the chief priests rationalized their duplicity by holding fast to the Laws of Moses even while they sought to shed innocent blood. But the chief priests are not the only ones in human history to do such a thing; I also have made many horrible choices while still publically holding tight to God’s word, and I suspect I am not alone in doing this. Humans are quite skilled at giving themselves a pass in one area as long as they measure up in other areas, but while we do this — while embroiled in duplicitous behavior — we are prone to judging others. It’s almost as if we know something needs to be judged as sinful, but since we are unwilling to pass judgment on ourselves, we need to find another person who can become the recipient of judgment. I hold no love for cats, but kicking the cat as an outlet for our own loathing is not healthy; for us or the cat. The priests and scribes may not have been kicking a cat, but their duplicity produced an overflow of anger and hatred toward the only pure person they had ever met: Jesus. In some way, this made them feel justified in their choices. But before we see the conclusion of this trial, Matthew jumps back to Peter who has been sitting on the other side of the courtyard watching the proceedings. Matthew writes,

69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.”

Matthew 26:69

Peter had a decision to make. Earlier he promised Jesus he would not abandon him, yet he ran away. Obviously, he changed his mind somewhat and returned to watch Jesus’s trial. When questioned about his relationship with Jesus, he could have stood up and said, “Yes, I was with Jesus. I am his disciple.” If he had done such, the choice he made to run away less than an hour ago — an evil choice — could have been overcome by repenting: making the good choice to stand with Jesus and face the accusations. But as the next verses will show, Peter did no such thing. Instead of relying on the Father to protect him from evil, Peter chose a different path…three times. Matthew writes,

70 But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” 71 And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” 72 And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” 73 After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” 74 Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.”

Matthew 26:70-74a

Peter had become so vested in his denials that he forgot he had promised to stand with Jesus, even if it meant death. But then the following happened,

And immediately the rooster crowed. 75 And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.

Matthew 26:74b-75

Fear of persecution started the ball of denial rolling for Peter but his prideful self-preservation maintained its movement. Once headed down the wrong path, return is not easy; each additional step and bad decision takes us further away from the truth. We need the Father’s hand to deliver us from the evil of starting down the wrong path in the first place, but there are times we make the wrong choice. Peter, after realizing his sin, went away and wept, but it doesn’t seem to me that Peter was devoid of hope. He may not have been thinking about the possibility of forgiveness, but I suspect what kept him from taking the path Judas would later take was the seed of the knowledge of forgiveness that Jesus had planted in his heart over the past three years.

With Peter now having left the scene, Matthew returns to Jesus. He writes,

1 When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. 2 And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor.

Matthew 27:1-2

Jesus, now alone, has been accused, the verdict is death, and he has been taken to the governor to finalize and approve the judgment. From the outside, it may seem as though the powers of darkness have won this battle, but we know better. Imagine, however, you are reading this account for the first time. If you are being especially observant, you might notice that Matthew begins these verses by telling us that a new day has dawned. This may seem inconsequential as Matthew is probably just recording history as it happened, but I think there is something else going on here. Any good reader knows that the darkest times always come at night and the dawning of a new day brings relief, but Matthew does not write this story that way. Matthew, I believe, wants us to see the condemnation of Jesus as the bright light of a new day.

Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet” because he weeps over Israel, her sin, her judgment, and the desolation caused by the forces of darkness. Nowhere is this more evident than in his book, Lamentations. However, sitting firmly in the very middle of that book, we find a very interesting passage that seems out of place. Jeremiah writes,

21  But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23  they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24  “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:19-24

Even while lamenting his sufferings, Jeremiah boasts of hope because the unending mercies of the Lord are new every morning. For those who are a bit more academically minded, Lamentations is a book full of chiasms. What a chiasm does, most frequently, is place the most important point of the writing at the very center of the text. Thus, the pinnacle of Lamentations is the mercy of the Lord that is new every morning. Keeping this in mind as we return to the text in Matthew, we can see that the very center of this passage is the dawning light of a new day that shines on Jesus’s condemnation — the Father’s gift of mercy that provides deliverance from evil for every human being ever born.

I realize Matthew’s crafting of this chapter, and of his entire Gospel, was accomplished under the inspiration of the Spirit, but that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize the brilliance of his writing. In this passage, Matthew first tells us about the chief priests who sought to condemn Jesus, then he told us of Peter’s denial. After these two important events, we will see that Matthew will now tell us about Judas before returning us to the chief priests. The lynchpin for this story is the new day wherein Jesus’s sacrifice is finalized by the religious leaders. Sitting firmly in the center, this sacrifice, and only this sacrifice, has the power to redeem either the chief priests, Judas, or Peter.

Matthew now shifts his focus to Judas, the antithesis of Peter when it comes to how we respond when confronted with the evil of our own sin. He writes,

3 Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” 5 And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.

Matthew 27:3-5

Matthew, the only Gospel writer to record this event, seems to indicate that Judas returned to the chief priests for two reasons: to give back the money and confess his sin. Judas, like Peter, changed his mind, but the chief priests and elders, the very ones at that time who were the intermediaries between God and man, told Judas there would be no offer of forgiveness. Whatever else we might think about Judas, it seems that he realized what he had done was wrong and he appeared to be following the law as stated in Deuteronomy 19:1-13 where we are told of the cities of refuge established for those guilty of spilling innocent blood. I readily admit that I could be wrong about this, but I don’t know if Judas really understood that the chief priests and elders intended to kill Jesus. Judas certainly knew they wanted to arrest Jesus and Judas did willfully betray Jesus, but it seems to me that Judas may have just thought they were just going to beat Jesus and then release him. This doesn’t make Judas’s crime any less repugnant, but the fact that Judas returned and confessed to the priests that he was guilty of betraying innocent blood seems to indicate that he didn’t want anything to do with the murder, even if that meant he would be declared guilty and sent away to a city of refuge for a long period of time.

Regardless of these thoughts about Judas’s state of mind, when presented with a confession of sin, the chief priests did not follow the Laws of Moses. Instead of telling Judas what sacrifices to complete so he might receive forgiveness, they told him “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” In essence, the chief priests said, “You need to find a way to get forgiveness for sins on your own. None is available here.” Judas then, when faced with the reality that the religious leaders would offer him no forgiveness, fell into despair. His despair, however, was different from Peter’s. The voice of his despair filled his mind so that he could not hear any other voice that might have been to him. In particular, the voice Judas heard during the past three years that spoke of forgiveness was drowned out by his screams of sorrow. With no possibility of forgiveness and redemption in sight, Judas condemned himself to death.

While Peter shows us that the Father’s mercies are greater than any sin we might commit, Judas reminds us that if we reject the Father’s mercies there is no future for us but death. Judas’s story also provides a dire warning to any believer who, like the priests before Jesus’s death and resurrection, now represents Jesus and the Father to the world: if we are not willing to extend the Father’s mercy and forgiveness to those living in a sinful world, what other options do they have? Where else can they find hope?

Matthew closes this passage by highlighting the deep duplicity and wickedness of the chief priests. He writes,

6 But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers. 8 Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, 10 and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”

Matthew 27:6-10

This passage began with the chief priests, scribes, and elders working nefariously to accuse an innocent man while still being sticklers for following the law. Now, after receiving blood money for their participation in the condemnation of an innocent man, they continue to be sticklers about following the law, specifically, that law prohibiting the placing of unclean money into the temple treasury (Deut. 23:18). In their duplicity, these men show us what Jesus meant when he said, “You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Matt. 23:24). They also provide yet another reason we need the Father’s hand of deliverance from the power of evil, for only the Father’s hand can keep our hearts from hardening in the same way.

Unbeknownst to them, however, their despicable and self-serving actions fit neatly into God’s prophetic plan. Centuries prior to the events of Matthew 27 a prophet spoke words that may not have been initially understood but perfectly this interaction between Judas and the priests. In the wisdom of God, the actions of a group of hard-hearted priests and elders were used to punctuate the opening sentence of the Father’s overflowing mercy that he offers to sinful humanity; the condemnation of Jesus. Our prayers for deliverance from evil find their answers rooted in that new day some two thousand years ago when Jesus was condemned. The bright light of the Father’s mercy pierced the darkness of evil even as the scribes and priests sought to pierce the flesh of God’s only begotten Son. This is the bright light that delivers us from evil and opens the gates of the Father’s eternally powerful and glorious kingdom. For such we give thanks when we pray, “Deliver us from evil, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”

• Click HERE to go to the page containing all the posts for this study on The Lord’s Prayer and Matthew