The betrayer’s wage is cheap

“And asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver.” Mt 26:15 NIV.

Judas motive for selling out his Master is money. We can safely conclude that from the above verse. The price they paid him was so cheap they didn’t bother to consult with the Sanhedrin first. Thirty pieces of silver was the market price of a common slave (Ex 21:32). That was how much value the Jewish leaders put on Judas and his Master. What a contemptuous price! A friend betraying another friend so cheap! Hundreds of years before, another Judas masterminded selling his own brother into slavery for a paltry twenty shekels of sliver (Ge 37:27-28).

The Yoruba people of West Africa have a saying, “You may sell your relative for a penny, but a thousand pennies cannot buy him or her back.” That was the sorry case of Judas Iscariot. “Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What [is that] to us? see thou [to that].
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.” Mt 27:3-5. What a pity! Betrayal is cheap, but the consequence is not. Like Judas, there are so many ways we also betray our Lord and Saviour. We need to examine ourselves and repent.

Prayer:
“Father God, we are sorry for everytime we betray your Son, either knowingly or unknowingly. Forgive us, O God. Strengthen us and help us to love him with all our spirit, soul and body, in Jesus name. Amen.”