Making good choices

    Some unknown wag gave this out as food for thought:  “Life is like a cafeteria. One goes through choosing as he goes, but what he chooses must be paid for at the end of the line. Choose wisely, carefully – There are no refunds, no exchanges!” A popular quote about choice goes like this:

  “You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of your choice.” If you take one end of a stick with you, the other end comes along, too. The same thing is true about choices and consequences – they are two ends of the same stick.

    Judas’ decision to betray Jesus powerfully demonstrates the critical nature of the choices we make, and the inevitable consequences that follow. Matthew’s account is found in Matthew 26:14-16, 21-25, 47-50. In the space of less than forty verses we read about the dirtiest, most diabolical and devilish deal ever made. For “thirty pieces of silver” (the price of a slave in that time according to some scholars) Judas sold Jesus out to those who orchestrated His death. Verses 47-50  describe how Judas, “one of the twelve, with a great multitude with swords and clubs, came from the chief priests and elders of the people,” and with a kiss, betrayed Jesus into their hands. A more vile and treacherous act cannot be conceived. Judas, as an apostle, enjoyed a level of intimacy and fellowship with Jesus no one else on earth ever did. For three years he and the other apostles enjoyed the highest  privileges possible as they traveled with, listened to, and observed Jesus Christ up close and personal! And then, suddenly and inexplicably, an unimaginable choice – Judas betrayed Jesus to His enemies.

    End of Judas’ story, right? Not quite. Judas’ conscience began to eat him alive. “Then Judas, His [Jesus’] betrayer, seeing He [Christ] had been condemned, was remorseful” (Matthew 27:3). He returned to those to whom he had betrayed Christ, blurted out a tortured confession of guilt, and threw the dirty money down in the temple. Then Matthew says bluntly, he ”went and hanged himself” (27:4-5). But even then the story is not over. An earlier statement by Jesus (Matthew 26:24) and a later one by Peter (Acts 1:25) indicate Judas lost his soul. Peter said he went to “his own place” which could hardly mean anything other than hell. Judas is a pathetic figure in the Bible. But he’s not there for us to just scratch our heads in bewilderment or feel sorrow for him.

   Along with Adam and Eve, King David in the Bathsheba incident, and the prodigal son Jesus told about in Luke 15, Judas flashes an urgent and powerful admonition to those who will pause and consider – choices come with consequences. The choices we make each day have the power to make us or to break us. Regarding Jesus Christ – whether to betray Him or be true – choose wisely, choose carefully. At the end of the line there will be no refunds and no exchanges.

--Dan Gulley