Tip of My Iceberg

photo courtesy of Birmingham Museum Trust on Unsplash

“Mom, she hit me first!”

“No, she started it!”

“Did not! She started it!”

I’m grateful my kids have grown old enough to not tattle on one another anymore. But when they were little, somebody was always crabbing about somebody else. On long car drives, there would be the ubiquitous, “She touched me, Mom. Make her stay on her side.” Or, “Mom, he’s being really mean. He took my book.”

The fighting was bad enough, but the tattling drove me nuts. I know everyone wanted their comeuppance, making sure the perpetrator got what was coming to them. Tattling felt demeaning. We tried to help our children understand that telling on a sibling was almost as bad as the argument they were having.

Kids aren’t that treacherous. Typically, they just want the blame shifted to someone else so they can avoid punishment. Treachery is more intentional, a choice of the will to betray someone’s trust, a breach of loyalty that can involve deceit. It can be anything from someone going behind your back to get what they want, to telling a friend a secret they swore to keep only to find out they shared it with everyone, or a spouse seeking love outside a marriage.

The truth is we deal with treachery every day. People try to control others through bullying tactics. Individuals take advantage of the weak or innocent. Scams happen all the time.

Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus experienced treachery from one of His disciples. “Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests and asked, ‘How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?’ And they gave him thirty pieces of silver.” Matthew 26:14-15.

Why would someone closest to Jesus, who’d seen Him perform countless miracles, who’d been loved by Him, taught by Him, choose to betray Him? Thirty pieces of silver was the price paid to free a slave, and Jesus’ commitment to die in our place frees us from the penalty of sin in our lives. This was the price the religious leaders assessed as Judas’ price for his betrayal.

The Thursday night before He would be crucified, Jesus had taken His disciples to the olive grove called Gethsemane. He asked His men to pray for him while He went to pray alone, seeking His Father’s will. He knew He’d be betrayed.

“And even as Jesus said this, Judas, one of the twelve disciples, arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs. They had been sent by the leading priests and elders of the people. The traitor, Judas, had given them a prearranged signal: ‘You will know which one to arrest when I greet Him with a kiss.’” Matthew 26:47-49.

The One who spoke of love and forgiveness, who offered grace and mercy to those who would believe, was betrayed by a kiss by one of His own. Judas felt such remorse for what he’d done that he tried to give the money back to the chief priests, but they couldn’t take it–it was blood money. They bought a potter’s field with the money, a place where foreigners, those unloved and unknown could be buried.

Judas then hung himself, never repenting of what he’d done.

What Jesus experienced at the hands of the one who knew and loved Him was treachery. Possibly, Judas tried this as a way to force Jesus into a position of power. He tattled to the wrong people and ended up paying with his life.

We often don’t think twice when little ones tattle. It’s hopefully a phase.

When small tattles turn into treachery, people’s lives are at risk.

Jesus knew the betrayal was coming, but He also knew He needed to withstand it for us.

Betrayal became love. For us.