Read Mark 14:43 –52. What happens here that is so crucial to the plan of salvation?

It is shocking that one of Jesus’ closest associates betrayed Him to His enemies. The Gospels do not go into great detail about Judas’s motivation. But Ellen G. White writes: “Judas had naturally a strong love for money; but he had not always been corrupt enough to do such a deed as this. He had fostered the evil spirit of avarice until it had become the ruling motive of his life. The love of mammon overbalanced his love for Christ. Through becoming the slave of one vice he gave himself to Satan, to be driven to any lengths in sin.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 716.

Betrayal in itself is deplored by all, even by those who make use of betrayers (compare with Matt. 27:3–7). But Judas’s deed is particularly nefarious because he seeks to hide his betrayal under the guise of friendship. He gives the crowd instruction that the man he kisses is the man to arrest. It appears that Judas wanted to hide his perfidy from Jesus and the other disciples.

Chaos breaks out when the crowd arrests Jesus. Someone draws a sword (John 18:10 , 11 says it was Peter) and cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Jesus addresses the mob, chastising them for doing in secret what they were afraid to do in the open when He was teaching in the temple. But Jesus ends with a reference to the Scriptures being fulfilled. It is another signal of that dual plot running through the Passion Narrative—that the will of God is coming to fulfillment even as the will of man works to destroy the Messiah.

The disciples all flee, including Peter, who nevertheless will reappear, following Jesus at a distance and ending up getting himself in trouble. But Mark 14:51 , 52 tells of a young man following Jesus, an account found here and nowhere else in the canonical Gospels. Some think it was Mark himself, but that is unprovable. What is remarkable is that he runs away naked. The young man, instead of leaving all to follow Jesus, leaves all to flee from Jesus.

Think about the fearful idea that being a slave of only one vice led Judas to do what he did. What should this tell us about hating sin and, by God’s grace, overcoming it?