In six days, Jesus will die.
In eight days, He will rise.
To this day, He reigns.
But the Bible reveals nothing about the Saturday between the tragic Friday and triumphant Sunday, unless on that day Jesus “went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient,” as Peter wrote.
But in this mortal world, the disciples were perhaps hiding; Pilate was perhaps still trying to wash Jesus’ blood from his hands.
And perhaps Judas’ family was grieving.
According to Matthew, Judas hanged himself, and based on Luke’s summary in Acts, Judas’ rope broke at one point, and he plummeted to a field below.
Before Judas earned these wages of sin, though, he tried to return his wages of silver. He even confessed his sin to the chief priests.
But these religious leaders callously responded, “What is that to us? You see to it.”
But God established the priests to “see to it.” He called them to intercede for sinners and make sacrifices for their atonement.
Fortunately, Jesus now reigns as the high priest, and “with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption,” the author of Hebrews writes.
And yet this High Priest also refers to His disciples as priests, and they can still intercede for sinners as Abraham and Moses did.
And they can still care enough about sinners to convict them with the truth.
In fact, if they want to love like their High Priest, they must.
As the Apostle Paul writes, love “does not rejoice in iniquity.” Likewise, Jesus said, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.”
Priests who love deeply must confront sin and its immorality (John 4:17, 18); they must confront self-centered motivations (John 6:26), misplaced priorities (Luke 10:41), hardened hearts (Mark 16:14), and rash and immature attitudes (Matthew 16:23).
Priests don’t confront hastily, however. They instead first confront their own motives, for love confronts because it cares about sin’s consequences for the soul, and if love punishes, it punishes to humble and inspire souls to repent and overcome, as Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:24-26.
Priests also strive to understand the motives of those they confront. Perhaps they sinned due to momentary weakness; perhaps they sinned due to Biblical ignorance; perhaps they willfully sinned due to a hard heart. Regardless, priests listen before speaking, and perhaps listen more than speaking, to confront correctly.
And when love finally confronts, it confronts thoroughly, demolishing sin’s strongholds down to the smallest of compromises and justifications.
For instance, a teacher once confronted a friend who had committed adultery, but she initially tried to change the subject, and when she finally admitted that she had an affair, she quickly said, “God understands. In fact, I believe God brought this new man into my life because God loves me and knows I’ve been unhappy for a long time.”
But the teacher wouldn’t justify her justification, and he firmly but respectfully continued to confront her until she had admitted she had sinned.
But love doesn’t leave sinners lost in the rubble. Love helps them rebuild their faith through revival, or a new or renewed desire to live for God.
Love, for instance, helps the repentant cut off temptations. Love encourages them to confess and make restitution as necessary, and ultimately love encourages greater spiritual disciplines that encourage learners to glorify and love God more.
“What diligence (true repentance) produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians as he celebrated the revival in their hearts.
Ultimately, priests long to look broken, contrite sinners in the eye and tell them to feed Jesus’ sheep, just as Jesus told the disciple who denied Him.
Perhaps Jesus could have told that to Judas too — if the priests had loved God enough to love him.
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