John 12

John 12

Several years ago while working for a Christian ministry, it came to my attention that the CFO was stealing from the organization. He had control of the money and was “dipping” into it for his own ventures. Needless to say this had major repercussions on the stability of the ministry but even more so on the stability of the staff and our relationships.

Judas Iscariot has become a notorious name among church goers of every denomination. As we continue in the book of John we see Him fulfill his role in history as the one who betrayed Jesus. But here in Chapter 12 we only begin to see his character and how it is about so much more than one act of turning Jesus over.

The Pharisees didn’t ask just anyone to help them with Jesus. They knew who to ask. Judas was already living a questionable life and it must have been obvious at least to a few. In Chapter 12 verses 4-6 we see Judas was not a disciple who had done everything right but fell back at just the wrong time. Instead he was already on a slippery slope.

How often does it happen to us that we begin with some sin so small, so unnoticeable? Perhaps at the beginning we are fooling not only ourselves but everyone around us. As we get away with this, we begin to move onto the next little sin. Most of the time we don’t even notice the shift. Besides it gets easier. We aren’t going from level zero to level 7, we are gradually moving up. The jump isn’t so hard. Judas didn’t go from a completely devoted disciple to one who betrayed the one he followed. There were other sins in his life leading up to it.

To this day I don’t know the whole story about what happened with the CFO of our ministry. I don’t understand how it all happened or what kind of repentance has happened since. It is fortunate for him that unlike Judas he can move forward without being a household name. But the one thing I can be sure of is this: it wasn’t a one time mishap. It wasn’t a jump. It started with smaller indiscretions and got to the point that it didn’t seem so bad.