Today is sometimes called “Spy Wednesday” after the snare set for our Lord Jesus Christ by His close Apostle Judas Iscariot. To this day the Orthodox Church remembers this betrayal with Wednesday being a fasting day usually throughout the year. There was an old English hymn, “Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone, dare to have a purpose firm, and dare to make it known.” For us Orthodox Christians on Holy Wednesday, memory can stir different wording, along the lines of “Dare not to be a Judas”–not to be a spy in the sense of being a deceiver ultimately serving demonic interests against Christ Whom one claims to serve–for the sake of a love of money or worldly riches and benefits. Indeed, Judas was in effect the Treasurer of the Twelve.
Hieromonk Seraphim Rose of Blessed Memory has written of the account in the Gospels about how a woman brought very precious ointment and poured it on Jesus’ head as he sat at meat. We are told Jesus’ disciples were strangely indigant, arguing that it was wasteful, and the ointment could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Jesus said the woman’s action was one of loving reverence that would always be remembered with the Gospels and that “the poor you always have with you.” Judas after this incident we are told went to the chief priests and offered to sell Jesus to them by delivering him, and was given 30 pieces of silver. Hieromonk Seraphim wrote:
“In this passage of Scripture, we read how, as our Lord prepared for His Passion, a woman came and anointed Him with very precious ointment; and it is very touching how our Lord accepted such love from simple people. But at the same time Judas—one of the twelve who were with Him—looked at this act, and something in his heart changed. This was apparently the “last straw,” because Judas was the one in charge of the money and he thought that this was a waste of money. We can even see the logical processes going on in his mind. We can hear him think about Christ: ‘I thought this man was somebody important. He wastes money, he doesn’t do things right, he thinks he’s so important…’ and all kinds of similar little ideas which the devil puts in his mind. And with his passion (his main passion was love of money), he was caught by the devil and made to betray Christ. He did not want to betray Him; he simply wanted money. He did not watch over himself and crucify his passions.
“Anyone of us can be exactly in that position. We have to look at our hearts and see which passion of ours will the devil hook us on in order to cause us to betray Christ. If we think that we are something superior to Judas—that he was some kind of a ‘kook’ and we are not—we are quite mistaken. Like Judas, everyone of us has passions in his heart. Let us therefore look at them. We can be caught with love for neatness, with love for correctness, with love for a sense of beauty: any of our little faults which we cling to can be a thing that the devil can catch us with. Being caught, we can begin to justify this condition ‘logically’—on the basis of our passion. And from that ‘logical’ process of thinking we can betray Christ, unless we watch over ourselves and begin to realize that we are filled with passions, that each one of us is potentially a Judas. Therefore, when the opportunity comes—when the passion begins to operate in us and logically begins to develop from a passion into betrayal—we should stop right there and say, ‘Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!‘
“We must not look at life through the glasses of our passions, nor see how we can ‘fit’ life into being what we would like it to be—whether this is a life where there is peace and quiet or where there is a lot of noise and excitement. If we try to make life ‘fit’ like this, a total disaster will result. In looking at life, we should accept all the things which come to us as God’s providence, knowing that they are intended to wake us up from our passions. We should pray to God to show us some God-pleasing thing that we can do. When we accept what comes to us, we begin to be like the simple woman in the Gospel who heard the call from God and was thus able to be His minister. She was proclaimed to the ends of the world, as our Lord says, because of the simple thing she did—pouring out the ointment upon Him. Let us be like her: sensitive to watching God’s signs around us. These signs come from everywhere: from nature, from our fellow men, from a seeming chance of events… There is always, everyday, something that indicates to us God’s will. We must be open to this.
“Once we become more aware of the passions within ourselves and begin to fight against them, we will not let them begin the process which was seen in Judas. Judas started from a very small thing: being concerned for the right use of money. And from such small things we betray God the Saviour. We must be sober, seeing not the fulfillment of our passions around us, but rather the indication of God’s will: how we might this very moment wake up and begin to follow Christ to His Passion and save our souls.”
So wrote Hieromonk Seraphim. Brothers and Sisters, the Good Book tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil, for it relates to all greed and lust for power and sins of idleness including gluttony and lust. It also relates to modernistic revolutionism whether of the political Left or Right, which places a drive for power and money ahead of faith. For money when loved and made into an idol is seen as the source of worldly power. But remember the Book of Revelation’s graphic portrayal of the fall of Babylon, the great world harlot. Let us as Father Seraphim Rose urges us be watchful and simple like the Virgins at midnight, keeping our oil for our lamps well-supplied by the alms-giving we do for others. For as our Lord said, even as we navigate the struggle of Holy Week, we are the light of the world because He is the Light of the World, even in the utmost darkness of Spy Wednessay. Glory to God for all things!
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Source for Hieromonk Seraphim’s words: https://pravoslavie.ru/78550.html