BETRAYED WITH A KISS

A line from a Michael Card song has stayed with me for a long time: "Only a friend can betray a friend." How must Jesus have felt when one of the twelve betrayed Him with a kiss? It was the violence of the crucifixion that killed Him, but was the tenderness of the betrayal any less violent? If He is betrayed so softly, could I, who would never dream of doing Him violence, do the same?

Peter, who had been so zealous (don't we get zealous and quote "The zeal of the Lord has eaten me up?") denied Him not once, but three times. After that we read that "All his disciples forsook him and fled."

His disciples all forsook Him but the dying thief confessed Him for who He really is. Maybe we don't really know what we'll do; maybe all we can do is ask "Lord, is it I?" It wasn't until after they received the Holy Spirit that the disciples had any kind of spiritual grit; oh, how we need that same Holy Spirit to make us into that people that will be always true to Him.


Betrayed with a kiss in the garden
By one who had long walked with Thee,
By one who had sat at Thy table,
By a disciple who knew Thee; 'twas he

Who for just thirty pieces of silver
Sold Thee to sinners to die.
'Twas not by an enemy hardened
But a friend who had known Thee, so nigh.

Denied by another disicple
Three times, saying he knew Thee not,
Forsaken by all of Thy fellows,
By Thy friends; such was Thy lot.

And I, in the hour of trial,
Will I sell Thee out? Will I lie?
Will I be the one to betray Thee
Again? O Lord, is it I?

May I then be one who is stedfast
To suffer and walk by Thy side,
To confess it is I who doth know Thee,
And to know that I never have lied

About Jesus, the true Friend of Sinners,
Who confessed to the Father my name,
Who never, no never, betrayed me;
O Lord, may I do the same.