“1 After two days it was the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a treacherous way to arrest and kill Him. 2 Not during the festival, they said, or there may be rioting among the people.

3 While He was in Bethany at the house of Simon, who had a serious skin disease, as He was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of pure and expensive fragrant oil of nard. She broke the jar and poured it on His head. 4 But some were expressing indignation to one another: “Why has this fragrant oil been wasted? 5 For this oil might have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor.” And they began to scold her.

6 Then Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a noble thing for Me. 7 You always have the poor with you, and you can do what is good for them whenever you want, but you do not always have Me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed My body in advance for burial. 9 I assure you: Wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told in memory of her.”

10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to hand Him over to them. 11 And when they heard this, they were glad and promised to give him silver. So he started looking for a good opportunity to betray Him.”

Mark 14:1-11

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There are lots of opinions on the heart of Judas and why this was the last straw for him. Some people want to say that he was just tired of hearing Jesus talk about His death, since Judas was looking for a revolution.  And that Judas thought a direct conflict with the authorities would spark Jesus into action. Other theories abound, some equally valid, others a little harder to swallow. The point of the matter being that Judas got tired of Jesus being Jesus and he wanted Him to be something else. 

It was his dissatisfaction with Jesus that led him to try to make Jesus become someone different. He liked the idea of Jesus, but he wanted Him to fit in his confines and carry his agenda. He had a plan, and Jesus wasn’t fitting into it, and so something had to give. 

We still do this today, don’t we? People come to Jesus, but find He demands too much, or or that He condemns something that is close to their heart. And so they plot out their new, acceptable Jesus. They cover Him with this new costume that makes Him fit their social agenda or political designs. They dress Him as they see fit so they can continue feeling like they’ve bought into Him, but in reality, He’s not really Jesus anymore, they have created a Jesus-shaped false god. 

Judas, in essence, told Jesus that He needed to be something different, and he was going to force His hand into change. But that Jesus can’t exist and still be Jesus. We do not get to customize Him. We must take Him as He is and adjust our worldview to Him, not the other way around. As we GoLove others in His Name, we will only be effective for the Kingdom if we carry Jesus Himself with us, not some cheap imitation. 

We must not try to force His hand or make Him fit our mold. We adapt to Him, changed by Him.