Faithful in the Face of Betrayal
The Darkest Night • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Good morning Church! If you have your Bible and I hope that you do, please turn with me to Mark 14. We’re nearing the end of Mark, where Jesus faces His darkest hour— yet shines as our faithful Savior!
Now, I want you to think about what your response would be if you discovered that a close friend of yours was planning on betraying you? What would your attitude be? What would you do? Would you lash out? Would you run? Would you still love them? In the 1530’s William Tyndale faced this pain. His friend Henry Philips seemed to be a loyal person but lured Tyndale into a trap which led to His arrest and death. Tyndale wrote even in that dark time, “I trust my faithful Savior.”
Jesus, at the Last Supper, knowing Judas is about to trade Him for thirty pieces of silver, doesn’t do any of that and even offers His life for us. Why? Because Jesus is faithful and we can trust in Him.
When betrayal or temptation strikes, Jesus shows us how to stay true, not by our strength, but by abiding in Him.
Today, in Mark 14:10-26, we’ll see Jesus, the Passover Lamb, facing betrayal yet remaining faithful. His faithfulness calls us to trust, obey, and remember Him, no matter what betrayals we face.
Let’s stand together in honor of God’s Word as we read Mark 14:10–26
10 Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. 11 And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money. And he sought an opportunity to betray him. 12 And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 13 And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” 16 And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. 17 And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. 18 And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” 19 They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” 20 He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. 21 For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” 22 And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” 26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Our passage today begins with Judas Iscariot. Judas was a part of Jesus’ inner circle. That is the most faithful, the most engaged with Christ. He was given special teaching and revelation that the other disciples were not permitted to have.
And yet in spite of his relationship with Jesus, in spite of his good works and privileges he somehow became disenfranchised with Christ. The Bible is silent on the motivation as to what pushed Judas to betray Jesus, but there are some things we should note about Judas.
Judas was close to Christ but unchanged by Him.
He was near Jesus, but not His. Jesus called Judas a devil in John 6. This proves that you can be a “follower” of Jesus for years but if Christ isn’t your King then you may not be saved. He was one of the Twelve, but did have a heart change. Does He have your allegiance?
2. Judas served Christ, but was faithless.
He worked for Jesus but didn’t trust Jesus. Judas was one of the disciples in Matthew 10 that went and performed miracles and taught and cast out demons. But he was a hypocrite! He was sent out to do good works, but didn’t live by faith. Do your actions flow from faith in the Lord? Do you trust His power or your performance?
3. Judas hid his sin and ignored truth.
Jesus taught more about money than just about any other topic and yet Judas stole from the disciples collection. He was a habitual sinner by constantly stealing and didn’t apply the teachings of Jesus. Do you confess your sin or try to hide it or justify it?
4. Judas acted pious, but was unloving.
Judas treated Jesus like everyone else in public. Calling Him “Rabbi” and even protesting, “Is it I, Lord?” He spoke faith and yet was unloving! Do your words match your love for Christ Jesus?
Judas’ life is a huge warning for all of us to POINT 1: not just look like a follower of Christ but to actually be a follower of Christ!
This Judas went to the chief priests with one goal: to betray Jesus. Judas was seeking an opportunity to hand him over. He was seeking to do evil. It wasn’t them that sought out Judas, but Judas that sought them out and what was their reaction? They were happy! Judas went to them without the promise of money but in Matthew’s Gospel, Judas asks Matthew 26:15
15 and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.
What was his motivation? Well as we already saw it was Judas’ sinful heart but it was also because Satan used Judas. Luke 22:3
3 Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve.
And so we see the hidden world, the spiritual realm with whom we wrestle against working against the Lord and Judas. Satan exploited Judas’ sinful desire for money and we also see God’s sovereign plan. Jesus says later in our passage That the Son of Man goes as it has been written of him”. So we see the will of man, the spiritual battle, and the sovereignty of God working in this situation.
But it’s important to note that Judas is not a victim of his circumstances, but freely chooses to participate in the evil of handing Jesus over for execution for a month’s wage. Imagine for a moment you went to a pawn shop with a rare diamond ring passed down through your family for generations. The shop owner offers you $100 for it and you decide to take the deal so you can have a nice dinner. Later you learn the ring was priceless and worth millions! Judas did the same thing— Jesus, the Pearl of great price was sold for a handful of coins.
Is there silver of some kind that tempts you? Perhaps it’s money, approval, feelings. Jesus is much more valuable than all this world has to offer! He’s the treasure worth everything. When it comes to being faithful it starts with having this view of Christ because Satan will tempt you however he can. Whether its in your flesh, lust, believing lies, pride, whatever. If you value Christ above all, His worth will win out.
But the last day of Christ has come. The sun begins to descend with the disciples on the last night and Jesus sent Peter and John ahead to prepare for the supper. And Jesus, just like His Triumphal Entry, says exactly what to do and how it should be done. And I just want to remind you how amazing it is that Jesus, in His humanity, knew all these things and Peter and John simply obey.
This points us to the next thing that we need to apply: Trust God’s Plan in Uncertainty. Jesus puts together everything and as Peter and John walk in obedience in the path that Jesus has for them, God opens the doors that needed to be opened and everything was just as he had told them and they prepared the Passover. This shows us that if we follow the path, Jesus provides. Jesus is faithful and we can trust in Him
And yet, Jesus knows that His hour is coming and He is preparing for His time. He is not subject to His circumstances. He is not caught in events beyond His control. He walks willingly into the trap that is being hatched against Him because it was the will of the Lord to crush Him. And while Judas and others are acting against Him, they are not acting upon Him like He is caught unaware.
He is willingly going to the cross because He is God and is the Master of His own fate. Even when it seems like everything is going wrong and the world is set against Him, He is walking by faith and trusts His Father to sustain Him as everything begins to fall into place. I remember one time I was going across Afton Mountain in Virginia and the fog was incredibly and dangerously thick. It has embedded flashing lights in the road like what they have on runways. One author noted that once the fog was so thick that he couldn’t see the hood ornament on his Mercedes.
I white knuckled the steering wheel trying not to panic. I couldn’t see anything but the grayness of fog around me except for the flashing lights on the roadway. That was it. Trusting God can be like that sometimes. We can’t see far ahead, nor can we see clearly, but when we stay on the path God has, we will safely get through the uncertain times and see clearly.
It’s like Corrie ten Boom said, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
Are you in a foggy place? Are you in a place where you can’t see clearly? Remember the Lord’s example of walking by faith and even Peter and John’s example of walking by faith. And God will see you through it.
In verses 17-26 we get to the Last Supper. It is evening, the start of the Jewish day on the 15th of Nisan and the time of the Passover. It was the holiest meal of the Jewish year which reminded Jews of their deliverance from Egypt when the angel of death passed over all the homes where the blood of the lamb was on the doors. On this night, the father or rabbi recited the Hallel Psalms and the meal was divided into four parts.
A child would ask “Why is this night different from other nights?” and the head of the table would read Deuteronomy 26:5-9
5 “And you shall make response before the Lord your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. 6 And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. 7 Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. 9 And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
The father would bless the foods that pointed to the bitter captivity of slavery in Egypt: unleavened bread, bitter herbs, greens, stewed fruit, and roast lamb. Around midnight the feast would conclude with the singing of Psalms and the drinking of wine.
It is during this meal that Jesus is filled with anguish with full knowledge that his friend and disciple, a man that He had spent nearly every single day over the last 3 years with, was going to betray Him! These men were reclining at the table which meant that the disciples were close together and Jesus spills it out “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” Imagine the shock during this holy meal filled with tradition and story. The last thing you would expect is your rabbi to discuss something like this! And yet, He did it! Someone was going to hand Jesus over to His enemies!
The disciples are stricken with grief! This word appears in Mark twice and both in reference of those that failed Jesus Christ. Remember that there is joy in following Christ and grief in failing Him. Peter will soon discover this lesson. And yet one by one they ask “Is it I?”
They would all betray Jesus that night, although only one in the truest sense of the word. Judas did so from greed, but the others from weakness, fear, and cowardice.
Even Judas asks “Is it I?” Judas mouthed the same words as everyone else and fooled everyone! Except Jesus. Jesus handed him the morsel of bread. And it was confirmed. At this point in John’s Gospel Judas leaves. But this is the only one that it was written of that it would have been better for that man if he had not been born.
Now, in the absence of Judas, Jesus returns to the remaining disciples and establishes what we call, The Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming. We learn here our third point: Remember Jesus’ Sacrifice with Gratitude
So what does the bread and wine mean? Well, firstly Jesus was not saying that the bread was literally His body. Luther, the reformer adamantly and wrongly believed this. Calvin argued with him many times to point out that Jesus wasn’t a door either but Luther was bull headed. Jesus was speaking figuratively and the bread is the life of Christ.
Christ was born in Bethlehem, which means “the house of Bread”. Christ, took on a real human body. He demonstrated His divinity to all by living a perfect, sinless life in that body. Leaven is often used to describe sin and that’s why we use unleavened bread. Christ taught us that He is the Bread of Life that truly satisfies us. He bore our sins on the Cross while in that human body. He triumphed from the grave by bringing that body back to life, and he now lives in that glorified body at the right hand of the Father where he prays for us. As members of his Body we share that life.
This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:16
16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
You see, it is through the bread that we see Jesus’ incarnation, sinless life, death, and resurrection. And when we partake of the bread it symbolizes our authentic involvement in His life! That’s what the bread means.
And the bread points to our involvement in each other’s lives. Paul says 1 Corinthians 10:17
17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
So there is an actual earthly benefit to our partaking in the Lord’s Supper which is sharing our lives with one another! It’s communion because it is our common union in Christ.
So when we partake in the Lord’s Supper we are saying that we partake in the life of Christ. That we have received Christ and we are participating in that life. And since we partake in it together, we partake in life with one another. So it is not just an announcement that I am in Christ but also is an invitation to others to come and taste and see that the Lord is good!
But Jesus also said that “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many”. The redness of the wine points to Christ’s atonement in His blood. Isaiah 53:12
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
His blood is the blood of the new covenant! Jesus’ blood is the seal of this covenant where anyone can be saved by trusting in Jesus’ work on the cross from them. Every time we partake in the drink of the Lord’s Supper it is a reminder of the finished work of Jesus Christ and the fact that Jesus shed His blood for me. This is why He gives the bread and the wine to the disciples, because He is assuring them and us that we are participants in His life, death, burial, and resurrection. Yes, I am truly and really forgiven and that is an objective fact!
And yet, there is a demand at the table. Jesus said in John 6:53-56
53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
This was one of Christ’s hardest sayings. It led to Him being close to being executed early in His ministry. It was the Lord’s Supper that caused many Romans to think that Christians were cannibals because they held closely to the Lord’s Supper. That phrase “whoever feeds on my flesh” is actually pretty disgusting in the Greek. It describes noisy feeding like slurping, and crunching. But Jesus doesn’t mean to literally do it. He is speaking figuratively that we must truly believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and feast on the Bread of Life or there is no life.
In other words, He must be needed as much as food. Do you realize that? For so so so many, He is far far less. Bread is the staple of life in the ancient world. Dr. Charles Malik once said, “I can live without food, without drink, without sleep, without air, but I cannot live without Jesus.” This is what the Church proclaims at the Lord’s Supper.
We proclaim our sin, that without Christ we are eternally separated from God and lost. We proclaim our faith, that Jesus truly died, rose again, ascended into heaven and will return. We proclaim our dependence, that we cannot live without Jesus. We proclaim our hope, Jesus’ words are true: Mark 14:25
25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
This table was filled, not with the faithful ones but the ones that in a few hours would betray, flee, deny and fall away and this teaches us that the Lord’s Supper is not a table for the best of the best, but is a table of grace. And Christ invites you. He invites you because of His tremendous love.
Jesus faced betrayal yet remained faithful. Judas traded Him for silver, but Jesus trusted His Father’s plan, offering His body and blood for us. Despite the disciples’ failures, He prepared the Passover, instituted the Lord’s Supper, and went to the cross. His faithfulness calls us to resist temptation, trust His path, and remember His sacrifice with gratitude. Jesus is faithful—trust in Him.
But here’s the truth: like Judas and the disciples, we’ve all betrayed Jesus. Our sin—whether greed, fear, or hypocrisy—separates us from God. We deserve the woe Jesus spoke of Judas: ‘It would have been better if he had not been born’. Yet, Jesus, the faithful Passover Lamb, took our place. He was betrayed, beaten, and crucified, shedding His blood to seal a new covenant of grace. On the cross, He bore our sins, and on the third day, He rose, proving He’s the Savior we can trust. Today, He offers forgiveness to all who repent and believe. Turn from your sin, trust in His finished work, and follow Him as Lord. Jesus is faithful—trust in Him.
Head: God wants you to know that Jesus is faithful even when we betray Him, so trust in His grace to forgive and guide you. No matter how you’ve failed, Jesus’ faithfulness never wavers—lean into His grace today! Jesus is faithful—trust in Him.
Heart: God wants you to believe that Jesus’ faithfulness guarantees your forgiveness, no matter your failures. Believe Jesus’ sacrifice covers every sin—His faithful love makes you forgiven and free! Jesus is faithful—trust in Him.
Hand: God wants you to repent and trust Jesus daily, resting in His faithful grace. Turn to Jesus each day with repentance and trust—His faithful grace will carry you through! Jesus is faithful—trust in Him.
