Last week I brushed quickly over something that I wanted to go over more carefully do to a lack of time. I would like to go back to that now before we move on. That thing is the event with Peter during the Last Supper. John 13:36-38

Matthew 26:33-35

Mark 14:29-31

Luke 22:33-34

Often people shake their heads at Peter since he was the one whom Jesus confronts but did you catch the interesting fact that is often overlooked?  Peter isn’t the only one Jesus. Peter though is singled out for a reason.

Luke 22:31-32 Jesus goes through this for a reason. Peter is told of his denials that Jesus can show to Peter that He knows it is going to happen that Peter is still Jesus’s in-spite of it and to entrust Peter to “strengthen your brothers”. We see here that Peter is considered a strength among the disciples and Jesus entrusts him to keep the disciples together for Jesus return.

This is another place where Peter is earning his name of rock.

In the other introductions to Jesus foretelling of Peter’s denial  Satan sifting Peter isn’t mentioned but the other disciples are. Matthew 26:31-32

Mark 14:27-29

So let’s look at the disciples response to Jesus arrest. Mark 14:50

Matt 26:56

Where are they though on the evening of the resurrection after the empty tomb is found?

John 20:19 They were still in hiding. Imagine if Jesus hadn’t had Peter bolstering their self confidence?

If Jesus hadn’t taken the time to prepare Peter and Peter doesn’t work to strengthen the other disciples would they have scattered? We don’t know but we know that Jesus wasn’t wasting words and Peter had a job that required him to be encouraged, even through his doubt, Jesus still loved him and had a place for him. I believe that Peter was a solidating force during this time of upheaval for the other disciples.

Let’s look at something else in reading of Jesus warning to Peter and the other disciples there is a reference by Jesus to a prophecy that came through Zechariah foretelling of something let’s look at it in Matthew 26:31

There is another mention of it that isn’t quite as clear John 16:32

So let’s turn and look at the actual foretelling: Zechariah 13:7

Here we have another fulfillment of a foretelling once again pointing to Christ as Him being who He is. (this phraseology will annoy my wife :))

Now we are going to look even more at Zechariah and write down everything we can that might be a foretelling of Jesus betrayal. It is thick and murky and difficult to get past descriptors. I am going to try and stick to solid items so we might see illusions to people, places, or situations that I may not use. That is a warning not saying they aren’t there but we are going to get to the plain ones that are less ambiguous.

I really don’t know which way to start either with the fulfillment and go back and show the foretelling or with the foretelling and go to the fulfillment. I think that in this case I am going to do the opposite of what I normally do and go to the fulfillment first that way it is easier to see the foretelling and it’s parallels. I imagine Christ deniers have over these thousands of years still have no idea what is being talked about in Zechariah so here we go. Matthew 26:14-16

Interestingly Matthew has this occurring before the Last Supper don’t know if it was the actual timeline or not. I heard one person preach that this is why Jesus kept secret the place of the Last Supper and sent only two disciples with vague instructions so that the betrayal didn’t happen until after this last instructional meal had ended. So back to the scripture important factoids 30 pieces of silver and that he was paid prior to the betrayal. Normally someone gets paid when they have finished the job not before it is done. Judas went to the priests he wasn’t arrested or taken and forced it was his idea. Going back to when he got paid even the priests saw that he was sincere enough in his willingness to betray Christ that they did not hold a portion back. If you think that this might have been the custom at the time then think on Jesus parables and when do the workers get paid at the end of the day or after the master has returned and they have shown their work. Jesus parables aren’t extraordinary because of the new idea of when to pay workers or fulfill contracts.

Mark 14:10-11 again pre passover/Last Supper but is vague in the amount and when payment was given

Luke 22:3-6 same as the Mark reference only two thing are added first Satan entered him. Judas is the one person who might get away with saying “the devil made me do it”. Not really but it seems a close thing from here. second is that Judas sought an opportunity away from the crowds which leads one to suspect that the keeping secret of the location of the Last Supper was genius. Well it was.

Foretelling Zechariah 11:12

Now let’s look elsewhere Matthew 26:49-50

We are looking at an interesting word only used 3 times only by Matthew and all three times are referring to someone who is doing something they oddn’t do. The other two cases the authority figure is giving them a chance to explain themselves. Don’t let me confuse you Judas was considered a friend of Jesus and that is the point of looking at this portion of scripture. This root of this word is clansman or comrade. It is something more than what we think of as friendship today. This is someone that you are close enough to that when they wrong you you stop and give them the opportunity to explain themselves. If it is a friendship as we call it today it is the one that you get up in the middle of the night to answer the phone call of then get dressed and meet them somewhere so they can tell you how bad their life is. My pre christian friend’s day I would have said the people you will bail out of jail. We have a fairly close friendship poorly shown in this small portion of scripture.

Foretelling Psalm 55:12-14

Psalm 41:9

The most well known foretelling we will look at now Matthew 27:3-10

There is a lot here. 30 pieces of silver. thrown into the sanctuary, then they are used to buy the potters field. I want to make a distinction here. We today when talking about a potters field are referring to a place where the poor and unknown are buried or a mass grave. This is a term we have now because of this scripture. When we look at this verse and it says a potters field though I expect it means the place the potter used to mine his clay. It would have been a field with open trenches surrounded by mounded dirt. It would have been half way to cemetery without doing much. The field was bought to make it into a burial place for strangers not that it already was one. One of those things that is so ingrained into our vernacular that we read it a little backward.

Foretelling Zechariah 11:13