2 Chronicles 22 tells us matters went from bad to worse in Judah as first Ahaziah became king and then Athaliah became queen. Ahaziah’s reign was brief and evil. He followed the ways of his father and the kings of Israel and worshiped idols. He reigned only a year, because he made the mistake of joining sides with Israel’s king against Syria. When Israel’s king was eliminated by Jehu, Jehu assassinated both King Jehoram of Israel and King Ahaziah. Ahaziah’s mother Athaliah was even more evil than he was. She attempted to have all of Ahaziah’s brothers killed, but the priests plotted to spare the life of Joash. They hid him for six years, until he was seven years old.
The account continues in 2 Chronicles 23, as the priests conspired to overthrow Athaliah and install Joash as king. The plan worked and Joash became a good king. He found a copy of the Law of Moses, which he used to reform the people, and then caused the Temple to be repaired. The account continues in 2 Chronicles 24, and as we find so often after a good start, Joash rejected God’s will and purpose and started worshiping idols. He did this as a number of kings of Judah before him had done. As a result, he killed Jehoida the priest and ultimately Joash was assassinated, too.
As we turn to Matthew 26, we find the record of the woman who poured a jar of expensive perfume on Jesus, while He was eating at the house of Simon the Leper. Many grumbled because she had “wasted” the money, which the perfume would have brought because of its value. They said this, because the perfume could have been sold and used to feed many poor people. Jesus rebuked the group and pointed out the woman had done something important for Him. That’s the part that’s so easy to miss. Jesus appreciates our extravagant acts of giving or serving or other ways we show our love to Him. Until we learn to love and serve Jesus extravagantly, we will always be missing the point, at least to a degree.
After this Judas went to the Jewish religious leaders and agreed to turn Jesus over to them. Following this Jesus had a couple of the disciples go and prepare a place for them to celebrate the Passover. That night, Jesus celebrated the Passover in a new way that reinterpreted the bread and juice so it now represented his body and blood given for us and shed as a sign of the new covenant He would establish through His death on the cross. After this, the disciples pledged their allegiance to Jesus, but He told them one of them would deny them, and all of them would run away when He was arrested. Peter promised never to deny or forsake him, but Jesus told Peter he would deny Him three times that night. After the meal, Jesus took the group to Gethsemane to pray. It was there Jesus struggled in prayer and was eventually arrested after being betrayed by Judas’ kiss. As Jesus had told them, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times that night. As we look at the account of the end of Jesus’ life in any of the four Gospels, we might wonder how those who had been closest to Him, could have betrayed, denied and abandoned Him. All we have to do is think about the many times in our own lives when we have betrayed, denied and abandoned Jesus in our own lives and we’ll see it wasn’t as hard as it might seem!