Today we're talking about Holy Week and Holy Wednesday. So I want to just ask you real quick

off the bat, have you ever had a moment where God felt completely silent? Like maybe nothing was

happening, nothing your situation was changing, nothing felt clear about what was going on.

Well, that's the feeling that we get

on Wednesday of Holy Week. It feels a lot like that. But actually, there's a lot happening.

There's anything but nothing happening, even if we don't necessarily see it. So let me set the

scene for you. By this point of the week, remember, Jesus has entered Jerusalem. We talked about that for

Palm Sunday. He's cleansed the temple. He's confronted the religious leaders. And now everything

goes quiet. There's actually very little recorded about what Jesus did publicly on that day.

But just because scripture is quiet doesn't mean that nothing is happening.

In fact, it was setting the scene for what was to come for this weekend. And so I'm going to be

reading in Matthew 26 today. You can follow along or just listen to me, read. But let me remind

you what's happening. So starting at verse one, and remember, this is on Holy Wednesday. It would have been happening the week that Jesus died.

It says, when Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, as you know, Passover begins in two days and the son of man will be handed over to be crucified.

At that same time, the leading priests and elders were meeting and the residents at

the residence of Caiaphas, the high priest, plotting how to capture Jesus secretly and kill him.

But not during the Passover celebration, they agreed, or the people may riot. So what's happening

here is the religious leaders are meeting in secret. They're no

longer questioning Jesus. They're quietly plotting to kill him. Now remember, these are the highest

religious leaders of the time. This is very calculated and it's very intentional. Now let me jump

down to verses 14 through 16. It says then

Judas Iscariot, one of the 12 disciples went to the leading priest and asked how much will you

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