In most of our churches this week, it's Passion Week or Easter Week. Perhaps Pam Sunday was on your mind yesterday, Jesus coming into Jerusalem and being hailed as king.

Five days later, there would be an official notice posted

on his cross by command of the Roman governor, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.

It would draw loud protests from religious leaders, but it was still there when he breathed

his last.

It's one of the most distinctive things about the four Gospels that they devote so much

space to this one week.

Matthew devotes about a quarter of his Gospel, Mark, three-eighths of his Gospel, Luke

about a quarter, and in John it's almost half of

the gospel that's devoted to this one week.

No week in Jesus' life is given such detailed coverage, and there are so many different

strands in the story.

I want this week to pick up just one of them, although it's got five threads woven into it.

To be more exact, I want to reflect on some of the people we see encountering the Lord Jesus during Passion Week.

And I want to begin today on the dark side. I mean Judas Iscarriot.

His name probably means the man from Kiryoth, although some have thought it might mean the

Knife Man.

Whatever the origin of the name, there was certainly something of the knight about him.

Like the Old Testament's Jeroboam, the son of

Niebat, Judas constantly drags behind him the ball and chain of the words who betrayed him.

Years ago in a sermon I referred to Judas as an apostle, and I was roundly corrected by a lady at the church door.

Judas was not an apostle, she insisted.

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