The Best Laid Plans... (Matthew 27:1-10)

the best laid plans of mice and men
go oft awry
and leave us only grief and pain
for promised joy

Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse: on turning up her nest with a plough” is a reminder that we often mess things up in life. We plan to do something good, but often see unintended negative consequences crop up. That is the nature of things when finite creations try to govern their lives according to their own plans. That truism is voiced as well in last year’s Best Picture winner, “Parasite.” In that story, however, the character uses our inability to plan life as an excuse for the philosophy that we shouldn’t plan at all:

“You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan. No plan at all. You know why? Because life cannot be planned. Look around you. Did you think these people made a plan to sleep in the sports hall with you? But here we are now, sleeping together on the floor. So, there's no need for a plan. You can't go wrong with no plans. We don't need to make a plan for anything. It doesn't matter what will happen next. Even if the country gets destroyed or sold out, nobody cares. Got it?”

It is the nature of fallen humanity to try to take the role of God. We want to be our own gods and determine how our lives will go. This is the folly of sin, and the lie that the devil used to cause humanity to rebel against God’s good plans. We want our self-determination despite all evidence that we can only accomplish grief and pain.

And the devil uses that lie still.

Here in Matthew 27, we see a hint of another great deception of the enemy. Judas betrayed Jesus to the religious leaders of his day. You might rightly say that this was caused by his love of money. Or that it was because he did not truly love Jesus the way that he should. But we also see here, that as soon as Jesus is delivered over to the Romans, Judas has a change of heart. The Bible speaks of a “remorse” that he felt. This is not the repentance that the Bible elsewhere describes in people who turn away from their sin to God, but it does reveal that Judas’ plans did not go as he had wanted.

It is not unlikely that Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was rationalized in his own mind as a way to force Jesus’ messianic hand. Judas, like most Jews of his day, thought that the Messiah would be a political and military liberator. Turning Jesus over to the Jewish leaders was one way of triggering Jesus’ messianic agenda. Or that may be the lie that the devil used to get Judas to do what he did.

I think those of us reading this passage today can all too well identify with Judas. We all experience times in our lives when our plans for what God should do seem best. We are all tempted to act to accomplish the plans we’re convinced are God’s plans when, in fact, they are our own. We certainly pray that way. Some even presume to speak for God in the world.

That is particularly evident as I write this and a pandemic is sweeping across the globe. Many a leader has spoken out “prophetically” against the virus. Had they truly been speaking for God the virus would have long ago died out and lost its terrible power. But the pandemic rages on. Instead of only praying against the sickness, we ought also be asking ourselves, “Why has God allowed this to happen?” or “What is it that God will use the Coronavirus for in our world, in His church, and in my own life?”

Because, as it turns out, God’s plans are never failing. And when God sets out to change things, we should want to be changed.