Wednesday of Holy Week is often called Silent Wednesday. No triumphal entry. No temple confrontation. Just two people — and two very different answers to the same quiet question: What is Jesus worth to you?
The first is a woman with an alabaster jar.
She came to Jesus and poured expensive perfume over His head, an act so extravagant the disciples were indignant. Why this waste (Matthew 26:8)? But Jesus saw it differently. She has done a beautiful thing to me. (Matthew 26:10)?
She didn’t calculate the cost and decide Jesus was worth it. She simply loved Him, and love like that doesn’t hold back. The jar was broken. Every drop was given. And Jesus said wherever the gospel is preached, what she did will be remembered.
She will never be forgotten because she held nothing back.
Then there was Judas.
While that perfume was still fragrant in the air, Judas slipped away to the chief priests. What will you give me if I deliver him to you (Matthew 26:15)? Thirty pieces of silver. That was what Jesus was worth to him in the end.
Two people. Both had walked with Jesus, seen the miracles, and heard the teaching. One gave everything — and one traded Him away for something that wouldn’t last a week.
Here’s what makes Silent Wednesday so unsettling. Judas didn’t look like a betrayer. He looked like a disciple. Nobody at the Last Supper pointed at him and said, “I knew it all along.” Devotion and betrayal can look remarkably similar from the outside. What separates them is the answer to one honest question: “What is Jesus truly worth to me?”
Ask yourself today:
What is Jesus truly worth to you — not in words, but in the actual currency of your choices? Where in your life are you holding back what He deserves?
THE WOMAN GAVE EVERYTHING AND IS REMEMBERED FOREVER. JUDAS HELD BACK HIS HEART AND LOST EVERYTHING. THE DIFFERENCE WASN’T KNOWLEDGE. IT WAS SURRENDER.
