Daryl Blank

Every pastor knows this feeling. You work hard all week on a sermon. You study the text, write your outline, and pray over it. On Sunday you preach it faithfully, and it lands with a thud. People are polite, but nothing moves.

Ask anybody where to get breakfast, and they won't send you to the new place with the Edison bulbs and the fourteen-dollar avocado toast. They'll lean in a little and say, "You've got to go to Dot's."

There's a sobering truth tucked into the story of Judas that we tend to rush past. We focus on the betrayal — the thirty pieces of silver, the kiss in the garden — because it's dramatic and it's easy to point at from a safe distance. But the harder truth is quieter than that. Judas didn't fail because he lacked access. He walked with Jesus for three years. He heard the parables firsthand, watched the miracles up close, sat at the same table. And somehow, none of it took root. That should...