The Field of Blood.
I. The whole history of the transaction whereby our Saviour was betrayed into the hands of His enemies is brimful of awful interest and solemn edification. First, as proving to us that a man will sell his soul for an utterly vile and paltry thing and that thing, very possibly, money. Nor can the sin of covetousness occupy so prominent a place in the Gospel, in vain. The reason must be, that we are all more prone to it than we like to believe. Next, it is terribly striking to observe how soon the gratifications of sin prove worthless even in the sinner's eyes; for Judas could not bear to retain his bribe after all.
II. Consider the purpose to which the chief priests are related to have resolved on applying the price of our Lord's blood. It is worth your notice that St. Matthew goes out of his way to relate this circumstance. The precious blood of Christ is so very precious that the very application of the money for which it was sold must needs be related. We learn that the price of Christ's blood was expended in purchasing a field for the burial of strangers; that is of such Gentiles as happened to die at Jerusalem. And what else is this but our own history in a parable? for it is the account of how we, Gentiles, acquired our first interest in the precious blood of Christ. As, by His death, He went to prepare a place for the souls of many; so did He, in dying, procure a place of rest for the bodies of many, likewise. Thrice happy and blessed he who was first conveyed to Aceldama for sepulture. A Gentile he, who was already joined in a species of sacrament to Christ. And what if it were some believer in the despised Jesus of Nazareth one of the first Christians who was the first to be buried in the field which Christ's blood had purchased! Would not the outward circumstance and the inward reality have been in marvellous conformity, and had the strictest historical correspondence? Yes, Abraham's true seed, the members of the Christian Church, begin (like their father Abraham) to inherit the promises; and it is like him by having a burial-place given them for a possession; and this at a time when God gave them no inheritance in the land, though He had promised them that in the end they should inherit the whole earth.
J. W. Burgon, Ibid., Ninety-one Short Sermons,No. 43.
References: Matthew 27:6. F. Hastings, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvii., p. 168. Matthew 27:7. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year,p. 76.