ARRESTED

These three short verses indicate the speed at which events are happening in the final days of Jesus Christ’s earthly life and ministry. This Jesus, the Son of God come in the flesh, has been called ‘the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world’ (Revelation 13:8 (NIV)). So He knows His fate and, knowing that the end is near, He meets with the disciples in the upper room for the Last Supper and alone in the Garden of Gethsemane in prayer with His Heavenly Father. He predicts His demise and plans for the end, but how will it end?

Unusually or predictably, because both are true, it ends with a kiss. Judas, a so-called loyal and trusted disciple of Jesus and the ‘treasurer’ of the group, leads a band of armed and violent people to take Jesus by force and hand Him over to the ‘authorities’ so that they can get rid of Him. When he kisses Jesus with the greeting of a friend as the sign that this is the man to take away, the mob pounces.

In our communion services we often quote this passage: ‘The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you”’ (1 Corinthians 11:23b-24a (NIV)).

I often think, ‘What did I do on the night that I was betrayed?’ Unlike Jesus, I certainly was not thinking about how to bless others or the purpose of my life. But Jesus is so unlike any of us. He was and is human enough to engage with His team and to feel their betrayal, but focused enough to love and honour God, to the end.

written by JOHN SCOTT