Luke 22: 49-71, Captured

Jesus has been with his disciples at night in the garden area on the Mount of Olives.

Luke 22: 47-48, Betrayed!
While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?"

Every evening Jesus retired to a campsite on the Mount of Olives, so it was not hard for Judah to find him.  Jesus knows what Judah is doing and had earlier told his own followers that this would happen.

Luke 22: 49-50, Swords
When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?" And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

But Jesus answered, "No more of this!" And he touched the man's ear and healed him.

Someone (Peter?) is willing to fight for Jesus.  But this is not the time.

Luke 22: 52-53, Jesus confronts the priests
Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs?  Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour--when darkness reigns."

Jesus continues to confront the hypocrisy and cowardice of the religious leaders. 

Luke 22: 54-62, Peter's betrayal 
Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them.  A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, "This man was with him."

But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," he said.

A little later someone else saw him and said, "You also are one of them." 

"Man, I am not!" Peter replied.

About an hour later another asserted, "Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean."

Peter replied, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about!" 

Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times." And he went outside and wept bitterly.

Poor arrogant Peter!  He will emerge from these painful events a very different man, both confident and humble in appropriate amounts.

This event is presumably reported to others by Peter.  Peter's accent gives him away as a Galilean and thousands have seen Peter happily at Jesus's side throughout much of Jesus's ministry.

Luke 22: 63-65, A Man abused and acquainted with sorrow, 
The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him.  They blindfolded him and demanded, "Prophesy! Who hit you?" And they said many other insulting things to him.

Abuse of a captive is common, then and now.  Since this prisoner has been accused of being a prophet, it is easy to insult him this way.

Luke 22: 66-71, "Yes, I am the Son of God"
At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. "If you are the Christ" they said, "tell us." 

Jesus answered, "If I tell you, you will not believe me, and if I asked you, you would not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God."

They all asked, "Are you then the Son of God?" 

He replied, "You are right in saying I am."

Then they said, "Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips."

The priests cannot find a real crime of which to convict Jesus, so they pursue the crime of blasphemy. As in Muslim countries today, the charge of blasphemy can be used as a vague catch-all when no real crime has been committed.

When asked if he is the Messiah, Jesus incriminates himself.  "Yes, that is correct", he responds.

It is indeed blasphemy to claim that you are the Messiah!  (Unless you really are!)

Luke 22: 24-46, On the Way to a Garden

Jesus has one last meeting with this disciples in the upper room of a Jerusalem house.

Luke 22: 24-30, Who is the greatest?
Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest.

Jesus said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

On the night of his arrest and trial, the disciples of Jesus are debating on who will rule in the kingdom!  Gosh, these humans are so petty!  Jesus loves these silly creatures! (Thankfully.)  He even plans for them to rule with him!

Luke 22: 31-34, Peter's failing faith
"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

But he replied, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death."

Jesus answered, "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me."

Simon, as always, is confident and eager.  It will be a rough night for him.

According to the NIV footnotes, the "you" in verse 31 is plural, so Jesus is speaking of all the disciples when he says, "Satan has asked to sift you..."

Luke 22: 35-38, Get ready 
Then Jesus asked them, "When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?" 

"Nothing," they answered.

He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: `And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment."

The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords." "That is enough," he replied.

Strife is coming, Jesus says.  The statements about a sword were intended only as metaphor, not as real advice.  The disciples miss all of that.

The disciples also miss -- again -- the dire predictions of the suffering Messiah. "He is numbered with the transgressors" comes from the Old Testament passage, Isaiah 53:12.  The entire chapter of Isaiah 53 is worth reading at this point, as it describes a Messiah, being bruised, beaten, and killed for Israel.

Luke 22: 39-46, The Mount of Olives
Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation."

He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. "Why are you sleeping?" he asked them. "Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."

From the NIV footnotes: Some early manuscripts do not have verses 43 and 44, about the angel of "drops of blood".

The disciples are tired but the evening has just begun.

On Community

On Sundays I take a break from progressing through the New Testament and look at some related topic.  Today I want to look at a concept embedded in Christianity, a concept that has grown more important to me through time, the concept of Community.

The followers of Jesus were not just independent spiritual "entrepeneurs".  They were not isolated pilgrims.  They existed in, and grew within, small community groups.  Jesus, himself, first drew 12 men to him and then, outside those 12, there was a larger community of followers, including a number of women.  The number of followers varied from 70 or 72 (mentioned in Luke 10:1-24) to more than 500 (mentioned in I Corinthians 15:6) to thousands that needed feeding at two different times.  Yet within those groups, Jesus focused on smaller groups, the Twelve with an inner intimate circle of Peter, James and John.

Even when the 72 were sent out in Luke 10, they were sent out in pairs, a (very small) community of two.

At times within the history of Christianity, the pendulum has swung between in an emphasis on individual piety and an emphasis on global justice (including political power) but somewhere between those extremes is the development of small groups where the Christian faith is lived out on a daily basis.

In Acts, when the disciples began preaching about the resurrected Messiah, they began with the Jewish synagogues, the small communities which were (are) the source of Jewish community.  Over time, as these communities welcomed Gentiles -- and then were swamped by Gentile converts -- these communities were called ecclesia.  Ecclesia (or ekklesia) was a Greek word meaning "assembly", dating back to ancient Athens (see here.)  English translators of the New Testament often translate the Greek word ekklesia as "church". Those small assemblies became the foundational units of the New Testament church.

The most important evidence of a like-minded ecclesia appeared in the small ritual these churches went through when they met as a group to eat, to "break bread." We now call that act, Communion. Communion (or the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, the Mass) was evidence of community, as a group and with God.

Jan and I enjoyed this Sunday morning both a Communion service and an introduction to small groups which the church is starting up this fall.  Both events emphasize the importance of community.

Wherever you are, whatever you are engaged in, whether spiritual or secular (or mixed!) you should do it in a community of like-minded people, of friends who will be supportive!