WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN HOLY WEEK? Part 5
THURSDAY (2) Mark 14.27-52
The garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem
The Walk to the Garden
Out in the fresh air, walking through the silent streets and into the open country, Jesus and his disciples felt freer to talk. Bu it was still not happy talk.
Jesus: You will all become deserters; for it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. “ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter: Even though all become deserters, I will not.’ Jesus: ‘Amen, I tell you, this day, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.’ Peter (emphatically): Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you. And all of them said the same.
The High Priest’s House
Meanwhile chaos and confusion reigned in Caiaphas’ mansion. Judas turned up in the middle of dinner, after dark, when all the Temple guards had gone home, and told Caiaphas that it was now or never. Jesus was inside the city, away from the protective mass of pilgrims, and more important his, Judas’, cover was now blown. The arrest had to be made now!
That was pretty difficult news, but Caiaphas knew he had to seize the moment. He scraped together a mob from his own servants and hangers-on and sent an urgent message to Pilate, asking for at least some regular Roman legionnaires to make the arrest official. All the time this took put Judas on tenterhooks. Was it all going to fail? Eventually they were ready to go. They ran first to the house where Jesus had eaten the Passover, but he was gone! Judas said, he could be waiting in their usual meeting place, Gethsemane. Off they went there, while Caiaphas tried to round up enough Sadducees and elders to cobble together an informal pre-trial interrogation before handing him over to Pilate.
(All this supposition is grounded on actual details of Jesus‘ arrest in Mark and John).
The Garden of Gethsemane
Jesus led the way into the olive grove and went ahead with just Peter, James and John, saying to them ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.’ He went a little further knelt down and prayed passionately that his Abba, his Father, might change the plan. “Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.” For over two hours he prayed like this, coming twice to find that his three friends were not praying with him but had fallen asleep. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” He could of course have simply walked back to Bethany, saying that they had waited long enough for Judas to catch up with them. But that was not the way of obedience. Finally he woke them saying, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”
Church of All Nations, Gethsemane
The Arrest
Meanwhile a young man, John Mark, had been asleep in the house where Jesus had been with the Twelve. The arrival of the arresting mob had woken him up. He snatched up a sheet and slipped off at a run, trying to warn Jesus of the coming danger. But he arrived just too late.
Judas, at the head of a small crowd of temple servants and soldiers went up to Jesus, and identified him (necessary in the dark) by greeting him with a kiss. Instantly the crowd seized Jesus. Jesus responded with angry dignity, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled.’ The crowd tried to capture Jesus disciples, but they all escaped in the dark, running between the dark shapes of the olive tree trunks. They almost got one,a young man wearing nothing but a linen cloth; they caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked. (Was he John Mark, the writer of the gospel, trying to warn Jesus?
Then off they went, Roman soldiers, Temple officials, Jerusalem ‘heavies’, with Jesus in the middle, back up to Jerusalem to the high priest’s mansion.