Scripture Daily

Context No. 737 of 4322 · John

Context · Reflection

John 18:1-5: in context

1When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples over the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered. 2Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. 3Judas then, having taken a detachment of soldiers and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. 4Jesus therefore, knowing all the things that were happening to him, went out and said to them, “Who are you looking for?” 5They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas also, who betrayed him, was standing with them.

John's account of the arrest is unlike the others. Jesus finishes speaking and crosses the Kidron valley with his disciples into a garden where he often met with them, a place, John notes pointedly, that Judas the betrayer knew well. Judas comes there with a detachment of soldiers and temple officers, carrying lanterns and torches and weapons, a small army with lights to find one man in the dark. And the first move is not theirs. Jesus, knowing everything that is about to happen to him, goes out to meet them and asks, whom are you looking for?

They say, Jesus of Nazareth, and he answers, I am he. In John's Greek the words carry the echo of the divine name spoken to Moses, and the next verse has the whole armed party stumble backward and fall to the ground. But the point of these verses is the direction Jesus is moving. He is not hunted down and dragged out; he walks out to the ones who came for him and names himself. He could have stayed hidden in the dark garden, or slipped away as he had before. Instead he steps forward into the arrest, with the man who sold him standing there among the soldiers. No one is taking his life. He is handing it over.

Jesus walked out toward his arrest instead of waiting to be found. Is there a hard thing I keep hoping to be dragged into against my will, so I never have to choose it, when I could step toward it?

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