Today's passage is Matthew 26:47-56.
Judas arrives with a group of armed men and greets Jesus with a kiss. Jesus is arrested. A fight breaks out between the armed men and the disciples, which Jesus stops. He asks why he wasn't arrested in the temple. The disciples run away.
Even though Jesus had earlier said woe to the man who betrays him, yet he calls Judas "Friend" at the moment of his betrayal.
And Judas greets him with a title of respect and a kiss.
Such a moment of intimacy in the midst of perfidy!
In my humanistic thought I would have expected Jesus to call Judas "Traitor" and Judas to slap Jesus.
Is Judas a friend because he fulfills a special role in redemption?
Does Judas kiss because, by condemning Jesus to death, he is closer to Jesus than any of the other disciples? In death, life is born.
Jesus' courage at the moment of his arrest is divine.
In ordering the men to stop fighting, he tells them he has an army of angels at his call if he had chosen to live.
But he chooses to die. I know many stories of such sacrificial courage.
I knew a military pastor who was an air force navigator during World War II.
He wasn't a pastor then. His bomber plane caught on fire from German guns.
The pilot held the plane steady so the navigator and all of the crew could parachute safely.
The pilot knew that if he jumped to safety all the men would die, but if he held the plane steady for the men, there would not be time for him to leave the burning plane.
He chose to give his life for his men. Because of this experience, the navigator became a pastor to try to save other men's souls.
That was the decision Jesus made in today's passage.
This was the moment of sacrifice. I have never been called to make such a decision.
The disciples ran away. I would too.
First the disciples ran away by sleeping when he asked them to pray.
Now they literally run away.
Later, with the Holy Spirit, they finally stand with him and die for him, steadfast in their faith, helped by the memory of this moment.
"No greater love has a man than that he lay down his life for his friends," said Jesus.
In today's passage, Jesus lays down his life for Judas, for his friend who betrayed him.
Today's passage brought an English expression to my mind. "In man's extremity is God's opportunity."
The moments of extreme limits are the moments for God to enter.
I have had many extreme moments in my life where I felt I was pushed to my limits.
Always I want to run away. When I run away, the moment becomes even more extreme, and that's when God meets me.
I have no courage, only the brick wall of God stopping me from running any further.
Without God's grace stopping me, I would run away forever.
Lord, thank you for showing me that I'm a betrayer of you, myself and others. Thank you for your grace in limiting how far I can run. Give me your courage to love and serve others. Draw me closer to you, I pray.#65279;
