Matthew 26:14–47

Mary's devotion was the cause of the failure of the plans of the enemies that the death of the Lord should not take place during the feast. It stirred up the traitor to action. This is no doubt why the Holy Spirit gives the record of the anointing out of its chronological order.

Judas was making his agreement with the chief priests to sell Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. At the same time she was pouring the precious contents of her alabaster jar upon His Person. Touching contrast!

His surname is given here. Iscariot is made up of two words, "Ish" and "Kerioth" — "the man of Kerioth." He was the only disciple from Judea among the twelve; the rest were all from Galilee.

In Luke we are told that Satan entered into him. He took actual possession of the one who was indeed his own, for Judas had never believed in Christ. Peter might deny Him and the rest of the disciples might forsake their Lord, yet Satan could never enter into them, for they were saved.

He had all the appearance to other people of being like the rest of the disciples. He had kept company with the Lord. He had been one of those sent out to preach the gospel and work miracles. But his conscience was never before God. He might have truth in his understanding... Judas could not have walked three years with Jesus and seen His grace and love without having his affections moved. Yet his conscience had never been at work before God. So it is with many.

The nearer a man is to God outwardly, if his soul has no living fellowship with Him, the worse he is. Judas is worse than the Pharisees; the Pharisees than the Samaritans. So where people profess Christianity without its living power, that is the very place to expect the most terrible evil.

Here was Judas betraying his Master! After all, what was this? At bottom, nothing more than what is in every heart. Judas loved money — no uncommon lust. And the love of money in a believer today is as bad, or worse, since it is done in fuller light.

Chief priests should have had honest concern for the spiritual help of souls. Instead they were glad to welcome a man who would betray his friend for money, and they strike this unholy bargain with him. How cold and hard the consciences of Israel's spiritual leaders have become!

Here the will was engaged on one side. On the other side a man enjoyed nearness to the Lord without judging himself. He lived in conscious hypocrisy and gave in to greed again and again. So Satan easily found the means to carry out his own designs against the Son of God, as a liar and a murderer. Yet how reassuring it is to see that both man and the devil were powerless until the due moment came for God to carry out His purposes. Even then their malice only served those purposes, without knowing it, and in the very way they thought most certain to hinder and defeat them.

No one had tried to lure him into it. No one, that we read of, had even approached him to sound him out on the subject. He came forward of his own free will, for Satan had entered into him (Luke 22:3). The love of money was strong within him. John says he was "a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it" (12:6). But greedy as he was, no one had offered a reward for the Lord's arrest to tempt him. He offered himself. He was clearly still smarting from the public rebuke he had deserved four days earlier at Bethany. He asked, as Matthew (26:15) states, "What will you give me?" That question showed that no one had tempted him with money.

Judas had been disappointed over the three hundred denarii lavished on the Lord. So he made a bargain with the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver — less than half the value of the ointment, and only the price of a slave! The time had come for the Lord to be crucified. These chief priests and elders had decided not to arrest Him during the feast, because they feared a riot. Yet the determined plan and foreknowledge of God delivered Him up, and Judas' offer brought it about.

A saint had shown what Jesus was worth to her, and unbelief, which weighs everything by usefulness, called it waste. What then was His value in the eyes of the bribing priests and of the betrayer? A slave's price was enough for the despised Lord of all! (Compare Exodus 21:32; Zechariah 11:12-13.)

In Zechariah the words are "I said to them." In Matthew it is Judas who speaks to the chief priests, and they represent the nation. This brings out a very interesting principle in the ways of God. It was Judas' sin that betrayed the Lord. But the Lord used that sin to test the chief priests, to see what they thought Christ was worth. So, passing over the go-between, He says, "If it seems good to you, give me my wages." They did think it good. And what was the price? What value did they put on Jesus, the Son of God, their Messiah?

If Judas Iscariot was guilty of delivering up Jesus, the chief priests were also guilty of conspiring with him... How very solemn this was. The religious leaders of God's people struck a bargain with a traitor, and they did it to have the Son of God arrested.

There was sin in Judas's nature, and that sin showed itself in the shape of the love of money. The next thing was Satan suggesting a way of gratifying this desire, for he loved money more than he loved Jesus. And now we find the result of being outwardly near the Lord while the conscience is untouched: it made Judas reason about circumstances. He probably thought the Lord would deliver Himself, as He had done before. When he found He did not, he threw down the money and said, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood."

"Every man has his price" is a coarse saying of the world, and it is often untrue. But every soul that Satan cheats out of Jesus has its price. Some accept gold, others position or power. With some it is cheap pleasure, or lust, or some favourite secret sin rolled like a sweet morsel under the tongue. What is he giving you, poor sinner? You are accepting something, be assured.

The day and hour for the Passover were not for man to choose. God had said, "In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the LORD's Passover." This was in the blessed Lord's mind when He said to His disciples, "You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified." Israel's leaders knew nothing of God's ways. They hated God's Son, and unbelief had blinded them. They said, "Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people" (Matt. 26:1-5). But God carried out His plans despite the chief priests, scribes and elders of the people. At the appointed hour the holy victim was slain. His precious blood was shed, and redemption was accomplished.

It is already the first day of Unleavened Bread. That settles it: He did not keep the Passover before the appointed time, as many have thought. Matthew, Mark and Luke all agree about the day, and Mark and Luke add that it was the day when they killed the Passover lamb.

Of course the Jewish day began at 6.00 p.m. They kept the Passover that evening, and in the morning, by 9 o'clock, the Lord was on the cross.

It was One who, though He was going to die, still went there with royal, divine rights; He had not forfeited His place as Messiah, though going to suffer as Son of Man on the cross. He therefore takes possession as the Master, and the owner of the house at once agrees to His claim. All was before His eyes. He could have turned all others as He bowed this man's heart. But how then should the Scriptures have been fulfilled, and sin blotted out, and God glorified? It was necessary, therefore, that He should go to the cross, not as any victim of necessity, but as One whose will was only to do the will of His Father.

Matthew informs us (Matt. 26:17-19) that the disciples asked the Lord where they should prepare for Him to eat, and He told them, but none are named. Mark, in relating the same event (Mark 14:12-16), says, "He sent two of His disciples." Luke supplies their names: "So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, 'Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it'" (Luke 22:8). John had shared this sweet service with Peter. With his usual reserve, hiding himself as always, he makes no mention of preparing the supper, though he had a hand in it. Instead he records a touching fact, and he is the only Gospel writer who does: before they ate, the blessed Lord Himself washed their feet, dirtied no doubt in this very service.

So far, it was the last Passover kept in line with the mind of God... By the Lord's death the Passover received its fulfilment, as by the coming of the Holy Spirit the feast of weeks received its fulfilment. The blood of the Passover lamb pictured the blood of Christ. He, as our Passover, has been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7). But the Passover was not then fulfilled. So the Lord partook of it. He desired to do it.

The feast of unleavened bread was bound up with the Passover, as every Israelite knew... There might be new forms of evil besides those of old habits and associations. But just as the Jew had to shut out all leaven, so the Christian has a solemn call to deal with evil in every form, sparing none.

When the Lord spoke of the time (kairos) being fulfilled, He seems to have meant His own public appearance in Galilee as the Servant-Prophet, at a moment set in advance by Jehovah who sent Him. He used a similar expression elsewhere. It shows how perfectly His life was directed from above, and in no way the result of unexpected events… So for everything in the life of the incarnate Son there was an appointed time.

He Himself gives the orders and shows Himself as Lord all the way through. Once more He announces that His suffering is near — "My time is at hand." What a moment that was! They had tried before to take His life. That was impossible. Now the time is near, His time, when the King was to lay down His life.

"My time is at hand" seems to be spoken for the ear of a disciple. It is natural that the Lord should give such a person the privilege of hosting Him at a time like this. The fact that it is already the first day of unleavened bread settles it: He did not keep the passover before the appointed time, as many have thought.

Still, in the face of it all, the Lord keeps to His path of love and holy calm. When the disciples ask where He wants to eat the passover meal, He speaks as the conscious Messiah, however much men reject Him.

He was going to die, yet He went there with royal, Divine rights. He had not lost His place as Messiah, though He was about to suffer as Son of man on the cross. So He takes possession as the Master, and the owner of the house agrees to His claim at once. Everything lay open before His eyes. He did not lack the power to work on the conscience and the affections of men. He could have turned all the others as He bowed this man's heart. But then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled, sin blotted out, and God glorified? So He had to go to the cross — not as any victim of necessity, but as One whose only will was to do the will of His Father.

The Lord Jesus had no home of His own, but He knew well how to put His hand on all that was needed for the service of God. The owner of the guest room was no doubt someone who knew Him and held Him in reverence. The disciples knew that their Master was enough. They tried nothing on their own; they looked to Him for direction and acted on it. So the One who had nowhere to lay His head had no lack of a suitable place for the last meeting with His own.

The disciples come (v. 17) to ask the Lord where they should prepare the passover, and He told them to go to a certain house in the city. Here we see the authority of the Messiah — "The Master says." So they carried out His instructions and prepared the passover.

He was going to die, yet He went there with royal, divine rights. He had not lost His place as Messiah, though He was going to suffer as Son of Man on the cross. He therefore takes possession as the Master, and the good man of the house at once agrees to His claim. All was before His eyes. There was no lack of power to act upon the conscience and affections of men.

All through, we see how fully He is Master of all circumstances, and it is clear that the disciples are meant to feel this. If He is going down the steep decline to Calvary, it is of His own free choice, and He is still the King who does so. "My time is at hand" was surely spoken for the ear of a disciple. It is natural that the Lord should give such a man the privilege of hosting Him at a time like this. That it is already the first day of unleavened bread is decisive that He did not anticipate the appointed time for the passover, as many have thought.

Matthew tells us (Matt. 26:17-19) that the disciples asked the Lord where they should prepare for Him to eat, and He told them, but none are named. Mark, relating the same event (Mark 14:12-16), says, "he sent two of his disciples." Luke supplies their names... John had shared this sweet service with Peter. In his usual self-effacing way, he says nothing about preparing the supper, though he had had a hand in it. Instead he records a touching fact that no other writer records: before they ate, the blessed Lord Himself washed their feet, soiled no doubt in this very service.

God always has ready whatever His work needs. It had been so with the owners of the donkey at Bethphage. Now, with the upper room in Jerusalem, the Lord again knew where to find the man who would provide what He needed. Probably, as with those at Bethphage, the man was a secret disciple, though clearly unknown as such to the apostles up to then. His name is never mentioned.

For many centuries the Passover had been kept, with more or less faithfulness. Now it would be kept in its full meaning for the last time. Within twenty-four hours its light grew pale in the shining of the One it pointed to, when the true Lamb of God died on the cross. It is a remarkable fact that at this last full keeping of the Passover, the One who set it up was there to share it... He ordered the Passover to be prepared, and He decided the very place where they should eat it. The time, the manner, the place, were all His appointment.

If I turn to Luke's account of the Supper, I find the twelve indeed spoken of there as "the twelve apostles" (Luke 22:14); but when I go to Matthew and to Mark (Matt. 26:19; Mark 14:16), I find them named simply "disciples," a name they share in common with all.

If we turn to Deuteronomy 16, we have the spiritual instruction about the Passover — the month, the day, and the place. It was not to be in just any place. The instruction reads, "but at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make His name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt." So Jesus was at the place God had chosen for the Passover sacrifice. The month, the day, and the hour had come: the going down of the sun. The appointed hour had come. As for the chief priests and scribes, they were looking for a way to kill Him. They did not know that He was the true Passover Lamb. Thirteen people sat down together, within the number Jewish history says was allowed. It was our Thursday, about six o'clock, at sunset. By Jewish time, their Friday had just begun.

"And when the evening had come (v. 20), the time for eating the Passover, He reclined at table with the twelve."

For many centuries Israel had kept the Passover with more or less faithfulness. Now they would keep it in its full meaning for the last time. Within twenty-four hours its light grew pale in the shining of the reality it pictured, when the true Lamb of God died on the cross. Remarkably, at the last celebration of its full meaning, the One who set up the feast was there to share in it. He was the perfect, holy Man, the LORD's Fellow. He ordered the Passover to be prepared, and He decided the very place where they should eat it. The time, the manner, the place, were all His appointment.

The company was Jesus and the twelve. They were twelve distinguished men, but distinguished in a special way. He had called them out to be His apostles, His beloved followers and His witnesses. He chose them to see more of His face than anyone else in the world, and to hear more of His words than others. He brought them into scenes of closest intimacy.

The record mentions Judas taking part in the feast and asking a question. Then, at the supper as well as at the Passover, our Lord says, "Behold, the hand of him who betrays Me is with Me on the table." We do not see how anyone can question that Judas was present at the supper. His character was known only to the Lord. His fellow apostles did not seem to suspect him. But to argue from this case that we ought to allow known evil at the Lord's table is simply wicked.

Now the church — the body of Christ — is made up only of believers, members of Christ. When they gather together as such in His name to eat the Lord's Supper, it does not allow for the thought of unbelievers sharing in the supper among them... If Judas did share in it, it was before the church had any existence, and before certain features were later added to the supper through the apostle Paul.

It does not appear that the Lord has given us any direction about the hour of the day at which we should break bread. The inspired history tells us that the Supper was first instituted in the evening. (See Matt. 26:20)... But to us it makes no difference — it is quite an open question. If anyone lays down rules, they are going beyond the bounds of Scripture. The word is, "As often as you eat."

Still, in the face of it all, the Lord goes on in His path of love and holy calm. As the twelve were eating, He tells out the grief of His heart: "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me" (v. 21) — and this draws out the reality of their affections and their deep grief.

The Lord's love was perfect. He felt deeply that one of those who had lived in His holy presence, heard His words of grace, and seen His infinite love and patience, should act like this. His words, "One of you who eats with me will betray me," came out of the anguish of His heart. The greater and more perfect the love, the greater the anguish when someone betrays that love. Never had love in all its perfection been so expressed as in Christ, and never had anyone lived outwardly so near to Christ as Judas. Yet it was all in vain, for even if he had any appreciation of that love, he loved money more.

At once we see Him at the table with the twelve. While they were eating, He announces that one of them is the traitor. We may well take what follows in that conversation as a last warning to Judas. The Lord had seen him turning to the chief priests and knew of his bargaining with them. He read the whole dark story in that heart, which lay before Him, the One who knows all things, like an open book. "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." These words must have aimed at the conscience of Judas Iscariot.

The Lord knew well who the traitor would be, but He expresses the anguish of His heart when He says, "one of you will betray me." He wanted to test their hearts again and bring to light what was inside them. They believed the Lord's words, and each one, full of trust in Him and of holy distrust of himself, said, "Lord, is it I?" Here is a fine testimony of upright and tested hearts. They weighed the fact and the possibility of such a crime, trusting Jesus' word more than themselves.

"They looked at one another, uncertain of whom He spoke." Can you understand that? Before your conscience wakes up, you look at other people... Have you ever, as a sinner, asked yourself the question — Is it I? Oh, but you say, I could never betray Christ. Well, I am perfectly sure I could, knowing my own heart. And, my dear friends, the person who is certain he can never do it is the very person who will go and do it.

But the betrayal of Judas was long foretold: it was all taking place "as it is written." But woe to the betrayer, for it has been said, "The carrying out of God's purposes does not take away the guilt of those who fulfil them; otherwise how could God judge the world?"

Left to his own wisdom, Paul would most likely have connected the account of the Supper, as we would have, with the crucifixion... But that was not the way he received it from the Lord... It was on the night of the betrayal. The betrayal is the background that makes the love shine out — the love that moved the Lord to give us the Supper. He gave it so that we might keep it as a memorial of His death until He comes.

Yet here too the presence of grace would ripen the power of evil. The one who dipped his hand in the dish with Christ was the one who would betray Him, and as we read elsewhere, after taking the piece of bread he went out. God prepares it all, and the Lord uses it with the calm of divine perfection... The Lord's answer points back to the prophecy that spoke of His sorrow and of why it cut so deep. See Psalm 41:9; 55:12.

Such were His enemies: but more sadly still He says, "Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me" (v. 9). Of course, this was Judas, who did not do this out of personal hatred, but out of contemptible greed.

The Lord then points out the traitor, but step by step, as if to alarm the conscience and stir it to repentance before the guilt was fixed. "One of you will betray Me." Then "He who has dipped his hand in the dish with Me."

His answer to this was that the betrayer would dip his hand in the dish with the Lord Himself. This act would show a brazen attitude of resisting his own conscience. The Son of Man would go to the cross, as God had purposed. Yet the woe He pronounces on the betrayer shows it would have been better for that man never to have been born.

"One of the Twelve, he who dips with Me in the dish"... It was man's sin, Satan's guile, God's counsel, and Christ's love. But none of these things altered the wickedness of Judas... God did not make him wicked, but his wickedness was shaped to this end, to fulfil God's purposes. One of the group chosen to be with Jesus on earth would prove this awful truth. The nearer a man stands to blessing on the outside, the further his heart is from it — if he never takes it in.

And now we find the result of outward nearness to the Lord while the conscience is unaffected... He stays this close to Christ, until we read that "after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him." Living as a hypocrite, his heart grows hard. Then Satan comes between his conscience and all hope of pardon. Many a natural man would not betray a friend with a kiss, as Judas soon after did. His nearness only hardened him — he took the piece of bread from the Lord's own hand!

The Scripture had spoken of him as the one who was near to the Lord, eating bread with Him, then lifting up his heel against Him. By this Scripture the Lord appealed to Judas, letting him know that He knew all this. Yet patient, suffering love did not reveal him to the rest of the disciples. The Lord did make known to them how deeply He felt Judas' betrayal, but He did not rebuke him in front of them. How perfect was the Lord's love! In bearing with him was there not an appeal to his heart and conscience?

Judas could, after all, only carry out the purpose of God, and the Saviour pointed this out... It is a great support to the heart of the believer to know this. Neither the wickedness of man nor the schemes of Satan can defeat any purpose of God. God makes rebels against their Maker, human or angelic, serve the final result He has planned, even against their own will. Of course, this does not lessen their wickedness in the smallest degree. God and His purposes have no place at all in their thoughts.

It was man's sin, Satan's cunning, God's purpose, and Christ's love. But none of these things changed the wickedness of Judas: "It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." He was appointed, we may say, to this condemnation. God did not make him wicked. God gave his wickedness the shape that would fulfil His own purpose.

God's love would not give up even a Judas without warning. So love had to let him know that "even the night" was "light about" him. Scripture had also warned and pointed him out. And the Lord adds His terrible warning: "It would have been better for that man if he had not been born."

Next the Lord points out the traitor, but step by step, as if to alarm the conscience and stir it to repentance before the guilt became final... Judas is the slowest of all to speak up with his question. He asks it knowing with deadly certainty what the answer would be, yet he looks as innocent as the rest. But notice, he does not call Christ his "Lord," as the others do. That is over for him: it is "Rabbi, is it I?"... He has heard that terrible "woe" from lips that never lie. Even so, he goes away and sets himself to do the thing that would mark him for all eternity as the "son of perdition." Such is the hardening power of sin.

There was sin in Judas's nature, and it showed itself as the love of money. Next, Satan suggested a way to satisfy that craving, for Judas loved money more than he loved Jesus. Here we see what outward nearness to the Lord does when it never touches the conscience... While he lived as a hypocrite, his heart grew hard. Then Satan came between his conscience and all hope of pardon. Many an unconverted man would not betray a friend with a kiss, as Judas soon did. His nearness only hardened him.

Of only one man has our Lord ever said, "It would have been better for that man if he had not been born" (Matt. 26:24). Judas turned away from the faith. He was the "son of perdition," a man marked out for ruin. Satan entered his heart. He sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver and betrayed Him with a kiss. Then, filled with remorse, he went and hanged himself, and "went to his own place."

Suppose Judas' fall ended with him restored to a safer blessing than before. Then it would have been good for him to have been born, and his case would be the highest witness of grace... But the Lord's word about Judas is absolute: better not to have been born.

We can picture the scene. Each one distrusted himself and asked, "Is it I?" It seems no one stayed silent except Judas. Staying silent any longer would give him away, so at last he had the nerve to say, as Matthew has recorded, "Rabbi, is it I?"

Next the Lord points out the traitor, but step by step. It is as if He wants to alarm the conscience and stir it to repentance before the guilt is final. "One of you shall deliver Me up." Then, "he who dips his hand with Me in the dish." Judas is the slowest of all to respond. He asks his question knowing for certain what the answer would be, yet he wears the same look of innocence as the rest.

It is striking that John and his companions called the Saviour "Lord," while the betrayer called Him only "Rabbi" (Matthew 26:25). There is no recorded instance of Judas ever giving Him the higher title. To truly acknowledge Jesus as Lord is the fruit of a work of the Holy Spirit within (1 Cor. 12:3).

The others have asked the question, so Judas can hardly stay silent. He asks, "Master (not Lord), is it I?" He is stubborn and set on doing his own will, so he can hardly use the word "Lord." The Lord answers with an emphatic "You have said so." It means, "as you suggest, so it stands." The Lord had shown him that He knew his plans. Even so, the unhappy man would not turn from the folly of his headlong course. It seems that at this point Judas went out (John 13:26-30).

Jesus replies, "You have said so." It is a quiet way of saying yes. We meet it again in the latter part of this same chapter (v. 64).

There we see it fulfilled by the will of God. Although it was "by the foreknowledge of God," it did not relieve Judas of his responsibility. Peter speaks of people appointed to stumble. They were not appointed to be disobedient, but to stumble if they were disobedient. Yet all of it was foreknown. The guilt of it rested on Judas, but "it had been good for that man if he had never been born." How appalling! Yet after hearing this Judas says, "Is it I, Rabbi?"

It was man's sin, Satan's guile, God's counsel, and Christ's love. But none of these things altered the wickedness of Judas... One of that company chosen to be with Jesus here below was to prove this awful truth. If a man does not receive blessing into his heart, then the closer he stands to it on the outside, the further he is from it morally.

Judas, found out, takes the piece of bread, and the greed that ruled his heart won the day. Satan used this to destroy him. He hardened Judas's heart against every feeling of common humanity... Nearness to Jesus, without faith, and with a heart that His presence does not touch, only hardens in a terrible way.

While the disciples were eating, the Lord took bread. This act was not part of the passover ritual. It was quite separate, and quite different in meaning. They kept the passover supper and held to the set form of the ceremony. Then the Lord began a new Supper that would take its place. The sacrifice of our Lord Himself was about to fulfil the passover, and once it was fulfilled, the passover disappears as an appointed feast for the Christian era.

Now the Lord was like the host. It was His supper, and the disciples were the guests seated at His table. Of His supper, of course, He did not eat. Of the passover He did. There He was one of Israel, remembering the nation's rescue from judgment in Egypt. At the supper He was the One who handed His disciples the memorial of His death. At the passover they remembered the goodness of Jehovah towards Israel; at the Lord's Supper the death of the Lord Jesus was to be before their minds.

The "it" in our version might lead people astray. Another Gospel says, "he gave thanks." When God blesses, He gives a benefit, and gives happiness and joy. When a man blesses his fellow man, it means he wants happiness for him. But when we bless God, we praise Him, we speak well of Him. It means to praise Him highly. So the Lord looked up and blessed — which is the same as giving thanks. The "it" is printed in italics, and many leave it out.

What a moment that must have been, when they heard Him giving thanks in view of His death on the cross! Thanksgiving, not prayer, filled Him at that time. How this speaks to us! He knew — and His act of giving thanks showed it — that nothing could make His atoning death more effective. Once that death had taken place, nothing a sinner needs from a sacrifice would be missing.

There is no need for strange ideas about the bread. Let us be clear that the material is bread, and that it stays bread. He said, "This is My body," using a figure of speech, as He often did... When He said "This is My body," He gave the loaf a special meaning as His memorial. This, and nothing else, was to be the emblem that would set His body before them.

So when the Lord says, "this is my body," everyone agrees He is speaking figuratively. It is still bread. It could not be His body then. He was not holding His own body in His own hand, and no such body existed yet — that is, a body dead, with the blood poured out... It is the figure of Christ as a victim, and only that.

To eat together of the same bread or food is a token of friendship... In the Lord's Supper the Christian eats that which is a symbol of the body of Christ, Matt. 26:26, and in eating he has communion with Christ's death.

It matters more than anything to remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is the central figure of this supper. He is there! He is the One who makes the supper real by His presence. He is the One who gives value and worth to our memorial service.

We believe that Christians should keep the Lord's Supper every Lord's day, and that in doing so they remember His death until He comes. We see no authority in the word of God for treating it as "a sacrifice," "a sacrament," or "a covenant." The word is, "Do this in remembrance of me."

Now He took the cup (Matt. 26:27) — an act He did of His own accord — and gave thanks. How full His heart must have been! After that He handed it to His disciples, with words explaining what it stood for: "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you." So Luke writes.

All those who have taken refuge in this blood of the Lord now know about a cup of blessing. It goes on to say, "The cup of blessing which we bless." This does not mean "consecrate" but simply, "we give thanks." We can prove this from Matthew 26, verse 26, where He took the bread and blessed it. The note in the margin there reads simply, "given thanks."

The bread was the body, and the wine the blood. Kept apart in that symbolic way, together they truly showed the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the body, as we know, the blood is the life... But blood seen on its own is the witness of death.

This was to assure their souls that the sea was dry, the fire was quenched, and the sword had drunk its fill. The overflow of that blood was there to support them and give them joy along the way. The cup once filled with wrath had been emptied and its last drops wrung out. Now it was filled to the brim with the blood that told of pardon, peace with God, and separation from a world of sin and sorrow.

"Drink of it, all of you" (Matt. 26:27) was the Lord's invitation to His disciples, and surely His invitation today to all His own is just the same. "They all drank of it" we read in Mark 14:23... For whom is the Lord's Supper? Is it the badge of membership of a particular body of Christians? To raise this question is to answer it... It is the LORD'S Supper. It is where He should be supreme. His invitation is for all the blood-bought children of God.

They all were to drink of the wine, knowing beforehand that the cup would one day be kept from most professing Christians. He did not say, "Eat of it, all of you," for that instruction would be quite unnecessary. But He did say, "Drink of it, all of you," and Mark records the fact, "they all drank of it."

The cup is denied to ordinary church members. To comfort them, they are assured that a whole Christ — body, blood, soul and divinity — is contained under both kinds, that is, in the bread and in the wine. But if the blood is still in the body, there is no redemption. They are celebrating a Christ still living on earth, before He had shed any blood to redeem us. It is a sacrament of non-redemption.

I can see no warrant in Scripture for anyone breaking the bread, or giving the cup, without giving thanks. Matthew 26:26-27, Mark 14:22-23, Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24 all tell us that the Lord Jesus gave thanks when He broke the bread and took the cup. In 1 Corinthians 10:16, the cup is called the cup of blessing, or of thanksgiving.

First, how could the word "new" properly apply to a "testament" or will? Nobody ever talks about a "new" will. Second, there is another and stronger objection. What has "blood" to do with a testament or will? The moment we turn to the new "covenant" all is in place. The blood of Christ is exactly its foundation… What has a "testament" to do with "remission of sins"? What has a will to do with blood?

The blood of the first covenant testified that anyone breaking it would merit death. The blood of the new covenant tells us that the mediator has paid the price: His blood was shed.

Of all the Old Testament writers, Jeremiah is the only one who mentions the new covenant, though other prophets describe blessings people will enjoy under it… Jeremiah foretold the new covenant and its blessings: the knowledge of God, and the forgiveness of sins. But he did not say what sacrifice this covenant would rest on. The Lord did that when He said, "This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

Was not the blood of Christ "shed for many"? We do well to note this wording, and to note that it stands in the Gospel of Matthew… in the first Gospel the phrase is broader, and deliberately so: "shed for many." Matthew presents the Lord as the Messiah of Israel. But His rejection by that people opens the door of blessing to those outside the Jewish circle… Israel's unbelief has not stopped the flow of God's grace. In the wisdom of God, their unbelief became the occasion for turning that grace aside from them (though only for a while), and for making it overflow every barrier, so that it reaches outsiders such as we are.

This was to assure their souls that the sea was dry, the fire was out, and the sword had drunk its fill. The overflow of that blood was their support and their joy along the way. The cup once filled with wrath had been emptied, down to the last drop. In its place the blood now filled it to the brim — blood that spoke of pardon, peace with God, and separation from a world of sin and sorrow.

He then draws their attention to the blood of the new covenant, adding words that extend it to others besides the Jews, without naming them — "It is shed for many." And this blood is not, as at Sinai, only there to confirm a covenant they were responsible to keep faithfully. It was shed for the remission of sins… It is only in His death that the supper presents Him to us. His blood is apart from His body: He is dead.

Forgiveness of sins we enjoy now, and Israel will enjoy it later; but they will only know it as part of the blessings of the new covenant, once that covenant has been made with them. We who believe know it now, because the blood on which it will rest has been shed.

This remarkable "law" leads us on to something future. Then the full result of Christ's perfect work will appear. Then He — as the Messiah of Israel — will taste true joy in His beloved people, and in this earth, at the close of His Nazirite separation. The time will then have come for the Nazirite to drink wine. From all this He set Himself apart, so that He could do that great work.

The fruit of the vine is the sign of social joy — "wine which cheers the heart of God and man." They kept sprinkling it on the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, that is, offerings with a pleasing aroma. Now He would drink no more of this fruit of the vine. His disciples would drink deeply of His death, the true drink — but a drink of separation from sin, and from Christ too, as far as His personal presence goes.

He would join the disciples, as the representatives of God's remnant in Israel, only when He came in the kingdom of His Father. Then He would share with them the full joy and blessedness that crowns the fulfilment of the new covenant… There was rich and profound love in that word. There was a hindrance now, and His blood would deal with it. Later there would be none, when all would be divine joy — the Father the blessed source, and Himself the centre and the substance of it.

The wine speaks of the joy He will share with us. It is the intense joy that will be His in that new state of things — that vast system of glory, of which He will be the Head and Centre. The expression "the kingdom of my Father" occurs only in Matthew: in the Lord's prayer; in chapter 13, "Then the righteous will shine… in the kingdom of their Father"; and here. It is the heavenly side of the world to come.

The little company in that upper room on the night of the Lord's betrayal had a twofold aspect. They stood for the remnant of Israel… After the Church has been caught up to be with the Lord forever, a remnant of Israel will come out of the Great Tribulation with the same marks. Their Lord will drink the fruit of the vine with them when He returns in triumph to claim the earth for Himself. That act will carry the special meaning of being new with them… But these disciples were also the first core of the new company that the Holy Spirit would form when He came.

The Lord has made the cup of His blood which we drink real and absolutely true for the soul and for faith. Yet He goes on to declare plainly that the fruit of the vine is not His blood. He says He will not drink of it at all until He drinks it new with us in the kingdom of His Father.

Singing a hymn at the Passover feast has been and still is the custom of the Jews. The hymn they sang was Psalms 115, 116, 117 and 118, which the Jewish ritual calls the great Hallel. With what emotion of soul He must have sung them with His disciples! These Psalms contain such full messianic predictions. "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone... Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD." These words come at the close of that hymn. The disciples sang them as devout Jews had so often done before, but for Him it meant so much. A little while longer, just a few hours, and the builders would reject Him. A few days more, and by resurrection from the dead He would be the cornerstone, the chief stone. In that shout, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD," He saw a welcome far in the future from the remnant of His people, at the time of His Second Coming.

For the disciples it was just the customary thing, no doubt; but what must it have been for the Lord? He sang as He went out to fulfil what the Passover pictured, by becoming the sacrifice. And Psalm 118, towards the end, speaks of binding "the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar." He went out to suffering and death, bound by the cords of His love; and the disciples to failure, defeat and scattering.

The two things are so remarkable. We could understand better His singing a hymn and staying in the upper room, or going out without singing. But He sang a hymn as He went out to meet His enemies, the betrayal, the denial, the agony of Gethsemane, and the forsaking of the cross. That shows a calmness of spirit. It surely came from having the Father's will in view, and from the joy set before Him beyond the cross.

What a song in that night! Was there ever singing like this? At the Red Sea, from the shore of safety, the joyful song of redemption went up to God... A wonderful choir of praise, sung by countless grateful voices! But what is all this compared to the praise that went up to God from that upper room, sung by those twelve voices? It was not Moses, the servant of God, who began that hymn. It was Christ Himself, the Son over His own house — the Deliverer of His people of old, the very One to whom Israel sang that song of redemption at the Red Sea! He Himself leads the song of praise to His little band.

"In the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise" (v. 12). We ought to feel, each time we meet as an assembly, that Christ is there, and leads the praise. Think what it is that Christ should be there, raising the song, so to speak! It is a wonderful thing, the way He presently holds us as identified with Himself.

That evening, if ever, shared sorrow might have outweighed shared joy at the remembrance of shelter from God's judgment by blood. But instead, before they left the upper room, they sang together to God. That is a hint for us. No sorrow of any kind is to override the heart's joy which flows from the remembrance of redemption... We must not let troubles and sorrows, personal or otherwise, outweigh the shared joy when we meet to proclaim the Lord's death.

David, in the time of his rejection, "went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went" (2 Sam. 15:30). That sad and solemn event foretold the rejection of the Lord Jesus, who, having sung a hymn with His disciples, "went out to the Mount of Olives." Gethsemane was there. Looking ahead to all that lay before Him, the Son of God prayed that the cup might pass from Him, if it was the Father's will... It was from the Mount of Olives that Jesus ascended to heaven (Acts 1:12). When He returns, He will stand with His feet on that same mountain (Zech. 14:4).

Sweet thought! The Lord's voice will yet be heard singing His song again among His brothers, singing the song of praise to God, as it was sung so often here on earth.

He revealed what was before them. He refers to a Scripture in Zechariah. They were His sheep and He was the Shepherd. In the Gospel of John He speaks of Himself that way — the good shepherd, who gives His life for the sheep. But what would it mean for the Shepherd to be struck, the One whom that prophecy of Zechariah calls the fellow of God (Zech. 13:7)? The cry of the forsaken One on the cross gives us the answer. He knew all that was before Him... And again we notice His calmness, His dignity through all this, which to a mere man would have been an almost unbearable ordeal.

In Scripture, "smiting" is a term describing an act of divine judgment. Jehovah struck the rebellious and idolatrous land of Egypt by the death of their firstborn. We also know that He struck the Good Shepherd of the sheep. How marvellous that divine wrath fell on the Lord Jesus, and that with His stripes we are healed!

What a scene of horror! God's Shepherd, the only One who had a right to this title, who answered to everything needed for this blessed work, had to endure God's judgment!

The cross has its side of shame and pain and danger for us, as well as of salvation through Him who bore our sins there. But here it is the way it would test them, not deliver them, that the Saviour speaks of. Does that mighty work of suffering for our sins, does the Atonement, "scatter" the sheep? Is it not, on the contrary, the only righteous foundation on which they are gathered?... But the striking of the Shepherd expresses His utter humiliation as Messiah, cut off and having nothing.

First, the sheep are scattered. This came true on the night He was arrested. All His disciples, who had acknowledged Him as the Shepherd of Israel, left Him and fled. And in another way, we cannot doubt, it has come true in the scattering of the Jews over the face of the whole earth... He came to gather His sheep. But as a people they refused to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd. So when He was struck, God in His government, and as judge, "scattered" the flock.

The Lord did not quote the last part of this verse, nor the beginning of it: "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, says the LORD of hosts." That is God's estimate of Him whom man valued at thirty pieces of silver... "And I will turn my hand upon the little ones." What a sweet thought it must have been to the Lord's heart, that if He was struck, God would turn His hand upon the little ones. If wrath came on Him and the sheep were scattered, there was that drop of sweetness at the bottom of the cup... God's hand turned on the little ones — not one of them ever lost.

With indescribable grace the Lord tells them of the trial that would come on them that very night and shake them all. It would happen just as the written Word said... The flesh had shown itself and its worth in the "goodly price" it set on Jesus. It was also going to show the value of its self-confidence and its boasted courage on His behalf... So in the end the trials would confirm their faith and deepen their distrust of self, making Christ their all in everything.

But how very sweet to find that there is no change in Him. If they seemed to give Him up, the Shepherd would not give them up — "I will go before you to Galilee" (v. 32).

Another thing is beautiful — the trusting openness of His heart toward His disciples, even when they were so miserable and wretched. He could not do it while He was going about in the world. Wonderful, the divine working in a man! The Lord has it all in His mind, and yet speaks to them as if nothing were happening. "But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee." There He is telling them as quietly as possible. You do not get the ascension in Matthew; it is Galilee.

Matthew does not describe the Lord's various appearances in Jerusalem after the resurrection. What he does dwell on, and of course with his special reasons for it, is this. After His resurrection the Lord keeps to the place where the state of the Jews had led Him to live, and where He shed His light around according to prophecy. For after He rose from the dead, the Lord took up relations once more in Galilee with the remnant represented by the disciples. It was the place of Jewish contempt. It was where the poor of the flock were, in the dark and neglected by the proud scribes and rulers of Jerusalem. There the risen Lord was pleased to go before His servants and rejoin them.

He warned them of what lay ahead. He pointed them to the prophecy of Zechariah, which foretold the striking of the LORD's Shepherd and the scattering of the sheep. But the prophet went on to say, "and I will turn my hand against the little ones," and this answers to verse 28 of our chapter. The sheep of the nation were scattered. But the "little ones" — whom Zechariah elsewhere calls "the poor of the flock" — were gathered again on a new basis, once the Shepherd had risen from the dead. So He was to meet them not in Jerusalem but in Galilee.

With indescribable grace the Lord tells them of the trial that would fall on them that very night and shake them all. It would come according to the written Word... Peter trusted his own love for the Saviour most of all. He proved what it was worth — bitterly for himself, and in a way everyone could see. So the trials would end by confirming their faith and deepening their distrust of self, making Christ their all in everything. And He, risen, would go before them into Galilee. There He would take up again, in resurrection power, the relationship He had with them while He lived on earth.

The path of obedience is the path of sufficiency. The disciples were without food in John 21:5 because they were acting in self-will. They should have waited in Galilee until the Lord came to them, as He had appointed (Matt. 26:32). Instead Peter said, "I am going fishing," and his companions answered, "We will go with you." A whole night of work brought nothing but disappointment... If we are sure we are where the Lord wants us, we need have no fear.

In these few words Peter lets out the real root of the whole matter. That root was self-confidence — sadly, no uncommon root among us. We do not question Peter's sincerity at all. We are sure he meant every word he said, and that he had no idea what he was about to do. He was ignorant of himself, and ignorance and self-confidence usually go together. Knowing yourself destroys self-confidence. The better you know yourself, the less you can trust yourself.

More than self-confidence lay behind his words. It was his pride that made him look down on the love of his fellow disciples. He implied that their desertion of their Master was quite possible, but that his own love for his Master was so much deeper and truer than theirs that such base conduct was impossible for him.

They would all fall away. But the one who leads the way in expressing his self-confidence would have the greatest fall. We break down in the very thing about which we boast. Peter boasts that he will never fall away. The Lord says, "This night … you will deny Me three times."

Peter objects to the Lord's words. He even dares to set himself above all the others who might deny the Lord. How little he knew of his own heart! … Had he not before declared Him to be the Son of the living God? Now he is as good as saying that the Son of God is not telling the truth! So self-confidence always goes with lack of confidence in God. The Lord speaks calmly and firmly; Peter speaks with heat. Yet we must not forget that the others said the same, though Peter was no doubt the loudest.

These were boastful words, and no doubt he felt them when he said them, for Peter was clearly no hypocrite. But his self-confidence threw him off his guard and took him away from Christ. "Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall" had no place in his mind. The Lord had told him to pray that he would be kept out of temptation, but he did not pray. He slept when he should have been gathering strength. So at the moment of temptation, when he should have humbly yet boldly confessed his Lord, he fell an easy prey to the enemy's schemes.

Even as the Lord speaks His warning, we see the signs of Peter's danger. He says, "I am ready to go with You to prison and to death." This condition not only exposes a person to a fall; the fall itself may be the only remedy for it. We have to learn that only when we are weak are we strong, and that Christ's strength is made perfect in weakness. In a case like this, the Lord Himself cannot pray that Peter may not fall. He prays that Peter may be "converted" by it — turned from that dangerous self-confidence to the awareness that he cannot trust himself, even for a moment.

The Lord takes him, so to speak, by the hand, and leads him back to the place where his fall began — confidence in his own strength and in his love for Christ… All had forsaken Him, but Peter alone had denied Him. So he can no longer rely on his love measured against theirs. Humbled in this way, he appeals not to his feelings but to the Saviour's knowledge. He knew. "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He does not add, "more than these."

The Lord speaks to him still more definitely (v. 34). It was a certain time of the night. "This very night, before the rooster crows" marked off a time between midnight and the morning; that is what the Lord referred to. He knew everything that would take place that night.

In Mark (Mark 14:26-52), the account follows Matthew's closely. Mark gives the detail of the rooster crowing twice, which Matthew mentions only in general terms.

The Lord has given the word of warning, followed by a word of encouragement. Sadly, like Peter, we too often ignore His warnings. Our self-confidence also makes us miss the blessing of His words of encouragement. Not knowing our own weakness, we think we are safe even though others may fail. So Peter says that although all the rest fall away, he will not. They would all fall away. But the one who takes the lead in expressing his self-confidence would have the greatest fall. We break down in the very thing we boast about.

But at this time the Lord solemnly told Peter that he would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed. Yet Peter brashly denied at that very moment what the Lord said. Had he not before declared Him to be the Son of the living God? Now he virtually says that the Son of God is not telling the truth! So self-confidence always goes together with a lack of confidence in God.

We can never know what is in our hearts until circumstances arise to draw it out. Peter did not imagine that he could deny his Lord. Then he found himself in circumstances that acted on his particular weakness, and he showed that the weakness was there.

In ourselves we are weaker than a bruised reed, and this should make self-distrust our character. Where there is self-distrust, there should be the greatest confidence in the Lord.

In truth Peter had fallen before he ever got into the high priest's palace. Self-confidence was his ruin… His self-confidence threw him off his guard and took him away from Christ. "Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall" had no place in his mind. The Lord had told him to pray that he would be kept out of temptation, and he did not pray. He slept when he should have been gathering strength. So at the moment of temptation he fell an easy prey to the enemy's schemes, when he should have humbly yet boldly confessed his Lord.

Three times he repeats his denial. But at the darkest hour the crowing of the rooster announces that morning is coming. Peter's tears are the first signs of a new day for himself.

In these few words Peter lets out the real root of the whole matter. That root was self-confidence — alas! alas! no uncommon root among us. We do not question Peter's sincerity at all. We are sure he meant every word, and just as sure he had no idea what he was about to do. He did not know himself, and ignorance and self-confidence usually go together. Self-knowledge destroys self-confidence. The better you know yourself, the less you can trust yourself.

No doubt Peter was sincere, but we have to learn that sincerity is not enough to keep us true to the Lord. We need to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Only then can we overcome the weakness of the flesh, escape the schemes of the devil and be set free from the fear of man. When an apostle is out of touch with Christ, one simple question from a young girl is all the devil needs to bring him down.

Peter objects strongly to the Lord's words. He even dares to claim he would do better than all the others who might deny the Lord. How little he knew of his own heart! … Had he not before declared Him to be the Son of the living God? Now he virtually says that the Son of God is not telling the truth! So self-confidence always goes together with lack of confidence in God.

Flesh in the saint is no better than in any other man. Peter did not know this any more than most do now. He did not believe our Lord's warning. If he had, he would not have entered into temptation. He would have watched and prayed, and faith would have kept him. So he had to learn by bitter experience what the flesh is. The word was not mixed with faith in his soul when the Lord gave him that solemn warning. He was confident in himself. It was not the crude confidence of an unbeliever, of course. But it was still confidence built on his own estimate of what his love for Jesus would let him do or bear.

Peter was not the only one who made such an empty pledge of faithfulness, for it is added, "and they all said the same." They did not know their weakness. They did not know what it is to have the power of death pressing on them. … But to be dead with Him was not yet the known portion of the disciples; so not one of them was able to stand. Afterwards it was their privilege, but they had not gone that way before. Jesus must go first.

Peter's boasting, which all the disciples join in, brings no further word from the Lord. Clearly there are times when what believers say is so plainly of the flesh that it is useless and needless to reply. There is a time to be silent and a time to speak.

See what follows the Lord's warning. The Lord has just said, "Satan has asked to have you." At once Peter answers, "Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death." Think of that! These words give you the secret of Peter's fall. If Peter had been right, he would not have said, "I am ready." He would have prayed, "Lord, keep me; Lord, help me; Lord, do not let me fall under Satan's power." But he was self-confident. Self-confidence, I believe, is the cause of all our failure, while self-distrust is the secret of getting on with the Lord.

If you compare what Peter is doing with what the Lord is doing, you learn the secret of Peter's weakness and the Lord's strength. What was the effect of trial on the weakness of Peter's flesh? He had said, "I will go with you to prison and to death"; but the Lord has to say to him, "Could you not watch with me one hour?" They were sleeping for sorrow. Here there was neither prison nor death! … The Lord does not sleep and try to forget His sorrow. He goes and prays to the Father.

Note this. "I have prayed for you, that" — what? Was it that he might not fail? No, but that, having failed, his faith might not give way. Had Christ not prayed for His poor, feeble servant, he would have gone from bad to worse, and from worse to worst. But the intercession of Christ obtained for Peter the grace of true repentance, self-judgement and bitter sorrow for his sin. In the end it brought complete restoration of his heart and conscience.

Perhaps nowhere in the whole sad record of our Lord's suffering do we find more tender displays of His devotion to His Father than in Gethsemane. It has a character all its own. It is different from the "horror of great darkness" of the cross, which comes after it, and it is clearly marked off from what had gone before. It stands out as the "oil press," which is what its name means. There a love and obedience that nothing could turn aside gives out its sweet ointment, with a fragrance all its own — a sweet perfume and holy anointing oil fit to adorn His head alone.

The name Gethsemane is formed from the Hebrew words meaning "a winepress" and "oil." But it gives no real ground to say that here in a special way those dark words were fulfilled, "I have trodden the winepress alone." For the treading of the winepress is when the Lord comes to judge, not to suffer. These prophecies describe not agony but vengeance.

But He is going forward with full knowledge of everything, on His own part. Note what we are told here: Judas knew the place as one the Lord often went to with His disciples. He is not avoiding but now seeking the "oil-press" of sorrow. Eternal joy is to be the sure result.

He takes all the disciples with Him to Gethsemane. Then He tells them to stay there while He goes on further and prays. He takes Peter, James, and John, who had also been with Him on the mount of transfiguration... There everything that lay ahead of the blessed One came upon His spirit. He began to be sorrowful and very heavy. He felt as man what He had to undergo. It was not mere pain or suffering: the power of death weighed upon His spirit. It weighed upon it as man, yet with a weight no man could fathom.

Gethsemane was at the bottom of the Mount of Olives. Here indeed we are on holy ground! ... He was coming to that time, marked out from all eternity, when God would take up sin and judge it. We see what was before His soul. Only on the cross were sins laid upon Him, and there He was made sin who knew no sin. But in spirit He went through it here with His Father... He said, "Remain here, and watch with me." He never said, "Pray for Me." We must weigh the silences of Scripture. But He values their sympathy.

But now it was different, and He says to them: "Sit here, while I go over there and pray." Who can tell what that "over there" meant to Him? He was about to enter the great conflict, and He "looked for comforters." Peter and the sons of Zebedee entered more fully into His thoughts than the other disciples, so He takes them with Him.

He says to the disciples, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." And again, "Sit here, while I go over there and pray." When He comes back He finds them sleeping. When they should have been praying, they were sleeping. How much do I pray? How much do you pray? Prayer is the secret of the soul's success... They see His sorrow, and yet they can sleep.

Our only safe place is watching and prayer — yes, prayer before the assault — prayer that may amount to agony; for that is how Jesus prayed!

The word ademonein is a deeply moving word. On one likely derivation it means the homeless feeling of someone away from his own country and friends... In the Gospels this word carries a unique intensity of meaning: "Look and see if there is any sorrow like My sorrow."

He began to be sorrowful and troubled. He felt as a man what He had to go through. It was not mere pain or suffering. The power of death weighed on His spirit — weighed on it as man, yet with a weight no man could fathom. Yet with what calm simplicity He tells it out!

Think what lay before Him. All that God or man could put into the cup of woe, He was about to drink, and He foresaw it... How He felt everything — the betrayal of Judas — the coming denial of Peter — the forsaking of all the disciples... the bearing of sin — the forsaking of God — wrath, judgment, and death as the end of His pathway here.

In Gethsemane, He was anticipating the cross; at Calvary, He was actually enduring it. In Gethsemane, "there appeared an angel to him from heaven strengthening him"; at Calvary, He was forsaken of all. There was no angelic ministry there. In Gethsemane He addresses God as "Father," and so enjoys the full communion of that relationship. But at Calvary He cries, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

From these verses it is clear that something lay ahead which the blessed Lord had never met before. A "cup" was being filled for Him which He had not yet drunk. If He had been a sin-bearer all His life, why this intense agony at the thought of coming into contact with sin and enduring the wrath of God because of sin?

He goes apart to pray, but He takes three of His disciples with Him. In this solemn moment they are to watch with Him. They were the same three who were with Him at the transfiguration. They were to see His glory in the kingdom, and His sufferings... Jesus was not yet drinking the cup, but it was before His eyes.

Beyond all others He underwent the pressure of death on His soul beforehand, as the power of Satan — feeling it perfectly, and all the more deeply because He took it from His Father's hand and not from the enemy's... When the cross came, there was no such call to disciples to watch with Him. He was alone — utterly alone, alone by the very nature of the case — for us, that is, for our sins, with no one, human or angelic, anywhere near Him.

These three He had taken with Him to the mount of transfiguration, and they went to sleep in the presence of His glory. Now He takes them into the garden, and they go to sleep in the presence of His sorrow. Such is man. Such is human nature. Such are you and I. We can be alike indifferent to the glory and the sorrow of Christ.

It speaks of His body, Matthew 26:12; Luke 23:52; John 20:12; Hebrews 10:5. It speaks of His soul, Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:34; John 12:27; Acts 2:27, 31... All these speak of Him as Man — the Son having become Man. Scripture says the same of us: in the make-up of our manhood we have spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). It uses the same words of Him as it uses of us.

He takes Peter, James and John, who had also been with Him on the mountain where His glory appeared; and there everything that lay before the blessed One came upon His spirit. He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. He felt as man what He had to go through. It was not mere pain or suffering: the power of death weighed on His spirit. It weighed on Him as man, yet with a weight no man could measure. Yet He says it with such calm simplicity! We ought to know it, though it may be beyond our knowledge... His need was there, and He told it to hearts that should have felt it and kept earnest watch, taken up with Him.

What was the difference between Christ in Gethsemane and Christ at Calvary, if He were a sin-bearer all His life? There was a real difference! And it is because He was not a sin-bearer all His life... In Gethsemane, He was anticipating the cross! at Calvary, He was actually enduring it. In Gethsemane, "there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him"; at Calvary, everyone forsook Him. No angel came to strengthen Him there. In Gethsemane He calls God "Father," and so enjoys the full communion of that relationship; but at Calvary, He cries, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

The garden shows us not holy calm in the full knowledge of all that awaited Him and His disciples, but anguish to the very limit, and death felt in all its horror as before God... More than anyone else, He went through the pressure of death on His soul before it came — death as the power of Satan. He felt it perfectly, and He felt it more deeply because He took it from His Father's hand and not from the enemy's. When the cross came, there was no such call to disciples to watch with Him. He was alone — utterly alone, alone in the very nature of it, and alone for us, that is, for our sins — with no one, human or angel, near Him in any way at all.

He is God over all, yet still and thoroughly a man. Yet, as another has said, He never asked them to pray for Him; but says, "Remain here, and watch with me."... When He asked His disciples to watch with Him, He knew the world was against Him. He turned to those He had been with most, that they should be with Him. But He received nothing... They were asleep, deceived; asleep in the presence of the glory of the kingdom on the mount, asleep in the garden!

A stone's throw away are the sleeping disciples. But, beloved reader, let us not sleep as others do. Let us watch with Him one hour even now. Let the privacy of our own hearts be the Gethsemane of our souls... There let us look with holy horror at the dreadful cup, full of our sins and God's wrath, which He would drain so soon on Calvary's cross.

He looked into the cup and measured its contents. It was all God's judgment against sin. If He drank it, God must forsake Him and cast Him off on the cross. It was not only the physical suffering and sorrow that man could give Him when they nailed Him to the tree. It was the unavoidable sense that God and He must part company. So as He looked at that cup, He said, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." He knew that if He did not drink that cup of judgment upon the cross, you and I would have to drink it in eternity.

The Lord held the place of the perfect Son of Man. He could not forget what rested on His bearing that name — even the question of guilt. But how was it possible, if He were perfect, for Him to think it an unimportant thing for God to hide His face from Him? He would not have been perfect if He had not shrunk from this one thing alone. He did not shrink from the temptation in the wilderness; God led Him into it. But there was in this what was anguish to His soul in the very measure in which He was perfect.

If God could ever have set aside the smallest part of His righteousness, He would have done it then, when His own beloved Son asked Him. But that was impossible. It would be easier to abandon the law of gravity than for God to move a hair's breadth from His righteousness.

He knew well that He would face the agony of being forsaken by God as He bore the judgment of the cross. So He pleads with His Father, "if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." As a true Man He had a will of His own, a will that was in every respect perfectly right. It was right that He should desire to avoid the dreadful suffering of the cross. Yet He asks for the Father's will, not His own. How this adds to the blessedness of His great sacrifice!

Man and Satan brought about His death, but He knew how to separate what was theirs from the cup He took out of the Father's hand — the cup filled with the judgment of God. Because He was perfect He shrank from that cup, and in subjection He drank it. His request that the cup might pass from Him was perfection. At the cross what marks Him is a perfect calmness under judgment that no human heart can understand. It is an unbroken calmness in a darkness no human eye could see through. There is no agonising there, no weeping. All is fullest submission and perfect subjection, bowing beneath the awful load, bearing it in His own body on the tree.

He accepted the cup of wrath and judgment and emptied it on the cross, so that for us not a drop of judgment remained. Here the Lord was in total solitude: He alone could drink that cup. But in dependence and obedience He is our perfect example in Gethsemane. He faced a test beyond words, and He overcame it through His dependence and obedience. The disciples stand in sharp contrast: they slept in the garden, and all of them failed badly.

When He comes to the disciples He finds them sleeping. Think of it! The Master praying, and the servants sleeping. The Master is in agony before God. He is showing perfect human dependence, in that moment of sorrow beyond compare, while the servant sleeps. Such is human nature. Peter slept in the presence of the Lord's glory, on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now he is sleeping in the presence of His sorrow.

Later, at the cross, the disciples could have no part at all in the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. But here He expects some fellowship from them in watching with Him — and He finds them sleeping. When the need is most urgent, our hearts can still be dull and unfeeling. We are not concerned to enter into the Lord's thoughts. Is one hour too long to spend in sympathy with His sorrow?

He addressed His rebuke, gentle beyond words, to Peter, the one who boasted the loudest. "Watch and pray (for themselves, not for Him) that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." This happened three times. Three times the Saviour went apart and prayed, and three times He came back and found the disciples asleep. In the presence of such a fact, who among us dare boast of anything? How feeble is the devotion of even the truest-hearted believer!

With what touching grace He points out the strange inconsistency: "Peter, could you not watch with Me one hour?" Where was the strength that was going through everything just now? Yet with what grace He warns, with what grace He excuses: "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Now, having been through this agony, He comes back to His disciples and speaks to them in the gentlest way. What gentleness of grace! Now He is thinking only of them. Where is the cup? He had gone through it all with the Father, and therefore His heart is ready in service. Suppose we, in our small measure, carried all our trials and little troubles to God, and went through the whole of it with Him. Then our hearts would be free and happy to turn round and care for others.

Peter fails, not from self-will, not from willing to sin, but through the weakness of the flesh. In Christ there was no possible moral weakness, because He always walked in the place of weakness in communion with His Father. Peter fails, though only the shadow of temptation comes to him. All Peter's fall began by a lack of dependence, and by neglecting prayer. Our watching must lead us to pray. It is not enough to be ready to pray when temptation comes. We must be walking with God, and so meet temptation in the power of communion and prayer already there. Suppose a believer has no continual prayer, and no constant sense of his own complete weakness. Then the more he loves Christ, and the more he wants to serve Him, the more surely that very good-will will lead him into the place where he dishonours Christ!

He wants your worship, your fellowship in His sufferings. "Could you not watch with Me one hour?" the Lord said to Peter in Gethsemane. Shall we grow tired of being together to think of Him? There is silence, and a chance for deep thought on the holy theme of the Lord's Supper. Shall we then grow restless, and wish someone would speak, or sing, or pray?

Watching may mean looking for the Lord's return, but it may have other meanings. When our Lord said to sleeping Peter, "Watch and pray," He was not calling Peter to watch for His coming from heaven. No, He called him to be vigilant at that moment of agonized wrestling in prayer.

He combined dependence on God, in whom alone he knew his strength and defence to be, with unceasing vigilance against the "roaring lion." These are the two invisible weapons which God puts into the hands of His people in the presence of the enemy — weapons which are enough to defeat his most powerful assaults.

In Gethsemane, notice that the Lord says, Watch and pray lest you enter, not into sin, but into temptation. Christ was perfect through it all, but Peter fell to cursing and swearing, and denied his Lord. It was not a question of Peter's integrity, for he loved the Lord, but he did not know himself. He had to go through this process. Yet before he had ever failed, Christ had prayed for him.

What brought him into the judgment hall? Why did he "enter into temptation" like this? — this was entering into temptation. He had not been told to do so. In verse 58, Peter followed Christ "at a distance," and "went in and sat with the guards to see the end." He "entered into temptation." There he was at that moment — flesh unjudged and trusted in — prayer and watchfulness missing — a moral distance between him and Christ — temptation entered upon, and unholy company sought.

"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," is not a sympathetic comment about them. It is given as a reason for watching and prayer, and to mark how necessary they are. Do not rely on the readiness of your spirit, for the flesh in which you walk is weak; therefore watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.

See how He speaks in grace to Peter: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Oh, I know you love Me. Your hearts are all right, but it is this poor weakness. What perfect grace! He counted on their hearts in one sense when the temptation was coming. When they had failed completely, He thought of the danger to them.

To Him it was now the path of obedience; but whatever was not that was temptation. So it is with everything: all we meet with is an occasion of temptation or of obedience. Only there did it come out, at the point where everything reached its crisis with man.

This was the flesh, ready to face everything. The flesh even when warned is always self-confident… "Watch and pray," that was what Jesus did. If Peter had listened, he would have been on his guard against the temptation, and in dependence on God, and he would not have entered into it. He slept in the presence of temptation, as he had slept in the presence of the glory.

It is not any power given by the Spirit of God that keeps, even though He is the Spirit of power. It is not energy in this or that which keeps, but dependence. It is the sense of weakness that watches and prays, and so has the power of Christ resting on us. His strength made perfect in weakness.

This is the cup of sufferings. This is the cup of the wrath of God which the Lord was aware of here in Gethsemane. He knew that He would have to be made sin... Could One who was pure desire to be made sin? Do we understand His anguish, do we look at Him with adoring hearts? And then He says in verse 42: "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done." Here we see the Lord in His perfect purity. Even so, He makes His own will one with the will of His Father.

He rises and comes back to His disciples. He finds them not watching but asleep. He wakes them with a reproof, and yet with a tender apology for their weakness. Then He goes back to say what He has said before, but with less pleading: "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done."

He should feel it fully, and He did. Otherwise His submission would not have been perfect. But His obedience and submission were perfect... It was a holy desire to shrink from such a judgment, and from being made sin, even while bearing it before God. Yet with it went perfect submission and obedience to His Father, whatever His will was. And He brings it to His Father, where it ought to be brought. He was equally perfect in desiring not to drink it and in obediently submitting to drink it, if it was His Father's will.

But if we were to be saved, if God was to be glorified in Him who had undertaken our cause, the cup must not pass away from Him. And His submission is complete.

If God could ever have set aside the smallest fraction of His righteousness, He would have done it then, at the asking of His own beloved Son. But that was impossible. You would sooner see the sun drop out of the centre of our system and leave us all in darkness and confusion.

The Lord therefore takes the cup, but He takes it from His Father's hand. It was His will that He should drink it. He commits Himself entirely to His Father. So He does not take it from the hand of His enemies, nor from the hand of Satan, though they were the instruments... This is how we escape from second causes and from the temptations of the enemy: by seeking only the will of God, who directs all things.

He went through the depth of His misery in His spirit with God. It was all fully out with God. For that reason He could turn with perfect peace and say to others, "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation."... Everything that meets us is either a temptation or an occasion of obedience. It was to Him an occasion of perfect obedience.

They had not listened to the Lord's warnings, for their eyes were heavy with sleep. They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and proved their own weakness.

I know very well it has been said he could not help it in his weariness. Friends, it is remarkable how sleep would leave your eyes if something really had hold of you. When the affections or the heart are deeply taken up, sleep flies from the eyelids. If Peter's heart, if Peter's soul, had been taken up with the sorrows of Jesus, sleep would have pressed very lightly on his eyes. But it was not so. His own sorrow filled his mind, and so he slept while the Lord was in agony.

"The flesh is weak." I can only think it is the Lord's grace to put that reading on it. People tend to put the worst reading on things; we should seek to put the best... Do you think their eyes were heavy when the armed crowd came, and afterwards? No; but the flesh was weak here. Had there been enough interest in what the Lord asked, this would not have happened. And have we not often done the same, and felt it keenly? We are told to make the best use of the time (Eph. 5:16). We cannot redeem the past.

When He comes to the disciples He finds them sleeping. Think of it! The Master praying, and the servants sleeping. The Master is in agony before God, showing the perfection of human dependence in that moment of unequalled sorrow. The servant is sleeping. Such is human nature. Peter slept in the presence of the glory of the Lord, on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now he is sleeping in the presence of His sorrow.

Where was the strength that was going through everything just now? Yet with what grace He warns, with what grace He excuses! "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." ... But here He was so completely with His Father about the depth of what lay before Him. He had gone through all of it with His Father alone. So His free, unhindered grace could be just as perfect toward His poor, feeble, failing disciples. There was no weight on His spirit with them; He had carried that weight with His Father.

Just here the secret of all the failure comes out. A prayerless life is a powerless life. There can be no standing for God where there is no dependence on God... Peter is seen self-confident (verse 33), sleeping (verse 40), rash (verse 51), cowardly (verse 56), and bold in denying his Master (verse 70).

Later, at the cross, the disciples could have no part at all in the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. But here He expects some fellowship from them in watching with Him — and He finds them sleeping. In times of most pressing need our hearts may be dull and unfeeling. That is because we are not concerned to enter into the Lord's thoughts. Is one hour too long to spend in sympathy with His sorrow?

Verse 44. We learn an important lesson here. Three times over — but not vain repetition! Earlier Scripture tells us not to use vain repetitions. Yet here the blessed Lord uses the same words. We may pray the same thing over and over again, and it need not be vain repetition, if our heart is in it.

His "saying the same words" is instructive for us. It was not mere repetition, which He forbids (ch. 6:7). His soul was so affected that these were the words that expressed His deepest thoughts.

But He takes nothing from man, nor from Satan, nor does He complain as Job did. He prays — He gives Himself to prayer. Satan's effort to hide God from His soul, to get in between, as he sometimes does with believers, was useless. The distress drives Him to God, which is the true sign of the soul's link with Him. "Being in agony, He prayed more earnestly." The cup could not pass — and that was grace, mighty grace. The effect is that He receives it wholly and solely from His Father's hand.

He knew that if He did not drink that cup of judgment on the cross, you and I would have to drink it in eternity. If He did not drink the cup in our place, there was no deliverance for you and me — no salvation, no pardon, no cleansing. As He looked at that cup He shrank from it in all the perfect holiness of His being, He prayed to be spared it with the utmost intensity. Then He took it, and drank it to the very dregs in the perfection of His love.

The Lord asks them to watch with Him for that short time. Do you think their eyes were heavy when the armed crowd came, and after? No — but the flesh was weak here. Had there been enough interest in the Lord's request, this would not have happened. They miss the opportunity of pleasing the Lord. And have we not often done the same, and felt it keenly?

He was perfectly with His Father about the depth of what lay before Him. He had had all of that with Him alone. So His free, unhindered grace could move in full liberty toward His poor, feeble, failing disciples. No weight of it lay on His spirit with them, for He carried that with His Father.

Gethsemane was the doorway of the cross. There He prayed with strong crying and tears, alone with His Father in deepest agony, fallen on His face... He went into all the anguish of death, praying to be spared the cup He had to drink, yet in meek and perfect submission. And He was heard for His godly fear. He was saved, not from dying, for that would have left man in his sins and unredeemed; He was saved out of death. His prayer was answered by His resurrection.

An angel is there to support His bodily weakness. But His spirit receives its strength in prayer, and in knowing that He had come to this point along the pathway of the divine will. So He comes back from that spot in His usual calmness and peacefulness, to place Himself in the hands of His enemies.

The third time the Lord returns to the disciples, He has to say, "Sleep on now and take your rest." They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and proved their own weakness. So the Lord has to say, "It is enough." The time for watching and praying had passed. The time of trial had come. The betrayer was at hand. And the One who had watched and prayed can now say, in confidence and dependence on God, "Rise up, let us go."

In verse 45, in tender words which yet showed them their service was over, and how He had been alone, He says, "Sleep on now" — watching time is finished, the power of evil in act is here.

Now that He has finished His holy, dependent watch of preparation for the cross, He can tell the disciples, "Sleep on now and take your rest." Their true rest did not depend on their watching or their work. It rested on His faithfulness even to death, the death of the cross. He goes out in the calm knowledge that He has conquered. No doubt is left that He will finish the work.

And yet they really may now sleep on and take their rest. The work of deliverance is in hands that cannot fail in what they undertake. A deeper foundation is to be laid now than the one laid for the old earth, and the "new creation" built on it will go far beyond the old in every way.

The disciples show nothing but human weakness in that hour. Weighed down by it, they fall asleep — dazed. It was the same on the mount of glory as in the valley of the shadow of death. They do not respond to His tender call to watch with Him, and they do not see their own need to stay out of temptation.

But they must be fully proved, so He does not send them away. They must be with Him to the end, and learn the lesson however gently it comes. There was overconfidence in Peter, yet even that fitted him to strengthen his brothers once he was restored by a deeper knowledge of what human strength comes to in the things of God.

So the more Satan presses Him, the nearer to God He is. That is why it says, "being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly." As a result He receives nothing from Satan's hand, but from His Father's. "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" Before He left Gethsemane, the whole power of Satan was morally destroyed. He had gone through the hour with His Father, and now He takes the cup from His Father's hand, as an act of obedience.

Marvelous words of grace, calmness and dignity. The Shepherd is ready to give His life for the sheep, so that they might have life and rest.

The Son of Man is now delivered up into the hands of sinners. The Rabbi, Teacher, Prophet, handed over by the false friend, is now wounded in the house of His friends. He is the Shepherd of Israel, who taught daily in the temple, made the flock lie down in green pastures and led them beside the still waters. He could have commanded more than twelve legions of angels. Now He is struck with the sword and the sheep are scattered. His dearest friends could sleep while He watched through that dreadful hour in agony of soul and prayer, and now they all leave Him.

When the enemy is at hand, it is the time for action, not for watching and praying.

The third time the Lord returns to the disciples, He has to say, "Sleep on now and take your rest." They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and proved their own weakness, and the Lord has to say, "It is enough." The time for watching and praying had passed. The time of trial had come. The betrayer was at hand. And the One who had watched and prayed can now say, in confidence and dependence upon God, "Rise, let us be going."

He has now finished His watch of holy, dependent preparation for the cross. So He can tell the disciples, "Sleep on now and take your rest." Their true rest did not depend on their watching or their work. It depended on His faithfulness even to death, the death of the cross. He goes out in the calm awareness that He has conquered. No doubt remains that the work will be done.

Verse 46 may seem to contradict this, because now He tells them to rise and be going. But they may still rest, for He is going to the cross on purpose for them. He knows that Judas is coming, but makes no suggestion of going elsewhere.

The conflict at Gethsemane is behind Him. In full dignity and peace before men, Jesus goes forward to meet God's will at their wicked hands. In the meekest words He lays bare the base evil of Judas, and the rash weakness of the follower who defended Him without thinking. He points to His coming death, though He had every right to command legions of angels for Himself — He who also speaks worlds into existence and brings the wicked to nothing by His word. But He was a prisoner for the will of God, not of man's power.

In verse 45 He uses tender words that still showed them their service was over, and how alone He had been. He says, "Sleep on now" — the watching time is finished, the power of evil is here in action — "Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." But they must be fully proved, He does not send them away. They must be with Him to the end, and learn the lesson, however gently it comes to them. Peter was over-confident. Yet even that fitted him to strengthen his brothers. What restored him was a deeper knowledge of what human strength comes to in the things of God.

Being in an agony, He prays the more earnestly; it drives Him to His Father; and that before the trial comes. Then what is the next thing? When the trial actually comes, it is already gone through with God! He presents Himself before them saying, "Whom do you seek?" as calmly as if going to work a miracle.

Jesus was walking with God. It was not that He did not feel weakness. "Remain here, and watch with me" shows the weakness of the human condition fully felt... Then what is the next thing? When the trial comes, He has already gone through it with God! He presents Himself before them saying, "Whom do you seek?" as calmly as if He were going to work a miracle.

To others he looked just like the other disciples. He had kept company with the Lord. He had been one of those sent out to preach the gospel and work miracles. But his conscience was never before God... Three years walking with Jesus, seeing His grace and love, must have moved Judas's affections. But his conscience had never been at work before God. So it is with many.

It was a trial of man under new circumstances. Judas was a "close friend" (Ps. 41:9) of the Lord Jesus. He heard His gracious words, saw His miracles, and was probably allowed to work miracles himself in His name. And yet, as in every other trial of man, he fell. Judas is a solemn example of how far a person can come under the influence and power of Christianity, and still fall away from the faith.

It seems that Judas made good use of his time since he left the room where the feast was kept. The Lord had said to him, knowing the thoughts of his dark heart, "What you are going to do, do quickly." Possessed by Satan, he had rushed out into the dark night, and, in feverish haste, led on by the evil one, he had succeeded in all his plans.

"The swords show that the Roman soldiers (John 18:3) were at the centre of this crowd. The clubs and so on show that the Jewish temple guard, and other fanatics of various kinds, were there too" (Lange). Jew and Gentile, men of different nations and different classes, were all ready to take part in the world's crowning sin — and they did.

What a scene! Gentiles and Jews come to lay their hands on the Prince of Life, the Lord of Glory, ready to commit the greatest sin. Now all the sinfulness of sin comes into view. But why such a great multitude and such precaution to capture one man, who was "gentle and lowly in heart"? What a testimony after all to His power, which they feared — and yet what blindness.

Let me remind you of the terrible scene which began in the garden of Gethsemane. The Lord then said to those who came to arrest Him, "But this is your hour, and the power of darkness" (Luke 22:53). They had come out with their swords and clubs to do deeds of darkness. But the Lord was serene and unaffected in the face of their threats and weapons. Neither He nor His servants would fight with worldly weapons. His kingdom was not part of this world of darkness.

The crowd showed their violence in their swords and clubs. Judas showed the basest treachery, betraying the Lord with a kiss. Peter sprang into sudden action in his own strength. All the disciples left Him and ran away. Violence, treachery, false and mistaken activity, fear and shame. Again we say, what a story! And such are we when brought face to face with the power of darkness, and out of communion with God.