'And immediately, while He yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the twelve,
and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief
priests and the scribes and the elders. 44. And he that betrayed Him
had given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is
He; take Him, and lead Him away safely. 45. And as soon as he was
come, he goeth straightway to Him, and saith, Master, Master; and
kissed Him. 46. And they laid their hands on Him, and took Him. 47.
And one of them that stood by drew a sword, and smote a servant of the
high priest, and cut off his ear. 48. And Jesus answered and said unto
them, Are ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves
to take Me? 49. I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye
took Me not: but the scriptures must be fulfilled. 50. And they all
forsook Him, and fled. 51. And there followed Him a certain young man,
having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young man laid
hold on Him: 52. And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them
naked. 53. And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and with him
were assembled all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes.
54. And Peter followed Him afar off, even into the palace of the high
priest: and he sat with the servants, and warmed himself at the
fire.'--Mark xiv. 43-54.
A comparison of the three first Gospels in this section shows a degree
of similarity, often verbal, which is best accounted for by supposing
that a common (oral?) 'Gospel,' which had become traditionally fixed
by frequent and long repetition, underlies them all. Mark's account is
briefest, and grasps with sure instinct the essential points; but,
even in his brevity, he pauses to tell of the young man who so nearly
shared the Lord's apprehension. The canvas is narrow and crowded; but
we may see unity in the picture, if we regard as the central fact the
sacrilegious seizure of Jesus, and the other incidents and persons as
grouped round it and Him, and reflecting various moods of men's
feelings towards Him.
I. The avowed and hypocritical enemies of incarnate love. Again we
have Mark's favourite 'straightway,' so frequent in the beginning of
the Gospel, and occurring twice here, vividly painting both the sudden
inburst of the crowd which Interrupted Christ's words and broke the
holy silence of the garden, and Judas's swift kiss. He is named--the
only name but our Lord's in the section; and the depth of his sin is
emphasised by adding 'one of the twelve.' He is not named in the next
verse, but gibbeted for immortal infamy by the designation, 'he that
betrayed Him.' There is no dilating on his crime, nor any bespattering
him with epithets. The passionless narrative tells of the criminal and
his crime with unsparing, unmoved tones, which have caught some echo
beforehand of the Judge's voice. To name the sinner, and to state
without cloak or periphrasis what his deed really was, is condemnation
enough. Which of us could stand it?
Judas was foremost of the crowd. What did he feel as he passed swiftly
into the shadow of the olives, and caught the first sight of Jesus?
That the black depths of his spirit were agitated is plain from two
things--the quick kiss, and the nauseous repetition of it. Mark says,
'Straightway ... he kissed Him much.' Probably the swiftness and
vehemence, so graphically expressed by these two touches, were due,
not only to fear lest Christ should escape, and to hypocrisy
overacting its part, but to a struggle with conscience and ancient
affection, and a fierce determination to do the thing and have it
over. Judas is not the only man who has tried to drown conscience by
hurrying into and reiterating the sin from which conscience tries to
keep him. The very extravagances of evil betray the divided and stormy
spirit of the doer. In the darkness and confusion, the kiss was a
surer token than a word or a pointing finger would have been; and
simple convenience appears to have led to its selection. But what a
long course of hypocrisy must have preceded and how complete the
alienation of heart must have become, before such a choice was
possible! That traitor's kiss has become a symbol for all treachery
cloaked in the garb of affection. Its lessons and warnings are
obvious, but this other may be added--that such audacity and
nauseousness of hypocrisy is not reached at a leap, but presupposes
long underground tunnels of insincere discipleship, through which a
man has burrowed, unseen by others, and perhaps unsuspected by
himself. Much hypocrisy of the unconscious sort precedes the
deliberate and conscious.
How much less criminal and disgusting was the rude crowd at Judas's
heels! Most of them were mere passive tools. The Evangelist points
beyond them to the greater criminals by his careful enumeration of all
classes of the Jewish authorities, thus laying the responsibility
directly on their shoulders, and indirectly on the nation whom they
represented. The semi-tumultuous character of the crowd is shown by
calling them 'a multitude,' and by the medley of weapons which they
carried. Half-ignorant hatred, which had had ample opportunities of
becoming knowledge and love, offended formalism, blind obedience to
ecclesiastical superiors, the dislike of goodness--these impelled the
rabble who burst into the garden of Gethsemane.
II. Incarnate love, bound and patient. We may bring together verses
46, 48, and 49, the first of which tells in simplest, briefest words
the sacrilegious violence done to Jesus, while the others record His
calm remonstrance. 'They laid hands on Him.' That was the first stage
in outrage--the quick stretching of many hands to secure the
unresisting prisoner. They 'took Him,' or, as perhaps we might better
render, 'They held Him fast,' as would have been done with any
prisoner. Surely, the quietest way of telling that stupendous fact is
the best! It is easy to exclaim, and, after the fashion of some
popular writers of lives of Christ, to paint fancy pictures. It is
better to be sparing of words, like Mark, and silently to meditate on
the patient long-suffering of the love which submitted to these
indignities, and on the blindness which had no welcome but this for
'God manifest in the flesh.' Both are in full operation to-day, and
the germs of the latter are in us all.
Mark confines himself to that one of Christ's sayings which sets in
the clearest light His innocence and meek submissiveness. With all its
calmness and patience, it is majestic and authoritative, and sounds as
if spoken from a height far above the hubbub. Its question is not only
an assertion of His innocence, and therefore of his captor's guilt,
but also declares the impotence of force as against Him--'Swords and
staves to take Me!' All that parade of arms was out of place, for He
was no evil-doer; needless, for He did not resist; and powerless,
unless He chose to let them prevail. He speaks as the stainless,
incarnate Son of God. He speaks also as Captain of 'the noble army of
martyrs,' and His question may be extended to include the truth that
force is in its place when used against crime, but ludicrously and
tragically out of place when employed against any teacher, and
especially against Christianity. Christ, in His persecuted confessors,
puts the same question to the persecutors which Christ in the flesh
put to His captors.
The second clause of Christ's remonstrance appeals to their knowledge
of Him and His words, and to their attitude towards Him. For several
days He had daily been publicly teaching in the Temple. They had laid
no hands on Him. Nay, some of them, no doubt, had helped to wave the
palm-branches and swell the hosannas. He does not put the contrast of
then and now in its strongest form, but spares them, even while He
says enough to bring an unseen blush to some cheeks. He would have
them ask, 'Why this change in us, since He is the same? Did He deserve
to be hailed as King a few short hours ago? How, then, before the
palm-branches are withered, can He deserve rude hands?' Men change in
their feelings to the unchanging Christ; and they who have most
closely marked the rise and fall of the tide in their own hearts will
be the last to wonder at Christ's captors, and will most appreciate
the gentleness of His rebuke and remonstrance.
The third clause rises beyond all notice of the human agents, and
soars to the divine purpose which wrought itself out through them.
That divine purpose does not make them guiltless, but it makes Jesus
submissive. He bows utterly, and with no reluctance, to the Father's
will, which could be wrought out through unconscious instruments, and
had been declared of old by half-understanding prophets, but needed
the obedience of the Son to be clear-seeing, cheerful, and complete.
We, too, should train ourselves to see the hand that moves the pieces,
and to make God's will our will, as becomes sons. Then Christ's calm
will be ours, and, ceasing from self, and conscious of God everywhere,
and yielding our wills, which are the self of ourselves, to Him, we
shall enter into rest.
III. Rash love defending its Lord with wrong weapons (verse 47). Peter
may have felt that he must do something to vindicate his recent
boasting, and, with his usual headlong haste, stops neither to ask
what good his sword is likely to do, nor to pick his man and take
deliberate aim at him. If swords were to be used, they should do
something more effectual than hacking off a poor servant's ear. There
was love In the foolish deeds and a certain heroism in braving the
chance of a return thrust or capture, which should go to Peter's
credit. If he alone struck a blow for his Master, it was because the
others were more cowardly, not more enlightened. Peter has had rather
hard measure about this matter, and is condemned by some of us who
would not venture a tenth part of what he ventured for his Lord then.
No doubt, this was blind and blundering love, with an alloy of
rashness and wish for prominence; but that is better than unloving
enlightenment and caution, which is chiefly solicitous about keeping
its own ears on. It is also worse than love which sees and reflects
the image of the meek Sufferer whom it loves. Christ and His cause are
to be defended by other weapons. Christian heroism endures and does
not smite. Not only swords, but bitter words which wound worse than
they, are forbidden to Christ's soldier. We are ever being tempted to
fight Christ's battles with the world's weapons; and many a 'defender
of the faith' in later days, perhaps even in this very enlightened
day, has repeated Peter's fault with less excuse than he, and with
very little of either his courage or his love.
IV. Cowardly love forsaking its Lord (verse 50). 'They all forsook
Him, and fled.' And who will venture to say that he would not have
done so too? The tree that can stand such a blast must have deep
roots. The Christ whom they forsook was, to them, but a fragment of
the Christ whom we know; and the fear which scattered them was far
better founded and more powerful than anything which the easy-going
Christians of to-day have to resist. Their flight may teach us to
place little reliance on our emotions, however genuine and deep, and
to look for the security for our continual adherence to Christ, not to
our fluctuating feelings, but to His steadfast love. We keep close to
Him, not because our poor fingers grasp His hand--for that grasp is
always feeble, and often relaxed--but because His strong and gentle
hand holds us with a grasp which nothing can loosen. Whoso trusts in
his own love to Christ builds on sand, but whoso trusts in Christ's
love to him builds on rock.
V. Adventurous curiosity put to flight (verses 51, 52). Probably this
young man was Mark. Only he tells the incident, which has no bearing
on the course of events, and was of no importance but to the person
concerned. He has put himself unnamed in a corner of his picture, as
monkish painters used to do, content to associate himself even thus
with his Lord. His hastily cast-on covering seems to show that he had
been roused from sleep. Mingled love and curiosity and youthful
adventurousness made him bold to follow when Apostles had fled. No
effort appears to have been made to stop their flight; but he is laid
hold of, and, terrified at his own rashness, wriggles himself out of
his captors' hands. The whole incident singularly recalls Mark's
behaviour on Paul's first missionary journey. There are the same
adventurousness, the same inconsiderate entrance on perilous paths,
the same ignominious and hasty retreat at the first whistle of the
bullets. A man who pushes himself needlessly into difficulties and
dangers without estimating their force is pretty sure to take to his
heels as soon as he feels them, and to cut as undignified a figure as
this naked fugitive.
VI. Love frightened, but following (verse 54). Fear had driven Peter
but a little way. Love soon drew him and John back. Sudden and often
opposite impulses moved Ms conduct and ruffled the surface of his
character, but, deep down, the core was loyal love. He followed, but
afar off; though 'afar off,' he did follow. If his distance betrayed
his terror, his following witnessed his bravery. He is not a coward
who is afraid, but he who lets his fear hinder him from duty or drive
him to flight. What is all Christian living but following Christ afar
off? And do the best of us do more, though we have less apology for
our distance than Peter had? 'Leaving us an example, that ye should
follow His steps' said he, long after, perhaps remembering both that
morning and the other by the lake when he was bidden to leave other
servants' tasks to the Master's disposal, and, for his own part, to
follow Him.
His love pushed him into a dangerous place. He was in bad company
among the inferior sort of servants huddled around the fire that cold
morning, at the lower end of the hall; and as its light flickered on
his face, he was sure to be recognised. But we have not now to do with
his denial. Rather he is the type of a true disciple, coercing his
human weakness and cowardice to yield to the attraction which draws
him to his Lord, and restful in the humblest place where he can catch
a glimpse of His face, and so be, as he long after alleged it as his
chief title to authority to have been, 'a witness of the sufferings of
Christ.'