Saturday, Oct. 19
Matthew 26:1 – 27:10 Read it here
A recurring event in the gospels is Jesus going away “to a lonely place” to pray.
While the word “lonely” is used to describe it, those passages never really sound lonely. They sound like they are times that Jesus has peaceful solitude to spend time with his father. It sounds like a comfortable loneliness.
Chapter 26 and the first verses of chapter 27 show the darkest side of loneliness. Even when Jesus is on the cross there are those close to him nearby, but on this fateful Thursday night, betrayal and abandonment come from every direction.
The Last Supper is a painful farewell…all the more so since, even now, the disciples don’t seem to fully grasp what Jesus has been trying to tell them.
Then comes the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus asks his closest friends and disciples to stay with him in his time of isolation. Instead, they fall asleep.
Peter, the rock who is the foundation stone of Jesus’s support, denies him in his fear.
And punctuating the passage is the story of Judas, a man in Jesus’s inner circle of trust, who betrays him for cash. And then, at the end, Judas does not have enough faith in God’s love and forgiveness to repent of his sin, and dies by his own hand.
We often remark on the irony of calling the day of crucifixion “Good Friday.”
But on Friday the work of redemption kicks in.
Jesus will die, but that death will lead somewhere.
On Thursday, though, the bleakness is unrelieved. Jesus faces the darkest night of his life surrounded by people who should be his most faithful friends, but all alone.
When we face our darkest nights, our deepest fears, our most painful disappointments, we cry out to God, “You don’t know what it’s like…”
But he does.