One of my ex-pastors wrote about luke 22 today. So I was thinking about it and to me, this is such a sad tale of unravelling.
Jesus needs his friends but he doesn’t actually ask them to pray right with him, right then, for his needs – he goes a stone’s throw away. I think maybe he thought he had to go it alone more than he did (I can’t see how that would stop him being sinless and it’s very human, so to me it fits with who Jesus is). So Jesus withdrew and was horribly alone in his worst times.
Judas had the horrible role of betrayer – I think Judas truly thought he was doing the right thing, but later he – well he died, I think there is mystery about how, exactly? But maybe suicide after he realised what he’d done.
And then Peter who denies Jesus only to realise Jesus predicted that and so he is undone. And also there’s the mysterious man who ran away naked – maybe a subtle reference to being the author of that account? So everything unravels and soon Jesus will be absolutely, literally dead.
I think however the accounts had gone after that, if I knew this part, the disciples scattering and Jesus facing the death penalty, then literally having that enacted –
if I’d known all that, I would have had a really hard time getting from there to Acts and the early chuch.
I would have known, wow, these people with no hope got hope back again! I would have been curious and I would have been drawn to look into this and find out more.
Ok seems like I’ve said more than enough, but it did strike me, how Luke 22 is like the quick and unexpected unravelling of all Jesus had been working on for around 3 years. As I said that feels so so sad to me.