Matthew 26:47-56

§ 132. APPREHENSION OF JESUS, Matthew 26:47-56 .

While the solemn scenes of the Last Supper and of Gethsemane are transpiring, a very different business is going on between Judas and the Jewish authorities. The armed band is furnished; he knows the customary place of Jesus and his twelve; and now, lo! he comes. To show that he truly lays down his life with full power to retain it, our Lord for a moment by divine power overwhelms his assailants. (See John 18:4-9.) He meets with cutting rebuke the treacherous kiss of the betrayer. He arrests the sword of Peter and heals the wound it inflicted. He reproves the shamefulness of their armed band, and declares that he submits only to the divine necessity of fulfilling the prophetic Scripture. His disciples flee; the evangelist Mark is all but apprehended. (Mark 14:51.) The Saviour then is in the hands and at the mercy of his enemies.