This is the final week in our series looking at Jesus' miracles. To conclude, we'll examine the healing at the end of Jesus' ministry, which captures many of the themes we've been exploring over the last few months. On the night of his betrayal and arrest, Jesus was with his disciples in an olive grove known as the Garden of Gethsemane—an Aramaic word meaning "oil press" because the garden was likely where olives were both grown and crushed into oil. It's appropriately named because Gethsemane is where we see Jesus experience excruciating pressure as he feels the anguish of his looming torture and death. It's the location where the forces of evil conspire against him, and where his messianic calling is put to its greatest test.
This is why Jesus called that night in Gethsemane "the hour when darkness reigns" (Luke 22:53). It's the moment when all the powers of sin, evil, and injustice that have enslaved God's world join together to destroy Jesus. The scene may offer the starkest contrast anywhere in the gospels between the way of the world and the way of God's kingdom. In Gethsemane, men armed with swords, clubs, and chains arrived under the cover of darkness to arrest Jesus without justification. They were driven by anger and power, and they were ready to use violent force. They were guided by Judas, the betrayer, who was motivated by greed. And this was where Jesus' own disciples, consumed by fear, would reject all he had taught them and then abandon him to save themselves. That night, Jesus was surrounded by anger, power, fear, greed, lies, and violence.
As the guards seized Jesus, one of his disciples—whom John identifies as Peter—drew a sword and attacked. However, being a fisherman rather than a soldier, Peter only managed to sever a guard's ear. Arguably, a case could be made that Peter was acting in self-defense. Or, even more admirably, that Peter was acting to defend the life of Jesus, an unarmed and innocent man. None of that mattered because Jesus would have none of it. He utterly rejected Peter's act of violence and rebuked him with the strongest possible language. "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matthew 26:52).
Why such a strong response from Jesus? I believe it's because by using violence Peter had abandoned the godly power of Jesus' kingdom and taken up the fallen power of the world's kingdoms. Rather than love, compassion, and mercy, he had chosen fear, anger, and violence. Peter had given in to the lie that the only way to fight fire was with more fire. Armed men had come to take his Master, so Peter believed the only way to resist them was with more arms. Their fear provoked his fear. Their evil drove his evil. Everything Jesus had taught and shown Peter was abandoned at that moment. Interestingly, Peter's armed attack in Gethsemane is the only example anywhere in the New Testament of a Christian using violence, and Jesus completely rejected it.
Instead, at this darkest moment when his own followers had chosen the way of the world, Jesus reminded them of his more excellent way. He knelt down, picked up the severed ear, and healed his enemy. This miracle wasn't performed in order to verify his divine identity. It was not a reward for someone's faith. And it was not done to validate any teaching. Those popular explanations for many of Jesus' other miracles don't apply to this scene in Gethsemane. Here, Jesus healed the guard to offer a glimpse of his kingdom amid the evil that was swirling like a hurricane all around them. Gethsemane was the world at its worst, And yet, even at that hour when darkness reigned, Jesus showed that the light of God's kingdom had come into the world and the darkness would not overcome it.
Luke 22:35-53 (NIV)
35 Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?”
“Nothing,” they answered.
36 He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. 37 It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”
38 The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.”
“That’s enough!” he replied.
39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” 41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
45 When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 46 “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”
47 While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, 48 but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
49 When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” 50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.
51 But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? 53 Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.”
from Brother Lawrence (1611 - 1691)
My God, you are always close to me. In obedience to you, I must now apply myself to outward things. Yet, as I do so, I pray that you will give me the grace of your presence. And to this end I ask that you will assist my work, receive its fruits as an offering to you, and all the while direct all my affections to you.
Amen.
