Daily Devotion for Saturday 19th July 2025

St John 18: 1 – 14

After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples.  So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’  They answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus replied, ‘I am he.’ Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them.  When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he’, they stepped back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ And they said, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’  Jesus answered, ‘I told you that I am he.  So if you are looking for me, let these men go.’  This was to fulfil the word that he had spoken, ‘I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.’  Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus.  Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?’ So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him.  First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year.  Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people.

Reflection

Yesterday we heard the words of Jesus to his followers immediately before his arrest, sharing a heartfelt call for unity – that all may be one. At first reading it would appear that today’s passage immediately shatters that desired unity as Judas brings the soldiers and police of the chief priests to arrest Jesus. How can Jesus talk of all being one when one of his closest has betrayed him?

Now it is Peter’s turn to break rank, once again struggling to accept the fate Jesus seems so willing to embrace as he attempts to defend Jesus by the sword. Only to find himself, once again, rebuked by Jesus for attempting to subvert the divine plan. 

It’s here that we can fall into the danger of interpreting the theology of John’s Gospel in ways that make Jesus less than human; believing that he was unable to deviate from his divinely ordained destiny to die on the Cross. This I believe is a mistake. This story of his arrest needs a human Jesus contemplating the options of fight or flee just as anyone would do, yet choosing to stay in bold defiance of the powers which confronted him. This Jesus is no meek and mild character. His apparent surrender is strength personified. A strength of purpose he maintains as he progresses through the ranks of every increasing authority and cruelty – submitting to neither. 

The Passion of John may well lead us to confess Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God but let it also remind us that Jesus, as human as the rest of us, was a truly remarkable man. He gave of himself, even to the point of death, that all may be one.

Prayer

In our humanness and frailty
may we hear the story of the human Jesus,
neither fleeing nor fighting
neither giving in nor giving up,
and be astounded by the power 
of his quiet defiance,
his love for each one of us,
that all may be one.