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Luke 22:47–53
“One of [the disciples] struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched his ear and healed him” (vv. 50–51).
Soon after Jesus encouraged His disciples to pray that they would not fall into temptation, the time of His suffering and occasion for them to deny Him occurred (Luke 22:39–46). As we see in today’s passage, while Jesus was speaking to His disciples on the Mount of Olives, Judas led a crowd of chief priests, temple officers, and elders to arrest our Lord (vv. 47–53).
Judas, we see in verses 47–48, betrayed Jesus by identifying Him to the hostile crowd with a kiss. Likely he did this because it was dark and it would have been difficult for people to quickly single out Jesus. Judas’ kiss was a profound act of hypocrisy and an inversion of the order that God had established for His Son. Instead of kissing the Son in honor as Psalm 2 commands and as figures such as the woman who anointed Jesus exemplified (Luke 7:36–38), Judas kissed Jesus to dishonor Him, to hand Him over to death and destruction.
Peter, zealous to protect Christ, intervened and tried to stop the arrest by striking the high priest’s servant Malchus, cutting off his ear (22:49–50; see John 18:10). Yet Jesus’ arrest had to occur for Him to die as One numbered among the transgressors and thus to save His people (Isa. 53:12). Our Lord stepped forward to put an end to any rescue attempts at the hands of men. He even healed Malchus as a magnificent display of His love for His enemies (Luke 22:51). Of course, Jesus would be rescued just three days later by God in His resurrection.
Before the officers took Jesus into custody, He remarked that they could have arrested Him peacefully in the daylight, for He could have easily been found teaching in the temple. They came at night because the hour belonged to them—it was appointed for their purposes—and because it was fitting for the power of darkness behind the events to operate in the literal darkness of night (vv. 52–53). Matthew Henry comments that we can actually draw encouragement from God’s enemies’ having an hour of “triumph” when we are considering the church’s travails in this world. He notes three truths: “(1.) It is but an hour that is permitted for the triumph of our adversary, a short time, a limited time. (2.) It is their hour, which is appointed them, and in which they are permitted to try their strength, that omnipotence may be the more glorified in their fall. (3.) It is the power of darkness that [succeeds for a moment, but] darkness must give way to light, and the power of darkness be made to [submit] to the prince of light.”
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Any apparent victory of the powers of darkness is only temporary, for the ultimate victory belongs to the resurrected Christ, who has conquered death and overcome the worst that the devil could throw at Him. No situation is ever truly hopeless for the people of God, for we serve the victorious Savior.
For further study
- Exodus 15:21
- Isaiah 33:1
- Mark 14:43–50
- 2 Corinthians 2:14
The bible in a year
- Ezekiel 10–12
- Hebrews 11:1–16