At that time Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out with swords and clubs, as if I were a criminal, to capture me? Every day I used to sit, teaching in the temple, and you didn’t arrest me. But all this has happened so that the writings of the prophets would be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and ran away. (Matthew 26:55-56)
Prior to the events of Matthew 26, Jesus’s disciples spent the last three years closely involved with his ministry. Not only did they do life together, they were taught personally byJesus and saw numerous miracles that he performed. In his Gospel account, the apostle John wrote: “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25). However, regardless of all the time they spent with Jesus, the disciples abandoned Jesus during his greatest time of need.
Although the disciples claimed that they would not deny Jesus (26:35), the following happened:
- Judas previously agreed to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver (26:15)
- Peter, James, and John fell asleep when Jesus was wrestling with the prospect of God’s wrath on the cross (26:36-46)
- The disciples ran away when a large mob arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane to arrestJesus (26:55-56)
- Peter denies knowing Jesus three times even though he boldly claimed he would not(26:69-74)
As Christians reading this narrative today, it is easy to fall into the trap thinking that if we were in the same situation as the apostles we wouldn’t do the same thing. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we sometimes live like we do not know Jesus or treat him as an afterthought. We often allow things such as our jobs, hobbies, and relationships to be our main focus in our lives. While they’re not bad things in and out of themselves, they become idols if we put them before God. Additionally, it is also easy to fall into the trap of treating going to church, reading the Bible, and Scriptures as items to be checked off our to do list. Instead of doing these disciplines out of love for God and desiring to know him, we can find ourselves just going through the motions.
However, as we see after his resurrection, Jesus gave his disciples his Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). Although they abandoned him during the night of his arrest, Jesus forgave and entrusted them to begin sharing the Gospel to all nations. The book of Acts narrates Peter, James, and John’s boldness to preach the Gospel regardless of the opposition they faced. They showed boldness that they didn’t have at the Garden of Gethsemane. What does this mean for his disciples living in the 21st century?
Although we stumble daily in our walk with Jesus, he is always gracious and merciful to us. He is our high priest who is able to empathize with our weaknesses since he also faced temptation but did not sin (Hebrews 14:15). God showed his love for us in that while we were still slaves to sin, he sent Jesus to die in our place (Romans 5:8-10) in order to reconcile us with him. Jesus calls us to serve him and share the Gospel; he does not expect us to reach complete perfection from sin in our time in this world. For example, Jesus called Paul to be the Apostle to the Gentiles even though he was previously a leading persecutor of the church. Let us trust thatGod can work through us for his glory regardless of our strengths and weaknesses.