When he said to them, “I AM,”
they turned away and fell to the ground.
So he again asked them,
“Whom are you looking for?”
They said, “Jesus the Nazorean.”
At the sheer force of his identity "they turned away and fell to the ground". Every knee would bow at the name above all names (see Philippians 2:10), and they, though they did not intend it, were no exception. And this was apparently so intense that it was as though Jesus himself had to remind them what they were about after the initial impact of these words.
Jesus answered,
“I told you that I AM.
So if you are looking for me, let these men go.”
The intensity of the presence of Jesus himself might have led the soldiers and guards to arrest anyone and everyone except Jesus himself. But this was not the plan. The disciples were not yet ready to follow Jesus and it would not be forced upon them to their loss.
This was to fulfill what he had said,
“I have not lost any of those you gave me.”
Everyone seemed altogether ready to bring about a scene that was different in some way or other from the will of the Father. Simon Peter, ever boastful, was willing to fight for the cause. But this was not a cause that could be won by fighting. To truly share the lot of Jesus in his hour could not be accomplished with a sword. And it would remain the case throughout the history of Christianity that the will of the Father would be accomplished, not by the sword, but by the chalice.
Jesus said to Peter,
“Put your sword into its scabbard.
Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?”
Pilate wanted to dismiss Jesus as a Jewish problem, to pass off responsibility to others and evade the intuition he had that Jesus was innocent. But though Jesus was innocent he was more than just a bystander randomly selected. The sphere of his royal authority meant that even Pilate was not exempt from the need to decide for or against Jesus. Jesus was the King over all who would listen to the truth. And no one could remain neutral in regard truth itself.
Jesus answered,
“You say I am a king.
For this I was born and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate tried to take the only out available to him, one taken by many, especially politicians, which was to have a pragmatic relationship even to the truth itself. He said, "What is truth?", apparently deciding that even truth itself was malleable enough to be subjected to his political ends. At first he thought this impulse would be enough to allow him to spare Jesus. But it was revealed eventually that it was not sufficient to merely not be against Jesus and the truth he spoke. By not deciding for Jesus he inexorably succumbed to the pressure against him, directed as at was directly at his those values which truly mattered most to him.
Consequently, Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out,
“If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar.
Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”
Jesus himself would have found it easy to convince Pilate to dismiss the charges if he had simply been willing to equivocate and explain himself. Pilate was ready and waiting for such an explanation, ready to shift the balance away from the chalice Jesus knew he was meant to drink. And so again we witness Jesus saying exactly what he needed to say to continue to architect the circumstances precisely in accord with his Father's will. And this did not stop with Pilate. Even from the cross itself had continued to act in fidelity to his Father's plan. Precisely at the moment when any of us would have been far too concerned with ourselves and our pain to think about anything or anyone else Jesus was still demonstrating his love for the Father and for us.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved
he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.”
Then he said to the disciple,
“Behold, your mother.”
Even the thirst of Jesus on the cross was not merely succumbing to a bodily impulse. It was similar to when he asked the Samaritan woman for a drink. His true thirst was that she would ask him for the living water he desired to give. So too here, the thirst of Jesus was that we would thirst for him, that we would desire the living water which was just then about to flow from his Sacred Heart.
but one soldier thrust his lance into his side,
and immediately blood and water flowed out.
This was the living water of the Holy Spirit which could finally be given. It had not been given previously "because Jesus was not yet glorified" (see John 7:39). This was the true stream flowing forth from the true temple of God, the source of every grace and blessing (see Ezekiel 47:1, Psalm 46:4, Revelation 22:1-3). Of all of the many different ways the Passion of Jesus could have gone if others had their way, only in this way was the Spirit able to be poured out as Jesus desired. And it was and remains his thirst that we drink from this stream.
Let us not, therefore, shy away from the fullness of love that Jesus displayed for us. He allowed himself to become "one of those from whom people hide their faces", but did so precisely for us, for our infirmities and sufferings and sins, and did so when all of us had gone astray. Even our own weakness, like the weakness of Peter, is no longer enough to prevent the Lord from lavishing his love upon us. Jesus himself knows our human frame. He sympathizes with us in our weakness. He is ready to forgive even our deepest betrayals. The throne of grace was opened to us at the very moment his side was pierced, at the moment that the veil of the temple was torn. We now have the assurance that if we will but avail ourselves we will always and forevermore be able to "receive mercy and to find grace for timely help."
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