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| Duccio Buoninsegna ~ The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus |
And at once, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, came up and with him a number of men armed with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the traitor had arranged a signal with them saying, The one I kiss, he is the man. Arrest him, and see he is well guarded when you lead him away. So when the traitor came, he went up to Jesus at once and said, Rabbi! and kissed him. The others seized him and arrested him.Then one of the bystanders drew his sword and struck out at the high priest's servant and cut off his ear. (Mark 14:43-46)
GOD HIMSELF IS WITH US. And while Jesus is in the center of the garden, stately and resigned, there is a great swirl of activity around him: a Roman cohort, fleeing apostles, Peter going after the High Priest's servant with a knife.
There is an old Jewish proverb which says, If God lived in a house on earth, all his windows would be broken. Indeed. Notice to the right of the painting above, behind the fleeing apostles, even the earth has opened up in a great yawning or a mouth from which the earth itself spits up hatred against God's presence among us.
And Jesus said it would be so. ISIS destroying the tomb of the Prophet Jonah, Syria's churches in flames, the beheading of twenty-one Coptic Christians...
So what is there to do? Pray all of Psalm 119 broken up into sections between now and Easter. Feel it. It begins, How blessed are those whose way is blameless...
