Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction

This Sunday Gos­pel is a present­a­tion of what Jesus suffered because he pre­ferred to be just, faith­ful, com­mit­ted and ded­ic­ated to his mis­sion. The length of the read­ing sig­ni­fies his agony. Hav­ing explained to the dis­ciples the cri­terion for behold­ing the pres­ence of God (Matt 25:31–46), and two days before the Jew­ish Pas­sov­er, Jesus revealed to his dis­ciples his fate once he enters Jer­u­s­alem. The Son of Man will be handed over to be cru­ci­fied. This is God’s plan of sal­va­tion for human­ity being real­ized through Jesus Christ. 

Who betrayed Jesus?

Fol­low­ing the Gos­pel accounts, the fol­low­ing were act­ively and con­vin­cingly involved in the betray­al of Jesus: 

1. Judas Iscari­ot him­self (cf. Matt 26:14–16);
2. the rest of the dis­ciples (cf. Matt 26:56 – ful­filling v.31);
3. Peter (cf. Matt 26:69–74).
4. The pion­eer betray­ers. That is, the chief priests – archiere­is, the scribes/teachers of the law – gram­mateis and eld­ers – pres­b­uteroi (cf. Matt 26:1–4.47.59–61). I included these people in this list not because they betrayed dir­ectly Jesus, but because they betrayed that which they rep­res­en­ted – cus­todi­ans of justice and upright­ness. I also clas­si­fied them as pion­eer betray­ers because the fire was ignited by them (cf. Matt 26:3–5).

Conclusion

After the Pas­sov­er meal, Jesus took his dis­ciples to Geth­se­mane (oil press) and asked them to remain in a par­tic­u­lar spot while he went a little fur­ther to pray. Jesus knew his time was gradu­ally draw­ing near and so, he intens­i­fied his pray­er. When he came back to his dis­ciples, he found them sleep­ing. Oh yes! The dis­ciples can com­fort­ably sleep after all anoth­er per­son can­not under­stand intern­al sick­ness except the vic­tim. Some­times you com­plain about your con­di­tion but it seems those around you do not under­stand you. In fact, they do not even care. In such case, what do you do? Give up or go to your best friend? Jesus went and remained with his best friend – his Fath­er who under­stood the agony he was passing through. The dis­ciples slept because they were pass­ive to the suf­fer­ings of Jesus. Many people become act­ive only when their interest is at stake, oth­er­wise, what oth­ers are passing through does not con­cern them. Jesus advised the dis­ciples to pray so as not to fall into tempta­tion. Chris­ti­ans should equally do the same.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the Palm Sunday of Lent is found in The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 202–224. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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