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This week we continue our discussion of chapter 22 of Luke’s Gospel. Please read verses 41-53 every day this week and, if possible, use a different translation each day, asking God to open your eyes to fresh revelation from His Word.
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Luke 22:49-51 (NIV)
‘When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?”
And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.
But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.’
In previous verses, we read of Peter’s bold statement of “I’ll never forsake you Jesus”. We also read Jesus’ response and that Peter wouldn’t make it through the night without denying Jesus. We know this to be true and sadly we see Peter repeatedly telling the people around him that Jesus wasn’t known to him and that he wasn’t a disciple.
However, prior to that, in our verses today we see Peter being an awful lot more assertive. We read that one of the disciples took a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Only in John’s gospel was the ‘assailant’ named as Peter. John’s gospel was published later and it could be that by that time, it wasn’t possible to be punished for such a crime. Who knows for sure but one thing is definite; John tells us who was involved and Peter is implicated. When our children were very small, we used to have times of ‘play wrestling’ when I would pretend to be beaten up by one of them and ask the other to help me. I certainly didn’t need helping but that didn’t stop the children from doing all they could to assist.
Despite everything that Jesus had said to His disciples, here we see Peter trying to defend his Lord. Jesus had been very specific on so many occasions and had told them that He was to be handed over to die. They just were not listening and failed to realise exactly who it was that was speaking to them. He didn’t need defending. We are told that He could have called a legion of angels to assist if He’d wanted to. He could have just spoken the word and every enemy could have been destroyed. And yet, we see the Lord of all creation willingly submitting Himself to these cruel leaders and wilfully allowing them to lead Him away to His eventual death.
The lesson we can learn from this is that we ought not to try to defend Jesus. We are told in the scripture that we should be ready to give a defence for what we believe, but ultimately, we are totally incapable of defending Jesus. He doesn’t need our help! It’s quite alarming to see what happened in the verses today. Peter took a swipe at the high priest’s servant and could have killed him! Luke records that the sword severed the right ear of the servant. At that, Jesus clearly indicates that He wasn’t in favour of such action. He cries out “No more of this!”. This response from Jesus serves two purposes; it prevents any further attacks from His disciples, but also prevents the enemy from reactively attacking the disciples.
Lastly, we see something wonderful taking place – grace and mercy being manifested by our Lord and Saviour. The very person who was seeking to arrest Jesus was being shown mercy and in grace, Jesus heals the man. I don’t know what happened to this man and the scripture doesn’t mention him again. However, the church, throughout the ages has been aware of unconditional grace and mercy being shown to the enemies of Jesus. This is the pattern that our Lord has laid for us. It is in stark contrast to other so-called religions and ideologies. Jesus wants us to love our enemies, to do good to those who persecute us. Jesus has provided the perfect example and it is up to us to rise to the challenge.
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