You have a best friend. He is amazing and you’ve been with him for years. You are completely convinced that he’s the guy you’ve been waiting for all your life and now he’s asking you to get swords.
“We have two,” you say, a bit doubtfully.
“That’s enough,” your friend replies, and you remember the time he turned two fish into a feast for five thousand. Ah, well, it’s clear what he has planned, and he’s got it under control. You decide not to worry about it, and fall asleep.
He doesn’t like that, but you can’t tell why he’s getting so excited. After all, this is the guy who can sleep through a storm on the Galilee. So you decided to emulate him and catch a few winks before the battle. What’s the big deal?
Then the soldiers come, led by your good friend, Judas, and you’re a bit baffled. What’s Judas doing on that side? Oh well, one fewer person contending for that seat on the right. You draw your sword. It’s clear the time has come.
You charge, but your nerve fails at the last moment. You kill fish, not men, what are you doing with this sword in your hand? The blow goes wild and it cuts off the guy’s ear, not his head. You step back, feeling like a failure.
Your friend is no help at all.
“Put the sword away!” he cries. “All who live by the sword die by the sword!” And then he puts the guy’s ear back on.
Next moment, you’re running through the garden in a total panic. What insanity is this? You were going to defeat the Romans! You had two swords, and a leader who could call down fire from heaven! Now he’s just walking away with them? Calmly letting them kill him?
It can’t be. Something’s gone wrong. You find John, or John finds you—no one’s really clear on that point—and you go to the temple courthouse to find out what happens next. John has connections, so he’s let inside, but you have to wait by the fire.
A servant goes by. He recognizes you and asks about your friend, the man on trial for his life.
“I don’t know the him,” you say. It’s the truth. You don’t. What in the world is that numbskull playing at? Letting himself be taken like that, refusing to fight? This isn’t the way to win a war!
“But you do know him! You’re clearly from Galilee, we can hear the accent.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I’ve never met him.” Can’t they stop talking? You need to think. This is all too much and you’re not interested in telling anyone stories while your best friend is in there, getting himself killed.
“I saw you in the gardens with him! You cut off my brother-in-law’s ear!”
Now you’re enraged, and you start swearing at them. Can’t they all go harass someone else?
It’s at that moment that the doors open and Jesus walks across the courtyard. He looks at you, and somehow he knows what you’ve been saying. You can’t explain, you didn’t mean it like that. He’s surrounded by soldiers, this is the last time you’re going to see him, and he heard something that wasn’t the way it sounded. You do love him… you’re just really confused… but it doesn’t matter.
He’s gone and you’ll never get him back.
You go out and you weep. Bitterly.
This post originally appeared at Narnia Passport.
Photo of the Weeping Girls courtesy of Albert.
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