This coming week will be Passion Week and it is also a week when Christ made his final entry into the holy city. It is almost the Passover and the diaspora have now flocked into Jerusalem to celebrate this most important festival together with the Feasts of Unleavened Bread and First Fruits.

In Mark’s Gospel, the disciples asked the Lord: “Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?” (Mark 14:12) Jesus told them to go into the city and they will see a man carrying a pitcher, which is unusual for men. They inquired of him the guest room which implies that Jesus had good reason to quietly make arrangements for Passover. None of the synoptic gospels mentioned the lamb for the Passover, except John’s gospel when He was called the Lamb of God.

In the evening, He came with the twelve. Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.” Troubled, they began asking the Lord, “Is it I?” The Lord went on to say that, “The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born”. In John’s gospel it was John himself who asked the Lord, “Who is it”? He answered, “He it is, to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it” (John 13:26). When He had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot. Of all the disciples, only John knew who the betrayer is.

After singing the psalms they made their way to the Garden of Gethsemane and he encouraged his disciples to pray that they will not be tempted. Gethsemane means “olive press”. It was a place where olives from the neighbourhood were crushed for their oil. So too, the Son of God would be crushed here. As He began to be troubled and deeply distressed … My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death: Jesus knew what the Father’s will was; yet He still endured this agony. It was because Jesus was to be a sacrifice for sins, and He wasn’t an unknowing sacrificial animal. Nor was He a victim of circumstances. He resolved willingly to lay down His life.

He went to a lonely place to pray. He begged His Father to take away the cup, but it was not taken away. Instead, the Father strengthened Jesus to be able to take and drink the cup. In the Old Testament, the cup is a powerful picture of the wrath and judgment of God according to Jeremiah 25:15. Jesus, deeply distressed and according to Luke’s Gospel: “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). (Sweat of Blood?) The worse is yet to come when Judas would identify the Lord with a kiss. His betrayer had given them a signal, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He is the One, seize Him and lead Him away safely. When Judas arrived with the mob, immediately he went up to Him and said to Him, “Rabbi, Rabbi!” and kissed Him. A kiss is supposed to show love, appreciation, reflection and affection but this one is different. It is what I call “The Kiss of the Serpent”. As the soldiers laid hands of Him, they led him away to fulfill all scriptures. In the same way, as Jesus had predicted, the disciple dispersed to their hiding place. What a tragedy!

• Reverend Vakaroto Ngaro, Lecturer – Takamoa Theological College