Matthew 26:45-46 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
Some things happen in an instant, seemingly without warning. A car accident usually comes without warning, or you would avoid it. A heart attack usually comes suddenly. You find out about a pregnancy and everything changes.
But I want you to try to put yourself in some else’s shoes for a few moments. You are one of the disciples waiting for Jesus to finish praying, and you keep dozing off to sleep. Then suddenly Jesus wakes you up with the words of our text. Sleep to really bad news, news foretold, but not absorbed.
Sleep to “it’s time” to the betrayer is here. That would be a rude awakening. In a matter of a minute or two your world is completely turned upside down. The fog of that deep sleep still hovering over your mind while Judas, one of your own, leads a crowd to arrest Jesus your teacher.
One of them is still so out of it he takes his sword and starts to attack hoping to win against the crowd armed swords and clubs. He clearly hadn’t thought that one through. He was clearly not a trained swordsman, or he would have been able to chop off that servant’s head rather than just his ear.
Every soldier who has been in combat knows that a few seconds can change everything. The incoming round, the IED, the foot placed in the wrong location. Nothing can prepare you for the next moments. And so it was with the disciples as they scatter. They don’t have a playbook for the following events. They just scatter.
We rarely know our next moments. Life can change in an instant. Our task is to be sure that, no matter what happens, we are walking with Jesus. That is what matters. Everything else fades into the background when compared to eternity.
The Arnold Journey 