NOTES for Luk 22:45-23:1

Peter never imagined that he was capable of denying Christ. Humanly speaking, Peter behaved honorably and bravely - after all, by following the Teacher to the high priest's house, he took a risk. And as for his denying that he knew Him, that was an ordinary security tactic, one for which no one can be condemned... It is hard to object to such coherent reasoning, especially since, in times of persecution, many people have had to act exactly this way more than once. But then we read that Peter, feeling guilty, wept bitterly, and that means that something in his behavior did not fit within the acceptable rules of caution. We cannot condemn those who feel fear before persecutors; Jesus Himself did not condemn His secret disciples for not coming forward openly. But there is a time for everything, just as there is a time to gather stones and a time to throw them away. There are moments when every fear must be cast aside and we must bear witness to the One we know.

The trial of the Sanhedrin is preceded by mockery and beatings - in essence, it begins with them. The judges are not going to search for the truth: the verdict is already prepared. But the way the trial unfolds visibly shows us how the choice happens: Christ's testimony about Himself can either be accepted or rejected. Each person decides for himself, but those who reject Christ are troubled by His presence - they would like Him simply not to exist. Therefore rejection gives birth to the desire to destroy, to drag Him through the mud, to refuse to acknowledge the very reality of His existence. The desire to kill Christ did not arise on that day, but long before the trial, and it has not ended to this day. But until the end of time it will remain doomed to fail.

To whom are these lines addressed, and why were they written? They tell how Jesus was rejected by those who, it would seem, should have accepted Him: of the first disciple’s denial of the Teacher and the elders of the chief priests’ rejection of their Messiah. They could hardly have been intended to arouse hostility or hatred toward the Jews or to undermine the authority of a renowned apostle. Probably the reader, learning how many denials and betrayals Christ had to pass through and how He endured them, was meant to understand how little right he himself has to betray the Teacher and how impossible it is for him to take part in repeating this situation. Yet such a situation can arise at any time: when, under pressure from society, fear, or life’s circumstances, the words “I do not know this Man” rise unbidden to our lips; when what takes place is a denial not of an idea, a worldview, or a party, but of a Person, of God, of what is human and divine within you yourself...

Everything was going so well. The court had gathered, and the verdict was ready... After all, everything was clear to everyone: this Son of Man had no place on earth. They had found a good charge (the way Al Capone would later be jailed for tax evasion!), and witnesses had been found, but no, it was not working; the accusation was falling apart, and everything was turning out awkwardly. Well then, all in: "Are You the Son of God?" Either He breaks and denies it, or He says "yes," and we declare that blasphemy.

Jesus' answer is admirable. On the one hand, it is a polite form of an affirmative answer, but on the other, as always with Him, it returns the question to the one asking it: "Think for yourself and make a responsible decision." What the "judges" say shows that they heard, but this does not affect the decision made in advance.

It is interesting that when our "unbelievers" doubt who Jesus is, they nevertheless call Him Christ, that is, God's Anointed One. So He answers them, as it were, silently: "You are saying who I am." And He leaves them the freedom to decide.

When the matter concerns murder, whether open or "legal," one often has to deal not only with active murderers, but also with murderers who are, so to speak, passive. With those who did not much want to kill, but... it happened that they killed. They took part. As if incidentally, to one degree or another. And such a participant can sometimes think that he had nothing to do with it, even up to the day of Judgment, when self-deception will no longer work.

This always happens in more or less the same way: by evading responsibility. Pilate and Herod evade it in just this way. Neither of them wants to confirm a death sentence. Pilate is uneasy - he understands that this Man whom they want to execute is innocent. Herod is afraid - who knows how the execution of a Man whom the people consider a great prophet will echo among the people... In the end, Pilate still has to make the decision. But he and Herod understand each other so well that they become friends: both are what one calls real politicians; both do not want problems; both think only about their own power, even though the scale of that power is not comparable. And neither wants to answer for anything. In any case, for anything unpleasant or delicate.

Herod shifts everything onto Pilate, and Pilate onto the crowd shouting, "Crucify Him!" This is very convenient - the voice of the people, nothing can be done... and besides, another option was even proposed: to release one of the condemned. But the people are against it; they want Jesus' execution. Everything is logical, if not for one "but": the choice of whom to execute and whom to release was Pilate's prerogative and his alone. But if one does not want to make a decision, if responsibility is a burden, then let the people decide. In truth, there was no people in that square. There was a crowd - a form and way of being of a people that also does not want to answer for anything. There each person is "like everyone else," and "everyone" is "as one." That very "one" who answers for nothing and is easy to manipulate because deep down, and sometimes on the surface, he would like to be manipulated. Then everything can be blamed on the manipulators - and he himself can again evade responsibility.

That is how the cross was prepared for the Messiah - not in infernal depths, but in a mixture of irresponsibility, petty fears, and "great" interests. In a shallow but murky pool, where, as everyone knows, devils have plenty of room.

Very recently we saw that Christ does not object to paying taxes to Caesar, but now false witnesses accuse Him precisely of forbidding people to pay the tax. The accusers themselves are by no means admirers of Roman power; they call a crime, and attribute to Christ, deeds they themselves would gladly have committed. Extremes, as often happens, meet, and those who present themselves as patriots and zealots for the faith of their fathers are ready to hand an inconvenient compatriot over to pagan occupiers for execution.

According to the evangelist's testimony, Pilate and Herod became friends with each other that day. It is strange to hear of friendship between rulers accustomed to being guided by principles other than personal sympathies. Just as strange is a friendship born in the commission of a crime. But perhaps even in their reconciliation the beneficial action of Jesus was felt? After all, the hostility of rulers affects their subjects through bloodshed and deprivation...

Pilate acts according to the "will of the people." That alone would have been enough for Christians to avoid using the pagan saying, "The voice of the people is the voice of God." Sadly, they do not avoid it, and to this day every superstition and false idea insists on its truth by appealing to the large number of those who share it. Those who see the truth often have to defend it while in the minority. But there is no need to fear this; Truth itself, knowing what it is to be in the minority, is our support.

Still, did the authorities, religious and secular, understand even a little who they were dealing with when it came to Jesus? Sometimes one cannot help thinking that if they did not know exactly, then at least they had some vague sense of something. If He was a prophet, He was an unusual, strange prophet; if a teacher, then some completely "nontraditional" one. Herod wants miracles from Him, but he has no intention of making a decision about His further fate and does not want to take on the responsibility that the procurator is trying to shift onto him. So he sends the prisoner back. Pilate has no need of an extra headache at all. Deep down he understands that whatever decision he makes, everything will turn out badly and to his disadvantage. And fear, some half-conscious fear, is felt in his heart all the time. It would be better, of course, to release Him under some plausible pretext. The feast is conveniently at hand; this would be the moment to free Him and slow the case down... Ah, the people do not want that? Well, all the better: let us meet the people halfway; after all, He declared Himself their King... That is how earthly power thrashed about before the face of the One who brought the Kingdom into the world. He gets in the way; it would be good to get rid of Him, but best of all would be if He somehow disappeared on His own, as if He had never existed. Then everything would again become, if not good, at least normal, as before. As for execution, execution is not difficult, of course; He is not the first and not the last. But somewhere almost on the edge of consciousness there glimmers an understanding that execution is not a way out, that something will happen, that the matter will not simply end like this, however much one guards the tomb. And still, there seems to be no way out. Execute, do not pardon. The comma has been placed.

Understanding and interpretation of what we read today come later. The evangelist’s austere and concise account simply follows the sequence of events. The Son of God, who became incarnate in Mary’s womb and revealed to us the love of the heavenly Father, is arrested, condemned, and killed. Killed not for crimes, but for speaking the truth that some people did not like. Killed not by a court’s verdict, but at the whim of a frenzied crowd at a rally, because “their voices and those of the chief priests prevailed.” A petty provincial ruler, who never attained the scale of the atrocities of his ancestor and namesake, humiliates Him, mocking this Man’s helplessness. The condemned man is beaten for no reason, merely for sport, for why else beat One who will soon be crucified?

Even on the Cross, suffering terrible pain in His hands and feet and gasping for breath, He hears mockery and abuse... The Day of the Lord, of which we heard yesterday from the prophet Joel, proved to be a day of monstrous injustice, a day of the triumph of the utmost human malice and cruelty.

Yet even on the Cross He is God and Man. All this rampage of human baseness fades before the radiance of true life when Jesus says: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” These words alone bear indisputable witness to His divinity...

And beside the murderous madness of the crowd we also see a handful of people who remain faithful. No longer as disciples of a Galilean prophet or supporters of a new religious teaching, but simply as Jesus’ faithful friends, they bury Him and mourn for Him. Each of us is therefore faced, in essence, with a choice: to be among the mocking crowd or among the handful who weep for Him.

What happened was what had to happen, as Jesus had repeatedly foretold to His disciples. The world under the power of Satan could not endure its meeting with the Righteous One. It had either to die to sin itself, to change radically, to be reborn, or to pass a death sentence on this Man.

Having become disciples of Jesus, we must not forget this incompatibility of Christ and sin, not only in Him Himself, not only in our hearts, but also in the world. If we have truly found faith in Christ, then the choice inevitably stands before us: to die to ourselves and live with Him, or to join those who condemned Him to death two thousand years ago. Peter's denial shows that this choice does not change a person automatically, that his fears, weakness, and cowardice remain with him. Yet there is still an enormous difference between Peter, who wept bitterly over his denial, and the members of the Sanhedrin.

The path to Golgotha began even before Gethsemane, with loneliness among the disciples who did not understand Him. Very little time would pass before the apostles became entirely different people, but for now they are causing the Teacher additional suffering.

Seeing this, Christ, who came to save us, does not reject the disciples. This is precisely the meaning of His words to Peter, which contain both a warning about his coming weakness and the commission to strengthen his brothers after his fall. Christ sees Peter’s weakness, just as He sees the weakness of each of us; yet He not only refrains from condemning or rejecting Peter and every one of us, but also strengthens us. Even in the words addressed to Judas, we hear not condemnation, but a sorrowful reproach capable of awakening the conscience.

If only we were ready to accept His support. Peter will be able to do so a little later, but Judas will not want to...

The name of the Mount of Olives makes us remember the oil used for anointing, including anointing to kingship. But Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world, and He goes toward His triumph not through ritual anointing, but through sacrificial suffering.

The carefree times are over. If earlier the apostles could preach without a penny of money and without bread in a bag, now not even a sword can save them and their Teacher. There is a time when God does not grant the prayer even of the most righteous person, and when one cannot trust even oneself. Jesus must drink His cup, and Peter deceives himself, assuring the Teacher of faithfulness to the grave.

What should one do when "the time of the lawless and the power of darkness" comes? If the apostles did not know, how can we know? All they have left are Jesus' words: "I prayed that your faith may not fail..." Faith that even in the darkness everything remains in God's hands...