While You Were Sleeping - An Easter Reflection

The Agony In The Garden, Andrea Mantegna c1455

When I first moved to Sydney eleven years ago, one of the hardest things for me to get used to was all the shops being closed by the evening. Growing up in NYC, I took for granted the whole "city that never sleeps" vibe. I always thought it was mostly just marketing and local bragging before I started living in a city that did actually go to bed at a reasonable hour. My parents didn't exactly live in a bustling or vibrant part of town, and yet if I got hungry at 1am, I was still within walking distance of a Taco Bell, Mickie D's, 7/11 (buffalo chicken taquitos are sacred artifacts), at least half a dozen Korean chicken and beer joints, and if I was truly feeling deplorable, a White Castle. 

These burgers are the bomb, and I will die on this hill defending the (White) Castle

That first year that I lived in Sydney, there were so many nights when I felt so alone and isolated. Not because I didn't have a lot of friends, but because when I got hungry after dinner, there was NOTHING around me. I didn't have a car at the time, and Uber Eats hadn't been invented yet. I would stand out on the front porch, look down my dark street with houses full of people who are already tucked under their blankets, and do the calculations, "technically the Maccas two and a half miles away IS walking distance..." 

I guess my point is that in reasonable cities, things close at a reasonable time. Sure, you should be able to get a kebab any time you want, but you're not entitled to much else. It's unreasonable to sit down for a degustation at 1am. Just as it is unreasonable for a post office to let you buy stamps at 2am. Similarly, it's unreasonable criminal courts to hold a trial at 3am. So you arrested the guy in the small hours of the morning. It's fine, keep him in a holding cell for now. The judge is asleep, as is everyone else. It can wait until morning. 

According to the Passion narrative of the Gospels, Jesus was arrested sometime in the middle of the night, stood for trial, convicted, sentenced, and was hanging by his hands and feet on a Roman cross by late morning the next day. Every time I read the Passion narrative from the Gospels, I forget what a travesty and a grotesque miscarriage of justice the entire affair was. The guy was celebrating the Passover feast with his closest friends, and then it was time for bed, he steals away into some lonely woods along with this three closest confidantes, where he was going to pray for the night. An armed mob appears, tipped off to the location by the traitor Judas, and forcibly apprehend Jesus. 

"Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me." (Matthew 26.55)

Armed, State-sanctioned policed officers, operating under cover of night, are sometimes the only way to bring in violent Insurrectionists, but here's a guy who's not been making any kind of effort to conceal himself or hide any nefarious plans for terrorism or violence. If they wanted to arrest him or bring him in for questioning, they could have done so at any point during Jesus' office hours. But instead the religious leaders organized a midnight raid. They convened a criminal court, got bleary-eyed witnesses to testify, somehow fast-tracked everything so that there would be a conviction and sentence before most people were done with breakfast. Why was this?

The answer that the Gospels give is that the religious leaders who had it out for Jesus knew that he was wildly popular with the people. If they didn't somehow skip the due process, there was a strong chance that they weren't going to be able to convict this guy that, by all accounts, hadn't actually done anything wrong. This was the only way for them to be able to get rid of him. And rather than resisting, Jesus gave in. Because it was all part of the plan. 

But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” (Matthew 26.54)

If I want to mail a package overseas after 5pm, I'll have to wait until the next day. If I want to check on a Medicare rebate, I'll have to visit Centrelink during lunch hours. And yet somehow the Sanhedrin managed to get Jesus from in cuffs to on the cross in less than one sleep. 

Man of sorrows what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude
In my place condemned he stood
Sealed my pardon with his blood
Hallelujah, what a Savior!


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