The Passover gathering had been full of dire foretellings. In the gloom of evening afterward, Jesus took his disciples to a familiar meeting spot, a garden across the Brook Kidron, where He agonized alone in prayer (John 18:1-3). Judas, knowing the place, led officers from the Pharisees there, along with a detachment of soldiers. They “came there,” the text says, “with lanterns, torches, and weapons.”
Torchlight! This detail always gives me a spooky reminder of what the prophet Isaiah said hundreds of years before Christ’s birth (in Isaiah 50:11, ESB and NIV). It’s even spookier when you read it in its context of Isaiah 50:6-10.
Isn’t Isaiah 50:11 a striking foreshadowing of this awful night’s beginning? And, for that matter, of a short while later, as the servants and officers kindled a fire in the high priest’s courtyard (John 18:18)?
When you read this verse in context with Isaiah 50:6-10 and connect the whole passage with Christ’s whipping and beating before crucifixion, how does it all strike you?