Luke 22:47-53

The Coyotes are out by the barn again this morning.  I can hear them singing.  We are down to one adult barn cat out of 12.   The one black and white cat that is left hisses at me when I feed her.  She should be a little more thankful.   The coyotes have been most efficient at hunting cats.  So far no attempts at killing goats but I am sure that will come soon when other game gets scarce.   I am about out of cats!  I have noticed that the coyotes would rather hunt at night than the daytime.   I guess because it is easier to be sneaky.  If you want to kill something to eat you don’t want it to see you coming before you pounce.  I guess that in this respect coyotes are a lot like people… they like the dark to hide activities that they don’t want noticed.  Jesus was betrayed by Judas and taken into custody at night.  It was dark because the sun was down and dark because evil had an appetite for blood.   As Jesus is being arrested He comments on those who have come to take him into custody.

“But this is your moment, the time when the power of darkness reigns.” Living Bible

I think I recognize 12 or 13 different insights from my meditation on this story about Jesus’ arrest.   Here are a few of them:

1. There are times when the power of darkness reigns.  (Some of the low points in life may be the result of evil spiritual forces.  It is not an abnormal spiritual walk to endure them.  They are a part of life like the weeds I wrote about last week.)
2. Sometimes the reign of darkness is necessary to advance the reign of light. (For a Christian there would be no Easter resurrection if there had been no death by crucifixion a few days earlier.)
3. Sometimes those in positions of power and leadership lead the way in doing wrong instead of protecting me from it.  (It was the leaders that led the crowd to arrest Jesus not a lynch mob coming to the leaders asking for his arrest.)
4. Some of these moments are personal.  No one else can fight to protect me from them.  (Jesus told his disciples to put away their swords.)
5. These moments are never fair; they are painted with irony, trickery and deceit. (Judas attempted to greet Jesus with a friendly greeting.) 
6. These moments happen when you are the most vulnerable.  (They did not try to arrest him when he was in the public’s eye but at night when he was alone with the disciples.)
7. Jesus was not powerless during this time. (He still healed the ear of the high priest’s servant.  I would probably tend to look at what was going wrong rather than what I still possessed.)
8. Jesus recognized that those who were doing bad things thought they were right.  (They considered Jesus a criminal and that it was the right thing to arrest him.  Very seldom do others or I do things that we do not feel fully justified in doing – right or wrong.)

We all experience times when a predator “stalks us at night” so to speak.  If you believe in good and bad spiritual forces like Jesus did, then a normal life includes attacks, when we are vulnerable, by others who feel justified in what they are doing.  We should not loose sight of the strength that we still have or the hope of a good final outcome in spite of all our spiritual battles.