The vanity of violence.
Here we have a peculiarly valuable illustration of the vanity of violence. Over and above the wickedness of violence, there is the uselessness of it. Men arm themselves with all sorts of deadly weapons, and go out against each other; and what is the good of it all? Man was not made for anything requiring violence or extraordinary exertion. He has neither the muscles, the claws, nor the fangs of the beast of prey. Man gains his proper results by the industrious hand, directed by the God-glorifying brain. Nothing of the highest has ever been gained by brute force.
I. LOOK AT THOSE ATTACKING JESUS. They act after their kind and according to their light. They know no weapons but force and stratagem. The whole appearance of this multitude, going out with swords, and sticks, and lamps, and torches, has something ridiculous and despicable about it. This array of forces would have been all right if a lion or a bear from the wilderness had been seen skulking about the Mount of Olives. The weapons would have corresponded against a murderer or a brigand in hiding there. But it was Jesus against whom they were going out—Jesus, who did everything in his work by persuasion and spiritual energy. Of course, all this showed great ignorance, but that is what the enemies of Christ and his Church always do show. The opposition of the world, being completely ignorant of what has to be conquered, has no astuteness in it. What can all the combined efforts of the world do against a man who is ready, if need be, to die for his religion? Jesus in the hands of his enemies is the grand illustration of how little the enemies of the body of Christ can do, or rather the particular enemies who make physical pain their weapon. Such are not the worst enemies. It is not the wolf, confessed in all his natural ferocity, that we have most to fear, but the wolf in sheep's clothing, the foe who comes with the look and language of the friend.
II. LOOK AT THE METHODS OF DEFENSE.
1. The way of Peter. Peter had very likely made himself possessor of one of the two swords mentioned in Luke 22:38. Of course, this shows an utter misunderstanding of the meaning of Jesus in Luke 22:36. If we act on some wrong meaning of a word of Jesus, we shall suffer for the blunder, sooner or later. Peter got a weapon into his hands that, to a man of his rash, impetuous ways, was just the thing to bring him into trouble. Peter should have done the right thing at the right time. Jesus put him and others to watch and pray, to act as sentinels. The sentinels fell asleep at their posts, and reckless lunging with a sword could not mend matters afterwards. Notice, too, how the effects of this rash act were worst to the man who committed it. Here surely is the secret of the subsequent denials.
2. The way of Jesus. Jesus yields. He defends and conquers by yielding. He shows in his own Person how the just man has a fortress impregnable to violence. He could have vanished mysteriously from the midst of his enemies, as he had done before; but what would that have advantaged us? We cannot vanish from an opposing world; we must either meet violence with violence, or yield what is merely outward, knowing that the inward is sacred and invulnerable.—Y.