Big Idea: Jesus’s battle with his enemies begins with his arrest. Here his disciples fail again, and what draws his internal (vv. 32–42) and external battles at Gethsemane (vv. 27–31, 43–49, 50–52) together is the necessity at all times to depend on God and his will.

Understanding the Text

This story provides a transition from Gethsemane (it takes place in that garden and is the natural denouement to it) to the trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate. Here the passion predictions of 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34 start to be fulfilled, and in that sense the passion begins here. There are four sections: the approach of the betrayer with the mob (v. 43), the arrest and reaction (vv. 44–47), Jesus’s response (vv. 48–49), and the desertion by Jesus’s followers (vv. 50–52). Throughout, Jesus rather than…