I noticed something very interesting during the Good Friday liturgy about the arrest of Christ in the Gospel of St. John. Did you ever notice that when they come to arrest him according to John, they ask if he is Jesus and he replies "I AM" (the title of God in the Old Testament). Immediately when he does this those coming to arrest him fall away from him on their knees. This is something I've never seen portrayed in movies (as far as I remember) and never really noticed before. I can think of two reasons this might have happened:
1) John is making the point solidly here that Christ is only being arrested because he allows himself to be - as God he can stop them at any time, but submits to the will of the Father and shows his love to all of us by doing it anyway.
2) They fell away because they were shocked at his claim to be God - one they would think was blasphemous.
I believe the first one makes more sense, but I havn't found any really good, solid commentary on the issue. Anyone else ever notice this?
3 comments:
Dear Joseph the Worker,
I heard about the Soldiers falling not only in the garden of Gethsemani, they also fell at Pilate's court. I heard it in the 1950's. It used to be taught during sermons and catechism class.
There is a conference on the movie by Mel Gibson, at www.traditionalcatholicism.org Enter, then go to sermons,,and you will find a heading The Passion of the Christ. There is much information on the details of the Passion.
I hope you enjoy it. (There are many sermons there. There is much to learn).
I never noticed this at all until I saw The Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, as a teenager. It was one of those "Let me look that up -- they made that up, didn't they?" moments. But sure enough, it was in there!
Thanks for the comments and links guys. I thought this was an interesting topic.
Post a Comment