Now Judas also, who betrayed Him, one of the twelve, knew the place, because Jesus had often resorted thither together with His disciples. Judas therefore, having received a band of men and servants from the chief priests and the Pharisees, the scribes and the ancients of the people, cometh thither while He was yet speaking, and with him a great multitude, with lanterns and torches and weapons, swords and clubs and staves. - Matthew 26:47; Mark 14:43; Luke 22:47; John 28:2,3
1. It is almost terrible to notice how the Evangelists linger on the name of Judas. Apart from other places in the Gospels where he is mentioned, and where the Evangelists give him the distinguishing epithet of "the traitor," here Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, and Saint Luke call him "Judas, one of the twelve," and John calls him "Judas, who betrayed Him." The personal shame of having him among their number is felt by all four. It is the shame of a family when a son or a brother or a sister has disgraced himself or herself, and therefore all the rest; the shame of a priest when he hears of a brother-priest having done something unworthy of his calling, but, of course, incalculably deeper. They seem to be reminding themselves of the duty of atonement that belongs to the rest because of the treachery of one; the zeal they must put forward to prove to Our Lord that the rest at least are faithful.
2. At the same time they seem to be reminding themselves that if one such as he may fall so low, others may do likewise. He was one of the carefully chosen twelve; therefore he possessed at the beginning the qualities that would make a saint, he was given the training that should have made a saint; from first to last he had the special affection of Our Lord. He was entrusted with the materialities of the Apostolic body; therefore he possessed gifts of nature qualifying him for this post; he had in consequence a greater experience than the others among men, which some seem to think so valuable in the making of an Apostle. And yet he fell; his very promotion brought about his fall; had he been kept in the background he might never have been tempted, "Howl, thou fir-tree, for the cedar has fallen!" As Saint Paul wrote long afterwards: "I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, lest while preaching to others I myself become a castaway."
3. Then there is the multitude: the people whom Our Lord had cured; the people for whom He had toiled unceasingly; the people dear to His heart; the people who, the Sunday before, had cried "Hosanna to the Son of David"; "a great multitude," say two Evangelists, with "a band of men and servants," says Saint John; from "the chief priests and ancients of the people," says Saint Matthew; from "the chief priests and the scribes and the ancients," says Saint Mark; "from the chief priests and Pharisees," says Saint John. The scene is unmistakable. What a growth of cockle among the wheat, and how quickly had it sprung up! All in four short days, the four days of Our Lord's hardest work on earth, the four days in which, as never before, He had vindicated His cause and put His enemies to silence. It was a proof that He had failed He so eloquent, He so genuine, He so deserving of success, who fought besides, not for Himself, but for His Father, and for the very people who had here gathered against Him! Such is the wisdom of the multitude.
Summary
1. The shame of the other Apostles because of the treachery of Judas.
2. The fall of Judas, from what; by what means, to what it came.
3. The multitude, for whom Our Lord had done so much.
- from The Crown of Sorrow, by Archbishop Alban Goodier