The Passover of Jesus: The Surrender

Jesus Christ our Hope. III. The Passover of Jesus. 4. The surrender. ‘Whom are you looking for?’ (Jn 18:4)

On Wednesday, 27 August 2025, in the Audience Hall, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on the Passover of Jesus, focusing on the Lord's arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today we will focus on a scene that marks the beginning of the Passion of Jesus: the moment of his arrest in the Garden of Olives. The evangelist John, with his usual depth, does not present a frightened Jesus who flees or hides. On the contrary, he shows us a free man, who comes forward and speaks, openly facing the hour in which the light of the greatest love can be revealed.

“Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him, came forward and said to them, ‘Whom do you seek?’” (Jn  18:4). Jesus knows. However, he decides not to retreat. He gives himself up. Not out of weakness, but out of love. A love so full, so mature, that it does not fear rejection. Jesus is not seized: he lets himself be taken. He is not the victim of an arrest, but the giver of a gift. In this gesture, he embodies a hope of salvation for our humanity: to know that, even in the darkest hour, one can remain free to love to the end.

When Jesus replies, “I am he”, the soldiers fall to the ground. It is a mysterious passage, since this expression, in biblical revelation, recalls the very name of God: “I am”. Jesus reveals that God’s presence is manifested precisely where humanity experiences injustice, fear, loneliness. Right there, the true light is ready to shine without fear of being overcome by the advancing darkness.

In the middle of the night, when everything seems to be falling apart, Jesus shows that Christian hope is not evasion, but decision. This attitude is the result of profound prayer in which God is not asked to spare us from suffering, but rather to give us the strength to persevere in love, knowing that life offered freely for love cannot be taken away by anyone.

“If you seek me, let these men go” (Jn  18:8). At the time of his arrest, Jesus does not worry about saving himself: he wishes only for his friends to go free. This shows that his sacrifice is a true act of love. Jesus lets himself be taken and imprisoned by the guards only so that his disciples may be set free.

Jesus lived every day of his life as preparation for this dramatic and sublime hour. This is why when it comes, he has the strength not to seek an escape route. His heart knows well that to lose one’s life for love is not a failure, but rather  a mysterious fruitfulness, like a grain of wheat that falls to the ground and does not remain alone, but dies and becomes fruitful.

.Jesus too is troubled when faced with a path that seems to lead only to death and to the end. But he is equally persuaded that only a life lost for love, at the end, is found again. This is what true hope consists of: not in trying to avoid pain, but in believing that  the seed of new life is hidden, even in the heart of the most unjust suffering.

And us? How often do we defend our lives, our plans, our certainties, without realizing that, by doing so, we remain alone? The logic of the Gospel is different: only what is given flourishes; only the love that becomes free can restore trust even where everything seems lost.

The Gospel of Mark also tells us about a young man who runs away naked  when Jesus is arrested, (cf. Mk  14:51). It is an enigmatic image, but profoundly evocative. We too, in the attempt to follow Jesus, experience moments in which we are caught off guard and stripped of our certainties. Those are the most difficult moments, in which we are tempted to abandon the way of the Gospel because love seems to be an impossible journey to us. And yet, at the end of the Gospel, it is a young man who announces the resurrection to the women. He is no longer naked, but clothed in a white robe.

This is the hope of our faith: our sins and our hesitations do not prevent God from forgiving us and from restoring to us the desire to resume following, to make us capable of giving our life for others.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us also learn how to deliver ourselves to the Father’s good will, letting our life be a response to the good we have received. In life, it is not necessary to have everything under control. It is enough to choose to love freely every day. This is true hope: knowing that, even in the darkness of trial, God’s love sustains us and ripens the fruit of eternal life in us.

L'Osservatore Romano

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