[2117 words, after almost three weeks of journaling and reflections on this Gospel story… as I feel like one of the disciples who flees the pain of the Gesthymany…] In moments of deepest spiritual crisis, when the reality of full-scale war destroys our conceptions of God and His actions in the world, we sometimes (or often?) choose to flee – from circumstances, others, God, and even ourselves. Could our flight from Christ actually be the beginning of a deeper encounter with Him that we have yet to realize? What is revealed to us in that chasm between the almighty God of our theology and the silent Victim who allows Himself to be wounded by the violence of the world? And isn’t this the greatest miracle of His love – that He waits for us not in the place of our strength, but where our possibilities and hopes end – in the place of our fragility?
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“Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled” (Mark 14:50). The night in the Garden of Gethsemane became a turning point not only for Jesus but also for His disciples. When armed soldiers came to seize Jesus, the evangelists describe the bitter moment of truth: “Then all the disciples left Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56). This simple phrase reveals to us the whole tragedy of human fragility when we come face-to-face with the profound drama of human nature, with our powerlessness, with our inability to withstand looking into the abyss of suffering, when fear exposes the true essence of our nature.
The disciples, who had recently assured Jesus of their readiness to die with Him, suddenly found themselves confronted with the reality of violence and the threat of death. Peter, attempting to resist, cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, but even this brief impulsive act of courage quickly faded when Jesus Himself stopped him, healed the wounded man, and allowed the soldiers to arrest Him. The disciples froze in silent incomprehension: their Messiah would not summon legions of angels, and His Kingdom would not prevail today by force; instead of triumph, they witnessed humiliation. In the light of torches, they saw not a King but a condemned prisoner – and their feet carried them into darkness, away from their shattered dreams…
What force pushed the disciples out of the garden and made them scatter into the darkness? In this moment, fear and a profound crisis of meaning intertwined. If they were arresting their Teacher, they had every reason to expect they would be next. But behind this apparent motive lurked another, deeper rupture. They had lived alongside One who subdued the elements, restored life to the dead and sight to the blind, made demons tremble, and fed thousands with a few loaves. Now, He stood defenseless and silent before those who came to arrest Him. This gulf between His omnipotence and submission, between the almighty King and the silent Victim, was unbearable for a consciousness that sought in Him the image of a triumphant Liberator…
At the moment of Jesus’s arrest, not only did their faith in His messiahship collapse, but also the foundation of their own identity. Who were they now if the One to whom they had dedicated the last years of their lives turned out to be defeated? It was like the sun suddenly beginning to emit darkness… And they ran not so much from the soldiers as from their own shattered worldview… Their flight from the Garden of Gethsemane was not merely physical distancing. It was an escape from an incomprehensible reality, from their own disappointment, from the awareness of their fragility in the face of Jesus’s suffering.
“After I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee” (Mark 14:28). These words of Jesus, spoken before His arrest, took on new meaning after His resurrection. The angel at the empty tomb reminded the women: “But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going ahead of you into Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you” (Mark 16:7). The Sea of Galilee was the place where the disciples’ ministry began, where they first left their nets to follow Jesus. Now, after all these tragic events, they returned there to familiar activities. “Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you‘” (John 21:3). Perhaps this was not only an attempt to provide themselves with food but also a psychological need to return to a familiar, understandable life after a traumatic experience.
And it was there, by the Sea of Galilee, when they returned to their original craft, that the resurrected Jesus awaited them. He did not go looking for new disciples who would not betray Him. He did not demand repentance and promises of loyalty from them. He did not threaten them with heavenly punishments and eternal torments. He simply prepared food for them and invited them: “Come and have breakfast!” (John 21:12). The scene of Peter’s restoration by the Sea of Galilee (John 21:15-19) shows the depth of Christ’s understanding of human fragility. By asking Peter three times, “Do you love Me?” Jesus gives him the opportunity to respond affirmatively three times, symbolically canceling his triple denial. But most importantly, after each answer, Jesus entrusts Peter with ministry: “Feed My lambs… Tend My sheep.”
Christ did not simply forgive Peter – He restored his dignity and returned to him the purpose and Mission of life (Mission that has not changed…). Christ did not wait for Peter to recover on his own and did not demand self-improvement before returning to ministry. On the contrary, it was through the entrusted ministry that Peter’s restoration took place. The evangelists also do not record any mutual accusations among the disciples. None of them reproached others: “You fled first” or “You denied Him, while I only ran away.” In the presence of the Risen One, any comparisons of one’s measure of betrayal became irrelevant. All of them experienced downfall, and all were restored not through their own efforts but through the eternal and unwavering love of Christ.
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Russia’s full-scale aggression, total and exhausting, has become a kind of Garden of Gethsemane for us, a place of existential trial where our desire to believe meets our often inability to bear the weight of suffering. It reveals our fragility and limitations, forcing us to confront deep and challenging questions about the meaning of our suffering, God’s justice, and the nature of evil that seems to triumph before our eyes. We find ourselves in the situation of the disciples – between faith, through which the Kingdom of God was promised to us, and reality, which reveals agony…
The consequences of war penetrate all dimensions of our human existence, leaving no shelter from pain. Under such total trial, we, like the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, often “flee from Christ.” Our flight manifests in refusing to pray because it seems powerless against the iron laws of violence, in losing hope for God’s justice in a world where evil and violence seem to prevail, where force, not truth, determines the fate of nations, in immersing ourselves in cynicism or nihilism as a form of psychological defense, because it is easier to believe in nothing than to experience disappointment in the “sacred”; in switching to activism without spiritual contemplation, as if external activity could fill the inner emptiness…
We rarely acknowledge this flight, even to ourselves, like Peter, who probably could not believe his own denial… that he proved capable of it… We may continue attending church, saying the right words, professing and even defending traditional Christian values, but our hearts distance themselves from living and deep trust in Christ, Who seems unable (?) to stop the flow of evil that floods our land day and night with the blood of the innocent. Like the disciples who watched the crucifixion from afar, we continue to “observe Christ,” but from a safe distance, not approaching the epicenter of pain, the place where faith meets the absurdity of aggression in the name of Ukrainian ethnocide and defense of so-called traditional Christian values…
Yet it is here, in our (temporary?) flight, that we can paradoxically encounter Christ because often, the path away from God becomes our road to a deeper knowledge of Him. That is, just as the disciples, fleeing from the Garden of Gethsemane, were actually running to Galilee, where He promised to meet them, so our spiritual “flight” can lead us to a new encounter with Him, cleansed of the illusions and simplifications of previous experience. When we flee, we often run not so much from Christ as from who we are in His presence – vulnerable, uncertain, confused before the mystery of suffering. We run from our own fragility, vulnerability, and inability to understand His ways, which so often prove incompatible with our conceptions of justice and love. We run from the question that the disciples asked after Jesus calmed the storm: “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” (Mark 4:41). During the war, this question becomes even more acute for us: “Who is this if He allows such mass suffering? Why does the One who calmed the storm not stop the storm of violence that is destroying our people?”
But it is there, in our incomprehension, in our protest, in our inability to believe “correctly,” that He finds us, because it is in the darkest moments of our spiritual (and not only) life that His presence manifests – not as an answer to our questions, but as a silent co-presence in our suffering. Like on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, He does not demand perfect faith or flawless evangelical theology rooted in “traditional Christian values” from us. He does not ask why we fled and where we were when He suffered. He simply prepares food for us and invites: “Come, have breakfast” – accepting us as we are, broken and confused.
This is what gives me hope during war and brokenness: when I run from Him, He will find me. Not because I deserve His attention, but because such is His nature – to seek the lost, even when they themselves do not want to be found.
The story of the disciples’ flight and their restoration testifies to me that what matters is not my falls, not their number, not their depth, but His faithfulness, which surpasses my unfaithfulness… Our flight from Him is not the last word in our relationship with Him, just as Peter’s denial was not the last word… The disciples did not simply return to their previous state – they were restored and equipped for the Mission that changed the world, transformed from those who flee into those who go toward danger for the sake of the Gospel.
Similarly, my brokenness, my inability to be a “good Christian” during trials (so as “not to lose Christ’s love”?), my spiritual paralysis in the face of suffering – all this can become a space in which Christ reveals and applies His transforming love, not dispelling my doubts, but transforming them into deeper trust.
And just as He restored the disciples not for a comfortable life, but for proclaiming the Kingdom in this sin-broken world, so He restores me not so that I might find a safe haven from war, but so that amidst war I might witness to the Kingdom that is not of this world… which is already sprouting among the ruins of our fragility and reality in our relationships of love, trust, and care for one another. Even when I flee from Him, I know that my flight is just part of the journey to yet another encounter with the One Who waits for me where my strength ends and His grace begins… where my despair meets His hope… where my fragility finds support in His faithfulness.
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Lord Jesus, wasn’t it like this when You Yourself asked from the cross: “Why have You forsaken Me?” – but still remained in trust to the Father? Don’t You seek me, especially when I’m running away, because You know the pain of my broken heart? Why do You come not with reproaches, but with bread, not with judgment, but with restoration? How can You entrust Your work to those who fled, betrayed, or abandoned? And isn’t this Your greatest mystery – that each of our flights can become a path of return, each fall – the beginning of restoration, each death – a door to new Life through resurrection? And isn’t this, ultimately, Your victory over the world – not in power, but in love that endures any betrayal, overcomes any distance, and always waits for us on the shore of our everyday affairs with the question: “Do you still love Me?” Take care ❤
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Taras M. Dyatlik, Ukraine
1146th day of the full-scale Russian war
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