The man Jesus healed on the night of His arrest

There is a small detail in the story of Jesus’ arrest that is easy to pass over.

When the men came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter drew a sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

John tells us that the servant’s name was Malchus.

Luke tells us what happened next:

“But Jesus answered, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.”
Luke 22:51

This is the last healing the Gospels record Jesus performing before the Crucifixion.

What makes this healing unusual is that Malchus had not come to Jesus to be healed. He was there with the group that had come to arrest Him. There is no request for help, no expression of faith and no conversation between them recorded at all.

The injury had also been caused by Peter, who presumably believed he was protecting Jesus.

That makes this a rather uncomfortable moment for Peter. His loyalty to Jesus was real, but in this case his way of expressing that loyalty was completely contrary to what Jesus wanted. Peter wounded a man in Jesus’ defence, and Jesus immediately healed the wound Peter had caused.

There is a distinction here that is easy to miss in our own lives.

We can care deeply about something and still behave badly in its defence.

We can defend our faith and speak without charity. We can defend our family and become cruel to someone who has hurt them. We can be certain that we are right in an argument and use that certainty as permission to humiliate another person.

Being on the right side of something does not automatically make everything we do in its defence right.

Peter was not indifferent to Jesus. Quite the opposite. He loved Him enough to draw a sword when he saw Him in danger. But Jesus did not accept the wound simply because it had been inflicted on His behalf.

He healed it.

Perhaps this is one reason the story deserves more attention than it usually receives. Christianity has never lacked people willing to defend Christ. The more difficult question is whether Christ would recognize the way we sometimes defend Him.

There is another part of the story that is equally interesting.

The Gospels never tell us what happened to Malchus afterward.

We do not know whether he became a follower of Jesus. We do not know whether he was grateful. We do not even know whether he understood who had just healed him.

It would make a satisfying ending if we could say that Malchus went home that night, changed by what had happened, and eventually became a Christian.

But Scripture does not give us that ending.

It simply tells us that Jesus healed him.

That matters because we sometimes make kindness dependent on what we expect to receive from it. We forgive hoping for an apology. We help hoping it will be appreciated. We are generous and quietly expect the other person to remember.

Malchus had not come seeking Jesus that evening. He was there with the group that had come to arrest Him. Yet when he was wounded, Jesus did not first ask what Malchus would do with the mercy he received.

He healed him.

And then Jesus allowed Himself to be arrested.

There is no record of Malchus thanking Him.

There is no record of Jesus asking him to.

Perhaps that is what makes this small incident in Gethsemane worth remembering.

There will probably be moments in all our lives when we are convinced that we are right.

Perhaps the better question in those moments is not only:

“Am I right?”

But also:

“Am I acting in a way that Christ would have to repair after me?”

That is a question worth carrying with us.