[Mat 26:47-56]

One of the things I look up to in Jesus was his unwavering ability to see beyond the specifics of a situation.  He was never carried away by the moment; he always saw the bigger picture and understood the momentum of the events that surrounded him.  A "large crowd", stirred up by the religious leaders of Jerusalem, comes out in the night to arrest him wielding "swords and clubs".  Jesus has never hurt anyone.  He has not committed any crime.  He hasn't stirred up the people against the government or each other.  He is peaceful, his followers are peaceful.  Why are these people armed?
They have taken up weapons because of their own guilt.  In the same way that King Ahab put on a disguise before going into a battle to protect himself.  If the four hundred false prophets who were trying to curry favor with him were right, he needed no such tactic.  If Macaiah was right and the Lord was against him, he should not have gone at all.  We make irrational provision for ourselves when we know in our heart that we are acting against God.
Jesus gives their conscience no place to hide.  "Have you come out against me with swords and clubs to arrest me as you would against a robber?  Every day I used to sit in the temple teaching and you did not seize me."  If Jesus was really dangerous, dangerous enough to warrant arrest by a large, armed crowd, why haven't they done anything before now?  Of course his perfect reasoning is ignored, like truth is by all self-justifiers.  
Within this tornado of denialism, one of the disciples becomes so angry he strikes back.  Jesus, seeing beyond the situation, rebukes him.  "Put your sword back in its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.  Or do you not think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?"  That's fifty-four thousand.  The message is for the disciples, for the crowd, and for us.  If we pick up swords in reaction, blindly, we will die in reaction, blindly.  When Jehoshaphat sought the Lord as a great army was bearing down on the kingdom, a prophet announced "The battle is not yours, but God's."  Victory always belongs to God, because to Him be the glory, forever and ever, amen.
Jesus' clarity came from not focusing on the instruments he could see in his own hands, but from focusing on being an instrument in God's hands.

- J