Midnight fog thickened the darkness as he felt his way through the trees. The mist soaked his clothes, dripped across his face. He could see nothing in the blackness.

He scraped against a boulder and stopped, hugging cold granite as he breathed in rhythm to his heartbeat. How long now before they would find him? Before they’d break through the men who followed him as rear guards? “Watch for me,” he’d simply said; and the men nodded, weary, but loyal for now.

He knew the authorities had been informed of his destination. He visualized the adrenaline-powered mob back in the town – the vigilantes and crack troops igniting each other’s and the clatter of weapons.

He’d watched mobs before. Like dogs sniffing blood, the townsfolk snarled when a captured woman had been led in. Their sneers were gleeful, evil. The authorities had played before the crowd, dangling her near the mob as they dragged her away. He knew then what was in them: the lust for pain someone else, as their eyes looked on her helplessness, while they crabbed the excitement of splattering blood. The women had spit on her; the men had ripped at her clothes.

Violence. He also knew what they’d do to him. Any time now.

His terror led to nausea. He choked in the blackness. He’d been up since dawn, feeling a frantic need to touch his friends one last time before he was taken. “We’ll stand with you,” they had promised. But he sensed the agony in their eyes. “You know the government tortures dissidents. We’ve got families.” Some had even come with him. Loyal men. But were they still following him?

“Hey!” he whispered back down the path. Then he shouted, “Hey!” No one answered from the darkness. He was alone.

The damp of the night crowded in around him, and he stumbled on, drizzle and boulders and demons drenching his mind. The prayer came as a groan from his guts: “Father – God.” He plodded on – eyes squeezing tears and mist – as if wading through a river of leeches that sucked for his life. He fell to his knees. “Father, if there’s any way -”He clenched his fists and collapsed face forward in the mud. “Please -”The world swirled inside his head. He felt sick. “Any other way . . .” He struggled to rise. “But now My will. Not my will but Yours — “

And Jesus stood in Gethsemane to wait for His kiss.

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