This is how it was:
As I knelt in the garden I thought of John and his prison bars, for around me were bars of shrubbery, blacker than any I had seen. Immobile bars.
Death was in the bars and in the air around me, imagined but none the less real, as real as death had been in the street that day men wanted to stone the woman taken in adultery. This was my death—I listened for approaching soldiers, for the voice of Judas.
“If it is possible,” I prayed, “let this cup pass from me quickly.”
I heard the brook below: it had a place to go. I had this, this waiting, this expectancy, my disciples asleep on the ground.
Death...death is the ransom for man’s sin, I reminded myself.
Cries of sentinels rang out.
Judas knew that I was here, that I had come here to pray; presently I heard the unmistakable clank of side arms and men’s voices, foreign speech. I could wait no longer. I stood up and waited for Judas to identify me.
Stumbling over shrubbery, Judas called.
I answered.