We never should get too excited by a momentary victory or by a sense of victory on the way, like when far ahead at the halftime of a basketball game. I've watched many of my son's games, when they were romping the other team at the half, becoming overly confident in themselves, only to see them enter a squeaker in the last two minutes that required a hefty new intensity to pull out a win.

Over-confidence can be a malady.

Jesus, on the way toward salvation, had no form of over-confidence. Was he confident in his path? We would ask that to provoke our souls, the weak ones.

I do not believe Jesus was thinking of a simple victory but a worldwide one for all ages and all histories. One for all cultures and all peoples, for people who spoke different languages than his, for those over the horizon of Israel's hills.

Jesus had a mind that looked to the world. "For he so loved the world" is the mind of God in sending His Son. Could Jesus be confident that the only way to achieve such a goal was to die early, by receiving the judgment from a local court?

Did not Jesus beg in the prayer of Gethsemane to his Father to provide another pathway, an alternative cup? Jesus' confidence was enfolded in the hands of the Creator. He trusted that guidance from heaven as a baby in a mother's arms, though fully grown as an adult, with his real mother acting inconsequentially.

Jesus was far from over-confident. I would think Jesus was confident only in the promise of God that his death was necessary at this inflection point, when the prepared people's major flaw in not understanding him and his mission was not going to be amended by any further miracles.

What was Jesus crying to fulfill, asking for the cup of death to be replaced with a different one? Jesus knew his death would prolong history, namely, the history of human tragedy, the history of humans torturing humans, the history of broken hearts and homes, the history of war and death, the history of menace on the human soul.

For Jesus, it is only half-time. The other team turns out to be the over-confident one. Jesus, thus, knew the second-half would have to be played with new fervor, new faith, new zeal.


​10:57 AM, October 16, 2026 Friday on train from Busan to Seoul