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I could very well be wrong, but I get a sense that when Jesus said to Judas, "Friend," wherefore art thou come?" He was not just asking him why, He knew why.

I get a greater, deeper sense that He was saying this in essence with another meaning.

As if He was saying to him in other words, "Why are you here? You had time to not be here by choice after I sent you out earlier."

Jesus calling Judas "Friend," was the thing. As if He was really saying to him, "You don't have to be here." He still counted him and held his place for him as "Friend." That was a well intentioned, direct- to-the-heart word.

There may be a night hour in your life where Jesus will be meeting you in a dark place which used to be the garden you used to dwell with Him in. But became a place of compromise and dwelling in shadows of shame because you "wandered out of the path of the cross.

But it is different now, Jesus goes to those who have wandered away from Him. He goes looking for them. To those who are hiding in darkness, in the shadows of sin, in fluid sorrow, too ashamed to go to Him. To those, "Who used to go with Him into the house of God in company."

Whom He will say in that same loving voice Judas knew knew so well, "Friend," wherefore are you here?" As in that same familiar comforting sound Mary Magdelene heard from her resurrected "Friend," whom she thought to be the gardener...."Mary."

Jesus never stops calling you "Friend," in times of failure. And in that very place, "returning and rest, quietness and confidence," will be restored.

"And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain."

- 2 Samuel 23:4

"Keep on the path with the mountain in view."

- Amy Carmichael