The Illegal Arrest of Jesus of Nazareth - Part 2

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One of the tragedies to me of the contemporary church is that people gather, and everything is focused on the people who gather. And yet you read the gospels, for example, and who is the focal point of the gospels? It's Jesus Christ. What we need, what our souls as Christians long for is to see and understand more of Jesus Christ. We don't need to understand more about our problems and our relationships and our finances, although there are times and places for all of those as we come to them in Scripture. But unfortunately, those absorb most of the contemporary church. When the Scripture has as its focal point our God and in particularly as we look in the New Testament the person of His Son.

So, that's what we're doing, it's been a magnificent journey for me, and I hope it has for you as we've worked our way through the gospel of Mark, and we have seen Christ. We've seen Him in His tenderness and compassion; we've seen Him in His severity; we've seen Him in His grace extended to repentant sinners; we've seen Him in His stern and compelling words to the false teachers; we've seen Him in His majesty stilling the storms. And tonight, we come back to a small garden east of Jerusalem where we see His majesty and His grace in a totally different way, and yet He is still the center.

We come to again look at the passage that describes the illegal arrest of Jesus of Nazareth. For many years the government in England used a general warrant to enforce its laws. What was meant by that was there were warrants that were issued that were so broad in nature with no specifics about why the arrest was being made that they were subject to great abuse. Basically, when those in power issued general warrants to have their enemies arrested, when there had been no wrongdoing done, they began to realize something needed to change. And so, during the mid-eighteenth century the English government outlawed those general kind of warrants.

When those who were responsible for founding our country saw the abuses that general warrants had made in England, eventually it became encapsulated, a protection against that became encapsulated in the fourth amendment to the Unites States Constitution which was ratified in 1791. Here's what the fourth amendment says. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized." That's a great foundational principle for liberty in our country, for freedom in our country.

But that same basic principle also governed Old Testament law given by God to Israel some 1400 years before Christ. I think we can legitimately argue that that principle ultimately is founded in a passage in Deuteronomy 24. And so those were to be the standards not only in 19^th and 20^th and 21^st century England and America, those were to be the standards in first century Israel. But any demands for due process of law were completely thrown out and were trampled under the feet of the Jewish leaders in their eagerness to arrest their nemesis, Jesus. So, we are looking then at the illegal arrest of Jesus of Nazareth. Let me read again for the passage for you, Mark 14 beginning in verse 43.

Immediately while He was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs, who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now he who was betraying Him had given them a signal, saying, "Whomever I kiss, He is the one; seize Him and lead Him away under guard." After coming, Judas immediately went to Him saying, "Rabbi!" and kissed Him. They laid hands on Him and seized Him. But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, "Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me, as you would against a robber? Every day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize Me; but this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures." And they all left Him and fled.

A young man was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body; and they seized him. But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked.

Just to remind you very briefly of where all of this is taking place. Just to the east of Temple Mount across the brook Kidron, at the foot of the Mount of Olives there is a place that even to this day, is identified as Gethsemane. It was a place of olive trees. And there are olive trees there today which don't date to the time of Christ but probably shortly thereafter. That's where these events occur.

Now just to remind you of what we've studied so far in this passage as we're looking at this arrest. We started by looking at the unlikely members of the arrest party. Verse 43 speaks of Judas, and he was accompanied by a crowd. In fact, Matthew says he was accompanied by a great multitude. So, who made up this crowd? Well John describes them like this in John 18:3; they were officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees. Apparently, the police force of ancient Israel, both branches were at the disposal of the chief priests and were represented that night in the garden. Mark says that they had been sent there by the chief priest and the scribes and the elders. Together those three groups, as we learned, compose the entire Sanhedrin, that seventy-member ruling body plus the high priest who ruled over the nation of Israel under the Romans. It was their supreme executive legislative judicial branch all combined into one.

Luke tells us that there were actually some members of the Sanhedrin who came along with the officers out to the garden that night. Because Luke tells us that Jesus spoke directly to some of the chief priests and the officers of the temple and the elders who had come out against Him. But the multitude that came to arrest Jesus was not merely made up of the leaders of the Jewish nation and the police force of the Jewish nation, it was also made up of Roman soldiers, because John 18:3 says, "Judas, having received the Roman cohort." As we noted last time typically a cohort was some 600 soldiers. They would have been stationed in Judea at the time and in particularly in Jerusalem because of the feast time, of Passover. Typically, they would stay in the fortress Antonia, just to the corner of the temple mount.

And so, Judas had gone, found them as had been pre-arranged, and somewhere between 200 Roman soldiers and 600 Roman soldiers probably were accompanying him that night. So clearly, I think there were, when you put the evidence together, there were at least some 300 men and maybe as many as 700 men who came to arrest Jesus.

Now, we looked as well at not only the unlikely members of the arrest party, but the pre-arranged signal with the soldiers in verse 44. Judas knew it would be difficult. These Roman soldiers who were going to spearhead the arrest had not known Jesus, they had been stationed, for the most part, over on the coast at Caesarea. They didn't know this obscure Jewish Rabbi, and so they had to pre-arrange a signal, and so Judas does just that. He says whomever I kiss, He is the one, seize Him and lead Him away under guard.

We examined, in verse's 45 and 46, the monstrous betrayal by Judas. Mark tells us that Judas carried out his evil plan with masterful precision. Verse 45, "After coming, Judas immediately went up to Him saying, 'Rabbi!"' Now, understand that between verse 44 and 45 in Mark's text something else happened. You remember we looked at it last time. It's recorded for us in John's gospel where Jesus speaks and asks who it is they've come to arrest. Who's on the arrest warrant, He essentially asks. And they say Jesus of Nazareth. And He says, "I Am." And He does so in a miraculous way, in a divine pronouncement of the divine name from Exodus 3. And He, it carries such impact on the men that they fall down, they fall back. He does it a second time on the heels of that, and this is what makes Judas' betrayal even all the more monstrous.

On the heels of that display of Jesus' divinity, Judas feels compelled to follow through with his plan, and so now verse 45, he comes up to Jesus, he calls Him, Rabbi, my Master, my Teacher and he kissed Him. And Mark uses a word for fervent passionate kissing; the idea of in that culture of genuine affection, like you would for a family member, a brother. This was the monstrous betrayal.

Now that brings us to where we left off last time and verse 47 and the voluntary submission of Jesus. Verse 47, " But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear." It's an interesting insertion. Mark tells us nothing else about it, but the other gospel writers tell us much more. Mark was the first gospel that was written in chronological order. When Matthew and Luke and John wrote their gospels, they filled out the details of this intriguing story. But only John writing at the end of the first century tells us who these two men were, and I think that's because at this point it's after both of their deaths, and so neither of them would face any recriminations from this incident.

So, in John 18:10, we learn exactly who these people were. This will shock you. The one with the sword was Simon Peter, and the slave was the high priest's slave, a man named Malchus. Caiaphas was the high priest at this time. Because of the importance of his position, he wasn't going to lower himself to come out to the garden himself to ensure that the arrest was made properly. And so, instead, he sent a high-ranking slave. Malchus probably held a high-ranking position much like that that Joseph did in Potiphar's house; one who managed everything and who paid the servants and who kept everything running. Caiaphas intended to make sure this whole thing wasn't botched. And so, he sent his personal high-ranking servant and slave, his trusted servant.

Now apparently, we can't reconstruct it entirely, but apparently, Malchus was standing very near Judas when all of this happened, and so right after Judas kissed Jesus the disciples begin to get what's happening here. It dawns on them what's transpiring. And so, Luke tells us in Luke 22:49 that this is what they said, "When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?"

You want us to defend You? That was the question. Now you have to love Peter because, apparently, he doesn't wait for a response. Perhaps he was made bold by the way Jesus had merely spoken just a moment ago, and the soldiers had fallen down in fear. Or perhaps he was remembering the boast that he had made earlier that evening of his loyalty and devotion to death. But regardless, whatever motivated Peter, and you have to believe that there was genuine love and affection for Christ. Whatever motivates him, he has a sword, and he decides to use it. And there's Malchus.

So, Peter swung his sword at Malchus' head undoubtedly hoping to strike a deadly blow, Malchus ducked his head to one side, and Peter missed the full force of the blow. And instead, his sword ran down the side of Malchus' head and cut off either all or a portion of his ear. Can you imagine the scene? At that moment hundreds of swords leave their scabbards. And several hundred soldiers wait for the simple command to strike. Do you understand what's really happening here? Peter, however well intentioned he may be, Peter at that moment risked compromising the entire eternal divine plan. All the disciples might be killed, and Jesus Himself slain in the garden. As John Calvin wrote, "No thanks to him that Christ was not kept from death and that his name was not a perpetual disgrace." It's only God's providence.

Luke tells us what happened next. He writes in Luke 22:51, "Jesus answered and said, 'Stop! No more of this.'" And in a moment's time He touches Malchus' ear and healed him. Jesus knows what needs to happen, and it's not for Him and the disciples to be slain by hundreds of Roman soldiers in an obscure garden outside of the city. Matthew tells us what Jesus then said to Peter. And I want us to look at that together. Go back to Matthew's gospel, chapter 26. Matthew's gospel chapter 26, and look at verse 52. Let's go back to verse 51 and get a running start.

And behold, one of those who were with Jesus [again Peter] reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword."

Now this verse has been terribly and greatly abused. You have to look at it in its context. Jesus essentially tells Peter; you are breaking the law. You have no right to become a vigilante and take justice into your own hands, and if you do so, then you deserve to be killed by the sword. Jesus here wasn't saying that Christians can't be soldiers. He was simply affirming the death penalty for murder. He was saying Peter, you don't have any legal right to do this, and if you're going to live by the sword then you will rightfully die by the sword of justice as it's carried out against you. Verse 53, "Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?"

That is a remarkable, remarkable claim. Jesus says that all He has to do is ask and the Father will send more than twelve legions of angels. A legion is 6000. That's 72,000 angels. That's a legion of angels to defend each of the eleven and a legion to defend Jesus. And remember how powerful just one angel is? One angel killed 185,000 Syrian soldiers in one night. And Jesus says, Peter put your sword away, do you really think that if I asked the Father, He won't even at this point send 72,000 angels to defend us?

Jesus was reminding Peter and us that the reason He was arrested, about to be arrested, and the reason that He will be tortured, and the reason He will die is not because He lacks the power to stop it. In addition to His own infinite power that we have seen displayed again and again throughout this gospel, Jesus had at His disposal all the powers of heaven. He will go to the cross, not because He's too weak to stop it, but because the people around Him are too weak to stop Him. He will go to the cross because it's the divine plan. Verse 54, "How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?"

Jesus, as He so often does in His ministry, says it has to happen this way because this is what the Scripture says will happen. John adds this in John 18:11, "So Jesus said to Peter", 'Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" [shall I not drink it?]

What I love about this is, don't miss the impact here of our Lord's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane over the last hour and the impact that's had on His soul. Less than an hour before He was pleading with the Father for this cup to pass from Him if it was the Father's will, not the cup of suffering, not the cup of death, but the cup of divine separation and enduring the wrath of God. But now, after prayer, His will is set. And He says, "shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given Me?"

You see the point here? You're supposed to see Jesus in all of His glory and majesty. The Sanhedrin was not in control. The 600 Roman soldiers were not in control. They fell back in fear at the mere words of Christ. The gospel writers go to great length to show us that it was Jesus who was in infinite control that night. He was no hapless victim. His face was set like flint. And no power on heaven or earth could keep Him from the cross.

Now that brings us to the next part of this passage as we flow our way through it and that is the illegal nature of Jesus' arrest. You see it in verse's 48 and 49. Verse 48, "And Jesus said to them, "Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me, as you would against a robber?"

The word for robber here can refer to either an ordinary bandit, highwayman kind of person who holds up travelers, or it can refer to an insurrectionist, to a revolutionary. It's hard to know exactly what Jesus has in mind.

But notice what He goes on to say in verse 49, "Every day I was with you in the temple teaching; and you did not seize Me;" Now these comments are not addressed to the Roman soldiers. They're addressed to the Jewish leadership and their temple police.

You need to read this in the right way. Jesus here is not personally offended. He's not saying, woe is Me, you know, why are you showing up to arrest Me? I don't deserve this, in every sense. What He's doing primarily is pointing out the injustice of His arrest. He's saying, if I have truly committed a crime, if I were truly guilty of a crime, a just and legal accusation could be made against Me, and you would arrest Me in the temple when I was there teaching in public. But Jesus says to them the very fact that they did not do so and were now doing so under the cover of night and in secret showed that they had no legal grounds to arrest Him.

You know, at one level Jesus' arrest had the appearance of a valid and legal arrest. I mean after all the Roman's had given to the Sanhedrin the authority to maintain the law and order. Clearly, the Sanhedrin had acted in unison on the decision to arrest Jesus, and it's likely that they, as they would later give to a man named Saul arrest warrants against the followers of Jesus. We read that in Acts 9:2, it's very likely that they had also issued a legal arrest warrant for Jesus. And so, in that sense it was legal. But in another sense, it was patently unjust and illegal because the Sanhedrin did not have the authority to make capricious, unwarranted arrests. They were bound by the standards of the Old Testament law, and what were those standards?

A crime must have been committed, or there must be at least a valid suspicion of a crime, there must be reason. There must be at least two or three witnesses of that crime. But in Jesus' case the leaders of the nation, the Sanhedrin, issued an arrest warrant for Jesus before they even decided what crime to accuse Him of, and even before they bothered to try to drum up false witnesses. The Romans were there to keep order during the busy Passover season, and they would have assumed that the Sanhedrin had grounds for issuing this arrest warrant against Jesus, but nothing could have been farther from the truth as the ensuing Jewish trials over the next few hours would show, there was no legal basis for Jesus' arrest at all. They were guilty of injustice on a grand scale. But amazingly, their illegal actions were simply serving to fulfill the divine plan. Look at verse 49 again. "Every day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize Me: but this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures."

What Scripture? Well, there are several possibilities. Most commentators believe this points back to Isaiah 53:12 which reads, "Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; …" [He was treated like a rebel, a revolutionary, an insurrectionist, a sinner.] "[and] Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors."

This incident is really fascinating on a number of levels. It shows us Jesus' submission to human government even when it acts unjustly. Jesus was no revolutionary, and neither should His followers be. And yet, when there was injustice, because remember justice is the foundation of God's throne as we saw this morning; it's the foundation of Jesus' character as well. And when there is injustice, He identifies that injustice even as He does here.

Jesus' kingdom is not political, at least not yet. Of course, some day it will be. But today Jesus' kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, and Jesus explains that in John 18 to Pilate. Jesus made it clear that although His arrest was part of God's sovereign plan, it was both unjust and illegal. And at the same time as Jesus is doing that as He's correcting injustice, I think, even in this rebuke, He is pointing out their sin and calling them to repentance. He is seeking their salvation. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Now that brings us to the last part of this passage and that is the tragic response of Jesus' followers, the tragic response of Jesus' followers. In verse's 51 and 52, first of all we see the response of the twelve. Look at verse 50. "And they all left Him and fled." Back in verse 27 Jesus had said this would happen. If you go back to Mark's gospel 14:27, "… Jesus said to them, "You will all fall away, because it is written, 'I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP WILL BE SCATTERED." He had said this would happen, during the Last Supper, He had prophesied it as well, and now it happens.

In the Greek text of verse 50 the emphasis is on the word all. Mark deliberately puts the word all at the end of the sentence to sort of stress it. Here's how it reads literally in the Greek text. "And leaving Him, they ran away, all of them." That includes the eight disciples that Jesus had left near the gate of the garden. It includes the inner circle, Peter, James, and John, He had taken with Him to further into the garden to pray. All of them. When they saw that Jesus was going to be arrested, and when they saw that He had no plans to defend Himself, no plans to resist arrest, it's as if their confidence in Him completely collapsed.

Of course, later that night, two of the disciples would follow Jesus, Peter and John, at a distance. But in this moment, they all left Him and fled for their lives. But this verse, as with the rest of the story, isn't about the disciples. It's about the hero of the story. It's about Jesus Himself, because they may have left Him, but He hasn't left them. In fact, John tells us in John 13:1, "… He loved them to the end." I love this because you know what this illustrates? It illustrates something important in our own lives in our own relationship to Christ. It means that Jesus remains faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to Him. The twelve, they're all gone, they all fled.

But there's another strange part of the story, like the story of Peter cutting off Malchus' ear. By the way, it's interesting to note, I think it's possible, not certain, but there is a tradition that says that Malchus eventually came to trust in Christ, the man whose ear was severed and healed in a moment, that he eventually came to trust in Christ. We don't know, but I think it's likely this next man we meet did. A mysterious young man in verses 51 and 52, look at it again.

"A young man was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body; and they seized him. But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked."

Now can we just be honest with each other and say that those two verses seem, on first glance, to be entirely random. I mean why would Mark include this odd account in his gospel? In the middle of the passion story, in the middle of Jesus' illegal arrest and now He's going to be taken to the high priest's house and first questioned by Annas and then by Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. Why? What is this about?

Well, I think the key to interpreting these two verses is trying to determine who this young man is. There've been a lot of there's been a lot of debate about that. On rare occasions scholars have suggested that this was a young Paul. That's a very unusual and rare view and seems to run contrary to what himself Paul said. But throughout church history there have been predominantly two views.

The first view is that this is simply an anonymous unimportant young man. It's just a circumstance that happened in the middle of Jesus arrest. Now if that view is correct, and certainly I have to say that is possible, because we can't be absolutely sure on this. If this view is correct, then we have to ask why would Mark have inserted this story into his gospel. And I think the answer if this view is correct has to be only one thing; and that is it simply illustrates the sort of frenzy that this mob of soldiers from the temple and from the Roman's were in. They were ready to seize whomever, and the fact that Jesus by saying who do you come to arrest, and they say Jesus of Nazareth, and He says, "I am" and they fall back as dead men – He insured the protection of the eleven. Even when just a passer-by if you will, a guy who gets thrown into the circumstances is going to be seized. That may be what Mark is doing here.

I don't think that's the right explanation. I think the second view of who this is throughout church history is far more likely, and I'll explain why. I think this nameless young man was none other than Mark the writer of this gospel. Let me give you several reasons. And, by the way, I'm not alone here. This has probably been the predominate view through church history, certainly one of the two main views. Why? What are the reasons? Let me give you the reasons why I think it could have been Mark.

First of all, it would not have been unusual for Mark not to attach his name. I mean even the Apostle John in his gospel never refers to himself by name. He always refers to himself as the apostle whom Jesus loved. And so, there was in that culture, in that century the propensity to do that, and so, it's not unusual that he wouldn't say, "oh by the way, it was me." We would do that, you know we would post it on facebook, and you know twitter, and you know the whole world would know, but that wasn't the first century.

There's a second reason that goes a little deeper here, and that is that whoever this young man is he had some interest in Jesus and the events of that night. Why do I say that? Because Mark uses an interesting word, notice the text again, it says in verse 51, "a young man was following Him." This is a word that can be used, rarely, to refer to simply following at a distance. But here's how the lexicon, the Greek lexicon defines this word, it means to accompany someone frequently in the interest of maintaining an association.

Jesus is the obvious antecedent of the pronoun "Him". And so, whoever this young man is, there seems to have been some attachment or at least interest in Jesus. In other words, what the text I don't think allows us to say is that this was just some random guy who happened to be walking through the garden in a linen sheet and came upon this search party. That's very unlikely, based on the language and the whole story.

Thirdly, he was from a wealthy home. Mark tells us that this sheet this man had wrapped around his body was made of linen. And again, for us that means nothing, but in the first century that meant a lot, because that fabric was unavailable to most people in the first century. It was only found in wealthy homes.

Now think about that for a moment. We know that Jesus and His disciples had just celebrated the Last Supper in the upper room of a large wealthy home of one of His followers in Jerusalem. Now we're not told whose home it was. Forty days later, the disciples gather in that apparently that same upper room yet again. And then in Acts, when Peter's arrested and the disciples in Jerusalem are praying for Peter, they gather again in a large upper room, there's every indication it's the same large upper room, and in that case, we're told whose home it was, it was the home of Mark.

So, it's possible that the upper room where the disciples were praying in Acts 1 was Mark's home, and it was the same upper room in which Jesus and His disciples met for Passover. In all three cases it's very possible it was the home of Mark. And this young man was from a wealthy home, that's unquestionable.

There's a fourth reason. And that is, this young man whoever he was had been unexpectedly awakened from sleep. He was wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body. This would never have been appropriate garb for someone in the city of Jerusalem.

The Greek word translated sheet is somewhat vague. It could refer to a sheet or a piece of cloth used for a loose sleeping robe. But regardless, either way, it doesn't really matter, this young man had left his home in a hurry without taking the proper time to clothe himself. Now, the only two real options that you can come up is that as the soldiers made their way through the city, although remember they came across from the fortress Antonia, across the temple mount and out into the garden of Gethsemane which means they would not have passed many homes, but you might argue that somehow in all of that they passed a home and the ruckus awakened a family, a young man he wanted to know what was going on, and he followed them. That's possible.

Let me give you another possibility. And that is that the Passover celebration in the upper room in what may very well have been Mark's home had gone late we know that. And so apparently, if in fact, it was Mark, which I tend to believe it was, he had gone to bed when something disturbed him. It may have been Jesus and His disciples leaving the upper room to go to Gethsemane. In this case, he followed them out of his newfound interest in Jesus. And he follows them to see where they're going and what's going to happen.

It's also possible (and I again this can't be proven), but I think it's possible that at first Judas brought the soldiers to the upper room, thinking that Jesus and His disciples were still there. And when he discovered that Jesus had gone, Judas was fairly certain where they had gone because he had accompanied Jesus there many times before. But as he and the soldiers left the house to head to Gethsemane, they awakened Mark. And he hastily grabbed a sheet around him and followed them. Perhaps he even planned to try to warn Jesus and the disciples. But he simply ends up being a spectator. Again, we can't be sure of how it all unfolded, but that is a possibility.

Regardless, what we are told in verse 51 is that this young man was following Him wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body, and they seized him. If it was Mark, as I think it was, apparently Mark's unusual appearance attracted their attention and made them suspect that something unusual was going on. I mean you just didn't see a guy running around in a linen sheet in Jerusalem at night. So, they seized him. Verse 52, "But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked."

Mark slipped out of the sheet or gown or whatever it was and fled either completely naked or perhaps only in some kind of undergarment. So, if it was Mark, and remember we can't be sure of this, but if this is the right explanation, can you think of why this incident might be included? Why he would have included this account.

Papeus, the early church father tells us that during Jesus' earthly ministry Mark was not a committed follower of Christ. It's possible that what Mark witnessed as a spectator that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, remember all that he has seen, all that we've looked at. He's seen the glory and majesty of Christ. Whoever this young man is he's witnessed these amazing events unfold, and through those events I think Mark became a committed follower of Jesus Christ became a friend of the Apostle Peter whose account of the ear chop is included, and the one Christ chose to write the first gospel of His life. It's really fascinating when you think about it. You see grace and majesty everywhere in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It ends with these words. Here's how it all concludes, John 18:12.

"So the Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound Him, and led Him to Annas first; …"

We'll meet Annas the next time we study this passage together. He was the real power behind the politics in Israel. His son-in-law might have been the current high priest, but he was the godfather. Where do we find Jesus? Everyone has left Him. Judas has betrayed Him. The eleven have fled for fear of their own lives. And young Mark probably has been forced to leave with his clothes behind and run for his own safety. From the human vantage point Jesus is completely alone. There's a very important point here theologically. There is no such thing as co-redeemers, or as the former pope liked to believe in co-redemtrix. There's no such thing. Jesus is going to walk this road alone.

I love how William Hendriksen writes it. He says, as we read this account, "Our eyes should be riveted on the Lamb of God who was taking away the sin of the world, forsaken by all in order that all who believe in Him would never be forsaken." Voluntarily, Jesus entered into the state of desertion and abandonment. The Sanhedrin wasn't in control that night. The Roman soldiers weren't in control. Judas wasn't in control. Jesus, in His majestic eternal person was in complete control, and nothing would stop Him from the cross for you and for me.

Let's pray together.

Our Father, thank You for showing us Christ as we prayed in our song before we started to study Your word. Thank You for letting us see Him in His majesty as the soldiers fall back at the mere pronouncement of the divine name. Thank You for letting us see Him in His compassion toward Judas and toward Malchus. Thank You for letting us see His grace as He was forsaken by all so that all of us who believe in Him would never be forsaken. Thank You O God that in a few hours from this event we've studied tonight, He would be abandoned even by You, for us. We bless You O God for Your grace and goodness to us in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

It's in His name we pray, Amen.