Introduction
What is worse – to be told that you will fail or to watch your failure played out just as it was told? And what is more difficult for the condemned prisoner – waiting for the hours to tick by or the moment of execution finally arriving? Not very good choices either way, and both Jesus and his disciples had to face them. The tension has been building until we now reach the moment in which all that has been prophesied is now to be played out. Now comes Jesus’ arrest.
Text
Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.
Let’s see if we can’t construct the events taking place behind the scene of Jesus’ time with his disciples. We know that Judas some days earlier made a deal with the religious leaders to turn Jesus over to them. As verse 11 notes, he watched for an opportunity to hand him over. Jesus outwitted him in keeping the location of the passover supper a secret. Nevertheless, he looked for his opportunity. Sometime during the supper he slipped away, apparently before Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper (based upon John’s record). No doubt arrangements had been made for him to alert his co-conspirators when the time was opportune.
Mark mentions from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. There had grown up within the leadership of the religious establishment a group that hated Jesus and saw in him a great danger to their interests and to that of the nation. John records an insightful scene in his gospel.
47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life (John 11:47-53).
This passage brings out a number of insights into this group who has sent out this arrest party. First, they were not renegades or mavericks. They were the leadership of the nation. Understand that the religious leaders were the civil leaders as well. John mentions the Sanhedrin. This was the highest governing body allowed by the Romans to handle Jewish civil and religious customs. Caiaphas is the high priest who by his position was the chief of the Sanhedrin. The leaders understood the danger that Jesus posed. If he becomes too popular, the crowd will make him as a king, which will bring down the military force of Rome. Many of the leaders held a personal grudge, no doubt, against Jesus, but even those not so antagonistic recognize the danger that he carries. Caiaphas recognizes the solution. Jesus must die – nothing personal! – to preserve the nation.
Not all the Sanhedrin understood his implications, but a certain number did and they conspired together for Jesus’ downfall. Timing was everything, and Judas solved that problem for them. He would find the right time away from the crowds to make the arrest.
We don’t know how large this “crowd” was – large enough to handle any resistance that eleven disciples might make, but not so large as to attract a lot of attention. They would mostly have been the guards of the Sanhedrin.
44 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” 45 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
Note the title now hung on Judas, “the betrayer.” Probably what is so galling to Mark is the signal that Judas had prearranged with his guard – a kiss. Two things could go wrong: Jesus and the disciples be alerted too soon and fight or run, or the arrest party mistakenly go after the wrong guy in the dark, again giving Jesus time to make his escape. On the other side of the Mount of Olives begins the Judean wilderness. Escape would be quite possible.
The kiss is the customary greeting given by friends, just as our handshake. Judas carries his deceit to the final moment, even greeting Jesus with the respectful term of “Rabbi.” Then he disappears from the scene, never to be heard from again in Mark’s gospel. We need Matthew and Luke to tell us of his fate.
Indeed, Mark gives us only a minimum description of the arrest. All we know is that the men with Judas seize and arrest Jesus. One of the disciples does resist by striking out with a sword. John tells us that it is Peter. See, he came through just as he told Jesus. Not a trained swordsman, Peter’s wild lashing succeeds in cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Again, John tells us that his name is Malchus. Luke lets us know that Jesus actually healed the ear, and Matthew records Jesus’ rebuke to Peter. Jesus’ quick action and rebuke explains why a brawl did not break out.
The only words of Jesus that Mark records are those spoken to the arrest party. (One wonders if Judas hadn’t already slipped away.) 48 “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me.” I think Jesus still could have gotten away if he so chose. We know from John that the men literally fell back when Jesus first spoke to them, no doubt because of the authority that emanated from him. This is not the first time that the guards had tried to arrest Jesus. Another time when he was teaching in the temple courts, the religious leaders had sent them to arrest him. But they came back empty handed. When asked why, they replied: “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (John 7:46). Even now Jesus could have ordered them away.
But the Scriptures must be fulfilled. With that statement Jesus closes his escape hatch. Jesus must fulfill what was spoken of him. Don’t misunderstand him, though. Jesus was not a man trapped by his destiny, but embolden by it. He was not Frodo bemoaning that the cup of sacrifice had to be born by him. The Scriptures must be fulfilled was not a curse, but rather a motto that carried him on into the sufferings he must endure to be a ransom for man’s sins. The Scriptures that had given hope to generations after generations would be fulfilled in him. With that knowledge he could submit to this puny band of men who did not know what they were doing.
Of course, too, he had his faithful disciples to be there for him. Peter has already shown his courage.
50 Then everyone deserted him and fled.
51 A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, 52 he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.
Fighting Jesus’ enemies? The disciples could have done that. Giving in to them…watching Jesus so easily give in…What do you suppose threw them in a state of panic more – the arrest party or Jesus’ submission? They are ready to fight with the Lion of Judah, but following a lamb meekly walking to his slaughter – well, they just don’t understand. And they run away. Everybody. Even the anonymous young man (Mark?) flees in terror.
Lessons
It all falls apart. The movement comes undone. The hopes wrapped up in Jesus come crumbling down… and so easily. It was as if there was a fate driving the events and the characters along, and nothing could stop it.
One of my favorite novels is The Once and Future King, T. H. White’s rendition of the story of King Arthur. It is the great story of the king who for a time is able to overcome wicked forces and establish a kingdom of justice and peace, only in the end for it to tumble down under violence. In the last chapter Arthur sits alone in his tent awaiting the dawn where the final battle with Mordred will take place. He wearily tries to think through what went wrong with his dream.
Arthur was tired out. He had been broken by the two battles which he had fought already…His wife was a prisoner. His oldest friend was banished. His son was trying to kill him. Gawaine was buried. His Table was dispersed. His country was at war. Yet he could have breasted all these things in some way, if the central tenet of his heart had not been ravaged….He had been taught by Merlyn to believe that man was perfectible: that he was on the whole more decent than beastly: that good was worth trying: that there was no such thing as original sin. He had been forged as a weapon for the aid of man, on the assumption that men were good….The service for which he had been destined had been against Force, the mental illness of humanity. His Table, his idea of Chivalry, his Holy Grail, his devotion to Justice: these had been progressive steps in the effort for which he had been bred. He was like a scientist who had pursued the root of cancer all his life. Might – to have ended it – to have made men happier. But the whole structure depended on the first premise: that man was decent.
Looking back at his life, it seemed to him that he had been struggling all the time to dam a flood, which, whenever he had checked it, had broken through at a new place, setting him his work to do again. It was the flood of Force Majeur. During the earliest days before his marriage he had tried to match its strength with strength…only to find that two wrongs did not make a right. But he had crushed the feudal dream of war successfully. Then, with his Round Table, he had tried to harness Tyranny in lesser forms, so that its power might be used for useful ends. He had sent out the men of might to rescue the oppressed and to straighten evil – to put down the individual might of barons, just as he had put down the might of kings. They had done so – until, in the course of time, the ends had been achieved, but the force had remained upon his hands unchastened. So he had sought for a new channel, had sent them out on God’s business, searching for the Holy Grail. That too had been a failure, because those who had achieved the Quest had become perfect and been lost to the world, while those who had failed in it had soon returned no better. At last he had sought to make a map of force, as it were, to bind it down by laws. He had tried to codify the evil uses of might by individuals, so that he might set bounds to them by the impersonal justice of the state. He had been prepared to sacrifice his wife and his best friend, to the impersonality of Justice. And then, even as the might of the individual seemed to have been curbed, the Principle of Might had sprung up behind him in another shape – in the shape of collective might, of banded ferocity, of numerous armies insusceptible to individual laws….He had conquered murder, to be faced with war….
Now, with his forehead resting on the papers and his eyes closed, the King was trying not to realize. For if there was such a thing as original sin, if man was on the whole a villain, if the Bible was right in saying that the heart of men was deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, then the purpose of his life had been a vain one. Chivalry and justice became a child’s illusions, if the stock on which he had tried to graft them was to be the Thrasher, was to be Homo ferox instead of Homo sapiens…Why did men fight?
Poor Arthur, if only he could figure man out, and then he would make a kingdom that would last. But Jesus does have man figured out. He knows exactly the problem and it is “that the heart of men [i]s deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” Far from making the purpose of his life a vain one, it is this knowledge that drives him on to what appears to be a horrible crashing of his lifework. The battle to take place the next day is what his earthly life has been leading up to; if it does not, then his life is in vain.
Jesus has come to give his life as a ransom for many (10:45). Man needs to be saved from himself, from his deceitful heart, his bent to do evil. “The best laid plans of mice and men” go wrong precisely because no matter how good men may appear to be, there is an incurable cancer in the heart that corrupts them. And so Jesus came to save us. And so he fulfilled all that was written about him and about us that the rest of the prophecies might be fulfilled, the prophecies that speak of an everlasting kingdom of joy and peace.
No, Jesus is not a weary Arthur despairing over a collapse that he cannot control. He is the warrior prepared for the battle that will literally save men’s souls. The great mystery is that he prepares himself with sheep clothing and marches forward as a lamb meekly heading for his slaughter. The paradox is that to win his battle, he must give himself up to his enemies; to win the decisive victory, he must be slain. No wonder the disciples run away. Who of us could handle such a plan?
But we do understand the plan now, after the resurrection. It makes sense (to a degree) now. And this knowledge is what should spur us on to whatever battles we might wage for Christ’s kingdom. It is what should carry us through the trials and sorrows of life.
Fighting battles is tough. Bearing up under tedious labor is tough. Facing disappointments, defeats, and other trials is tough. But we can weather through any difficulty and rise to any occasion if we know that there is a worthy purpose that we serve. Again, knowing the purpose is what made the difference for Jesus and not knowing it is what undid the disciples. They had no reason not to know. Jesus had time and again explained his mission; they did not want to hear.
Jesus achieved his purpose. Remember that. He saved you. Now, carry out your purpose. You cannot atone for anyone’s sins, including your own, but you can serve the kingdom of your Savior. You can do the tough job of living in obedience to your Lord – of loving your neighbor as yourself, of praying for your neighbor, even of turning the other cheek when offended and returning offense with love. You can do the tough job of battling for the justice of others and for what is good. You can do the very tough job of being a humble servant and serving wherever your Lord would lead you. You can do it, because of the Spirit who lives within you and because you know that God’s purpose is being served, even in what seems to be your defeats.
God is winning, whatever your limited sight might tell you. The gospel is going forth; souls are being saved out of Satan’s grasp; the name of Christ is being exalted in new places; and this is happening despite our weak flesh and the many spills we seem to take. The purpose of God being glorified through our redemption is being fulfilled just as it is written, and it will be ultimately fulfilled through our own glorification.
Let this moment of what seems to be Jesus’ defeat and which undid his disciples, may this moment be to us an inspiration to persevere.
[L]et us run the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Hebrews 12:1b-3).
I was going to end with that verse, but I would be amiss if I did not speak to those who may yet to know Christ’s redemption. It is written, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel 2:32). Now is the time to call on the name of the Lord. Now is the time to serve that wondrous purpose of salvation and glory. If you need help in knowing what to do, see me or a trusted friend. But do not let the day of salvation pass you by.
