Gospel of John 55 - This is the Plan [August 20, 2023]

This morning, take your Bibles and turn to John chapter 18.

John chapter 18. Now, I've said this before. I like old movies. Y'all like old movies? Who likes Hitchcock movies? Anybody like, I like old Hitchcock. I saw him and he's like, I don't like him. There's a lot of variety in Hitchcock movies. There really are. One of the movies that I think is universally liked by almost everyone is North by Northwest. How many people have seen that? A lot of people have seen it. It's a good movie.

And it has an interesting premise. And the interesting premise is Cary Grant is the lead character. He plays Roger O. Thornhill. And they give him that name just so that on the matchbox that he can have his initials that say Rot. That's a joke that pops up at the end of the movie. But the premise is this. For the first three quarters of the movie, Cary Grant has no idea what's going on. I mean, he has no clue. And that's how it starts. It starts with him going into a restaurant.

And Atlanta and I were talking about this morning. And something happens that could never happen today and would never be in a movie. He's sitting in a restaurant. And all of a sudden, Bellhop or Usher or somebody comes through the restaurant because there's a call for somebody and they need to go out of the restaurant and take the call in the lobby. Now with cell phones today, you can't, you can't redo that. And so as soon as the movie starts, they come through, the guy is walking through

and he's hollering out Kaplan, Kaplan, George Kaplan. There's a phone call for George Kaplan. And Cary Grant sits there and he's got his mom. He's like, I need to call my mom. And so while this boy is hollering out for George Kaplan, Cary Grant just raises his hand to get his attention, not for the phone call for George Kaplan, but so that he could go out and make a phone call.

And at that moment when he raises his hands, the two spies in the dining room see him raise his hand and they go, okay, he's George Kaplan. He's the guy we've been hunting for. He's the guy that we've been looking for for all this time. But we all know that he's not. Everybody in the movie, all the characters that he comes in contact from that point on thinks that he is Roger, or excuse me, that he is George Kaplan.

And everybody is heading this way going, all right, he's Kaplan. We got to find him. But we know watching, he's not. And so the movie progresses really with him reacting and just being a hapless victim in all of these circumstances.

When we come to John 18, we're making a transition in John's narrative. We're still in the second part of the book, the book of glory. But in transitioning from John 17 to John 18, we are entering what is typically referred to as the passion of Jesus. John 18 and 19 is the passion. And if you're wondering why it's called the passion, because it does not seem to quite fit what is about to happen, that we get that from the Latin, and the Latin means to suffer. We're about to see Jesus suffer.

And if you just casually read John 18 and 19, in fact, if you were just to casually read any of the gospels, you would walk away with the idea that everything that's about to happen, Jesus is just a hapless victim. Almost like Roger Thornhill in the dining hall raising his hand at the wrong time. And that everything that happens to Jesus is beyond his control. Now, if you casually read the gospel that way, you're going to get the wrong idea.

Because what we actually see, far from Jesus just being a hapless victim, Jesus is in control of every single thing that is about to happen. And at the very beginning of the Passion, in verses 1-12 of John 18, John made sure to inform us and to tell us so that we can read what is going to happen, not as Jesus as a victim, but Jesus as Lord sovereignly in control of the events that are about to occur.

So this is what John writes. And as I read this, there's two verses, and you will be quizzed afterwards, that very clearly tell us this. See if you pick them up. Thank you. It says, when Jesus spoke in these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples.

So Judas, having procured abandoned soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, Whom do you seek? They answered, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, I am he. Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground. So he asked them again, Whom do you seek?

And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I told you that I am he. So if you seek me, let these men go. This was to fulfill the word that had been spoken. Of those whom you have given me, I have lost not one. Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. So Jesus said to Peter, Put your sword into its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?

So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. So here's the quiz. Which two verses? One's pretty easy. One you ought to have picked up right off. Verse 4, right? Because verse 4, he says, what does Jesus say in verse 4? Knowing all that would happen to him.

He's not an unwilling victim. But then the second one might have been a little bit more subtle, and we're going to talk about this more, is in verse 11, where he rhetorically asks, Shall I not drink from the cup that the Father has given me? Again, he's given it to me. I have to do it. I'm not doing it unwillingly. I know what is going on. And so Jesus is in control of this entire scene.

And as I was reading it, I just jotted down three areas where I really see that Jesus is in control. He's in control of the location, of his apprehension, and of his crucifixion. Firstly, he's sovereignly in control over the location. It says, after these things, what things? After the prayer, after Jesus talking to them since John 14 about the coming of the Holy Spirit and the world hating you and Jesus praying for them. After these things, he and the disciples go to a garden.

John's the only one that tells us it's a garden. They cross over the book Kidron, which at this time would be a dry stream bed, so they would cross over it. But at the same time, it's not going to be filled with water as it might normally would be since this is the Passover. What it's going to be filled with is the blood of all the sacrifices, because the sacrifice is drained out of the temple down through the brook.

And so they cross over this brook that is flowing with the blood of the sacrifices, and they go into this garden, not like your garden, right? It's not like Roger and Julie's garden. It's not like whoever is growing a garden today. It's a walled garden, and it's an olive grove. So they enter into this garden that the disciples know well. And as they go there, Jesus is leading them there, again, on purpose. He's going to the garden.

Now, just as an aside, that's just kind of interesting. Do you realize that in the Gospels, we never see Jesus sleeping inside? Have y'all noticed that? I mean, I'm not saying that he didn't. I'm just saying it's never reported that Jesus sleeps inside. Kind of, you know, again, Matthew 8, 20, the birds, the foxes have holes, the birds of the air has nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

So he's going to the garden, and they're probably going to the, I mean, one of the reasons they would go to the garden was they've been there before. They probably stayed there before. This is where they camp out. This is where they sit around the campfire and talk. Jesus teaches them. This is also really also a place that they would go so that they would be within the bounds of Jerusalem.

It's the Passover. It's a pilgrimage feast. So all these people have come into Jerusalem and the chief priest and the rabbis and everybody has said, all right, when you come to Jerusalem for the Passover, you can't leave the city limits. Well, God didn't say that. They said that. But they have a problem.

Jerusalem can't hold all the people. So the solution to the problem at Passover, they temporarily expanded the city limits so that people could stay outside the city but still be inside the city. So they're going so that they can be in the city for Passover. But there's another reason. Jesus goes there because Judas will know that he goes there. Since John 6, we have known that Judas is a traitor. John 13, you have the Last Supper, and Jesus publicly says, one of you will betray me.

He tells Judas, what you're going to do, do quickly. And then we read that Satan enters into Judas. He's not possessed. He's just a willing vessel of Satan. He leaves the upper room, and Jesus and his disciples come out, and they're walking. Jesus is teaching them. Then John 17, he prays for them. Before he prays, he says, my hour has come. It's time. And seeing all this, we understand that Jesus then is purposeful in picking the location of where he is going to be.

Because he knows that Judas is going to come and get him. He knows what is going to happen. This is why he was sent. Now, if we are reading this, this is kind of shocking. Right? I mentioned North by Northwest, kind of a spy movie, not really, kind of, but I like spy novels. And usually when a spy is found out, you read somewhere that the spy goes to ground, right? Which I did not know actually comes from fox hunting.

That's where you come from. Let's say the fox would go to ground, would go into the burrow and would hide. Because if you're about to be arrested, if you're about to be tried, if you're about to get in trouble, what do you usually do? You hide. Every one of us at some point in our lives when we were about to get in trouble, either at school or with our parents or somewhere, we tried to hide. I got a great story. The kids still laugh about it every day. And this is the story.

The house that we live in, my grandfather's house is right here. And right through the woods, there's a holler. And in the house currently is, I can't, I don't know, my grandmother's niece or nephew. I'm trying to think of family relations. I'm losing the story. But anyway, it used to be my grandmother's brother's house. So I was there with my grandmother one day visiting her brother, and I decided to climb a tree. I fell out of the tree.

And for whatever reason, I thought I was going to be in trouble for falling out of the tree. I don't remember if I was told not to climb the tree. I don't remember if I was told, stay here. And well, obviously I didn't, but I climbed the tree. And after I finished falling, which really felt like it took half the day, I got up. I was really afraid. I don't want to get in trouble. So I decide to run and hide. I run down the road. I run around the pond. I run up through the field.

And I run into my grandfather's house, who doesn't know that I'm over here visiting. There's a family separation there. He doesn't know that I'm over here visiting. And they have no idea. And all of a sudden, all they see is this person that they don't know run through their house. and I know right where I'm going, for whatever reason, I go and I hide in their closet. And their closet has those doors that you slide, French doors, you slide one way.

And so when I hide in the closet, what I do is I press on one of the doors so they can't open it this way, which means they can open the other one the other way. And I'm sitting there hiding because I don't want to get in trouble. It's what people do. It is a natural instinct. Jesus doesn't do that. He doesn't hide. He goes to the exact location where he would be found by the traitor. Could have went anywhere else in Jerusalem. Could have went anywhere outside of Jerusalem.

Could have went to another town, another city. Could have went up to Galilee. Could have went to Bethany. Could have escaped down into the southern part, into the Negev. He could have went anywhere. But where does he go? Right where he knows Judas will find him. He's sovereign over his location.

But then he's sovereign over his apprehension. And I had to go with apprehension over arrest so that all the words in denial win. Well, look at your study sheet. Look at your sermon notes, all right? So Judas enters the story. And what we see now is we've heard about his betrayal. We heard that it's coming. We now see his betrayal in action. And look at what it says. If I were to have asked you before we read this verse, who gets the arresting force? Who would you have answered?

Would you have said Judas? But when you read right here in verse 3, it says, And so Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, he goes and gets them. He doesn't wait. He doesn't say, I'll tell you where Jesus is. Y'all go get him. He says, no, come with me. I will lead you to him. And that's exactly what he does. And he has Roman soldiers, and he has temple guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees.

Now, you know what a Roman soldier is? You know what they look like? And they would be there. And in times of festivals, they would increase forces, not only in Jerusalem, but other territories, where if something national was going to happen, they would send in reserves so that the people wouldn't get out of control.

So if they did, they would be able to put him down, put the revolt down or the rebellion down or the person down or say, wait a minute, y'all may have some nationalistic zeal, that's all right, but you are our subjects and you're not going to behave this way. So Judas goes and gets soldiers because Roman soldiers, Roman centurions, they were feared. They were brutal. They were fighting machines. But he also goes and gets temple guards.

And temple guards are kind of, they work for the high priest, and they're kind of a mix between police and really a bodyguard. But they need to be there as well. And when we read that, what is interesting is that the Romans are there to begin with. The Romans never, we don't see anywhere in John or any of the other Gospels, or even in extra biblical literature, where the Romans view Jesus as a threat. I'll see you next time.

But Judas wants to make sure that he can't get away. So he brings them, and he brings the temple guards with him. And in bringing the Romans and the temple guards together, basically what you have is this enemy of my enemy is my friend situation. It's a weird mix. But John tells us that because he's really telling us more than just who is there. If you've got the Romans and you've got the Jews, you basically got in John's

gospel, the entire world coming out to arrest Jesus, right? And we know that the world does not like Jesus. And so here, if you can imagine it, here really is Judas leading the world to come up against Jesus, to arrest him. And you have all of a sudden this clash, right?

It's this clash of good versus evil. Jesus on one side, good, by the way, in case you didn't know. Judas on the other side leading the evil, right? We're told later in the verses, we're told in verse six, he says that Judas is with them, that Judas is standing with them. The line has been drawn and Jesus and his disciples are over here. Judas and the world are over here coming about to do battle. And you see it because they show up with lanterns and torches and weapons.

They come expecting Jesus to do what criminals do. I know right now that we live in a time when there's a lot of conversation about police. I know there's a lot of conversation about arrest. I understand that. Why do police use the weapons and instruments that they have to arrest people? Because people typically don't want to be arrested. And so they use the means that they have to arrest people.

And people that they arrest are usually, and I know there's some exceptions, but are usually wanted for something. And so they come and they bring their weapons and they bring their force to kind of bear down on the person so that they can arrest them. The same thing is happening here in John 18. They come with the torches and the lanterns, and they're come ready to arrest Jesus because no one in their right mind would stand up against a group of Roman soldiers.

No one, when seeing them come into the garden with the torches and in their uniforms and their shields and their armor carrying their pikes maybe or carrying their swords strong, ready to go, No one is going to stand up against them. They might hide, so they've got the torches ready so that they can look in the crevices of the garden. They look behind the trees. They can pull the tree branches back, look through the shrubs, and find him. But they are expecting a battle.

They're expecting Jesus to come and maybe just start an insurrection or start something right there. If nothing else, fight back. And so they come prepared. And you see so much irony in that, do you not? I mean, maybe it's just me, right? But here we come, Jesus, who has not advocated any insurrection. We don't have any teaching that he's advocated insurrection in the Roman soldiers coming out against the insurrectionists.

We've got Jesus calmly going to the garden and a group, a band of the world coming up against him. We've got the peace of Jesus versus the violence of the force. How about the darkness? John has played with dark and light as a metaphor throughout his gospel. And here we have it again. It's dark. It's night. People do evil things in the darkness. And so here they come into the night to do something evil. But what do they need to be able to do it?

They need artificial light. So they come into the darkness with artificial light to arrest the light of the world. John is brilliantly setting the scene for us to see and to understand everything that is going on. And we're ready, right? I mean, if we were watching a movie, we're ready. The forces are aligned. The forces are in battle. They have the leaders. They're getting ready to be a clash. And then all of a sudden, Jesus does something that just catches everybody off guard.

They're ready to hunt. They're ready to look. They're ready to find him. And all of a sudden, Jesus just, here comes the band. Jesus just walks up to them. Hey, who are you looking for? I mean, if he was not in control, would he do that? Again, it shows he's in control. So he just, he walks up. Who are you looking for? Doesn't even come out with his hands up. Doesn't give them a chance to call. All right, again, we see people at rest where they stand outside the door.

So it's like, John Doe, come out with your hands up. I mean, Jesus didn't even give them a chance to do that. He just walks up to the forces. Who are you looking for? Whom do you seek? All right, another pop quiz. What were the first words of Jesus in John's gospel? I'll make it easy for you. Was it a sentence or was it a question? Jesus just asked, whom do you seek? So was his first words a sentence or a question?

Play the odds question don't take Greg to Vegas he doesn't play the odds it was the question first John or excuse me John 138. John the Baptist says, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. After that, two disciples, one we later know as Andrew, follow Jesus. And Jesus turns and he looks at the two disciples and says to them, what are you seeking? A couple of verses later, Andrew goes to Peter and says to Peter, we have found the Messiah.

Jesus, again, is asking the same question. He's asking the soldiers. He's asking Judas. He's asking everybody who has come into the garden to arrest him. Whom do you seek? Who are you looking for? Unlike Simon and Peter in John 1, they're not looking for the Messiah. They're looking for a violent criminal. They're looking for someone who is going to disturb the peace of the city. And so they come not looking to see if this is God's plan, if this is the one

sent by God. They've come to arrest him because he is causing trouble. So they answer the question, Jesus of Nazareth. All right. Want to make sure they get the correct Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus steps out and he says to them, I am. Now, most English translations add the he. The he is not in the original. And I hate that they add that because it takes away from it. It's how we would answer the question. I'm him. You know, it's me. But in John's gospel, Jesus comes out.

Whom are you seeking? Jesus of Nazareth. I am. And in that moment, he tells them, you've come to look for a violent insurrectionist, but who you found is the Messiah. Who you have found is God in the flesh. Who you have found, temple guards, because I'm sure the Romans didn't quite understand it, but temple guards who y'all have been in the temple and listening to the chief priests who know your Old Testament, you have found the I am of Exodus.

You have found the one that led the people out of Egypt into the promised land. You have found the Messiah. You have found I am. You've come looking for a criminal, and you've come face to face with God. And at that moment, when he says that, we are told, look at what happens in verse 6. It says, they drew back and fell to the ground. They fall down. Just the power of Jesus saying, I am.

We have seen throughout the gospel of John, we have seen throughout scripture, the power of God's spoken voice. He speaks creation into existence.

We see the power of Jesus speaking here again and just saying, I am. And just at that name, they fall down. They can't stand in his presence. We sing, what is it? I'll hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate fall. I mean, even angels fall at the power of the name of Jesus. And here they are. Think about it again. The world has come out to arrest Jesus. They have come out with soldiers. They have come out with weapons. They have come out with the force of imperial Rome.

And at the sound of the name, I am, even imperial Rome falls before the Messiah. He's more powerful than any force that Judas has mustered. And so he looks again. And I love this. It caught me off guard as I was reading this. It never says they got up. Did y'all pick that up? They drew and fell to the ground. So he asked them again. So I don't know if they're still laying on the ground or if they've stood up yet. If I were them, if he's going to answer that again, I might just stay on the

ground so I don't fall a second time. He says, who do you seek? And again, they say, Jesus is Nazareth. He goes, I told you I am. And if you have come to arrest me, then arrest me. Here I am. Come get me. But if you seek me in verse 8, let these men go. To fulfill the words that he had just spoken just a few chapters earlier, that I've not lost any of them. He didn't lose any of them through his three years, and he's not going to lose any of them in the garden now.

But something else happens there. If Rome is coming out to arrest the traitor, to arrest the insurrectionist, are they just going to arrest the leader and leave the followers? No, they would arrest everybody. So even before the cross, John's giving us a little foreshadowing where Jesus says, look, basically, take me. Let me be the substitute, but don't take these. Let them go. What is he basically doing? I will willingly give myself to you as a substitute for my people, for my disciples.

Let them go. Physically kind of foreshadowing what is going to happen on the cross. But Peter, right? But Peter decides, nope, that's not how it's going to end. And Peter just goes on the offensive, right? We don't know how many guards are there. There's a lot. Peter decides, hey, you know what? This isn't going to go down because we've seen this is kind of Peter's reaction to a whole lot of things. If Peter doesn't like it, Peter stands up and says, nope, we're not doing it.

That way. We're going to do it my way. Jesus, you're not going to do it that way. You're going to do it my way. So once again, Peter stands up and it's a good lesson for us, right? Because a lot of times we're like, no, God, we're going to do it my way, not your way. Peter grabs his sword and all the violence that he can, he goes after who, I guess the person standing closest to him and he just takes off his sword and he's going to go and he's not aiming for the ear.

Whether the guy moves or Peter is not a good swordsman, I don't know. But Peter swings for the head and he gets the ear. Now, Luke tells us that Jesus heals the man. In John's gospel, Jesus just, he rebukes Peter, and the rebuke is going to lead us to the last point. Jesus, in verse 11, looks at Peter and says, put your sword into its sheath. Look, Peter, this is not the way. Put up your sword, right? Because who's going to win the fight?

I mean, first of all, I think it's a little bit practical. A couple fishermen, I mean, yeah, they're probably burly guys, but a couple of fishermen, a zealot, a tax collector, is not going to beat Imperial Rome and their army. Because when the fighting starts, the temple priests are going to hide behind the Romans. When fighting starts, you get behind the biggest guy you can. I got you. Yeah, let's go. No, you first, really.

So they're going to lose. Jesus looks at him and says, Peter, this isn't the way. But it's not because they would lose the battle but it's because of what's got to happen. Look at what he says. Peter, put up your sword. Shall I not drink from the cup that the Father has given me? Peter, this is not the way to usher in God's kingdom. This is not the plan.

This is not what is going to happen. If it was left to us, that was probably the plan. But Jesus says, no, the plan is for me to drink the cup. Which brings us to the third point this morning, that Jesus is sovereignly in control over his crucifixion. And he says, I will drink the cup. That's his mission. His mission is to drink the cup. And the cup is a metaphor that we see throughout the Old Testament, and really throughout Scripture.

You see it in Revelation as well, where the cup stands in place of God's wrath. A good verse to look back at this. There's several from the Old Testament, but one place you can look is Jeremiah 25, 15. Thus Yahweh, the God of Israel, said to me, Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath. God's wrath is poured out. You get to Revelation and you look at the bowl judgments. God's wrath is poured out, like taking a cup and dumping the contents out.

So Jesus looks at Peter and says, look, Peter, I'm in control. This is the mission. This is why I was sent to go and drink the cup of God's wrath. And Peter, you're trying to take the cup away. But if you take the cup away, Peter, then who's going to drink the cup? Peter can't drink the cup. John can't drink the cup. I can't drink the cup. You can't drink the cup. No one can drink the cup of God's wrath. We would die, not just physically, but spiritually as well.

Jesus says to him, Peter, it's not the way. And he goes so far in verse 12, where it says, they bind him. Did they? Right. So the band of soldiers and their captain, the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound him. I imagine whoever had the task of binding Jesus did that with great fear and apprehension. I mean, if I just fell to the ground at his name, I'm not sure I want to touch the guy. But why does Jesus let them bind him?

Because it's the next step. It's the next part of the plan that he is in control of going to the cross. He's going to go to the cross willingly and do what we cannot do. He's going to go and drink the cup of God's wrath for you and for me so that through that we can be saved. And he looks at Peter and says, put up your sword. I'm in control. And as we think about that, I want us to end on this thought right here. John begins his gospel with the words, in the beginning.

And immediately, we read those words and we go back to Genesis 1-1 because John wants us to go back to Genesis 1-1. So we go back to Genesis 1-1 and we read the same three words in the beginning. John 1-1, in the beginning was the word, in the beginning God from Genesis 1-1. And when we read those words in Genesis 1 and we get to Genesis 2, we discover a garden. It's a beautiful garden. It's a perfect garden.

Everything in the garden the trees the plants the shrubs the animals Adam and Eve who are in the garden it is all perfect God created it it's perfect. That perfection lasts until Adam's sin. And Adam sins, and Eve sins. And there's punishment for sin. There always has to be punishment for sin. We see that the punishment needs to be a redemption. It needs to be blood. And in the garden, what does God do? Kills an animal, one that they had named, covers them, redeemed through the blood.

But then, what happens at the end of Genesis 3? Where are Adam and Eve at the end of Genesis 3? They're not in the garden. They're in the wilderness. And from Genesis 3 all the way to today, man has been in the wilderness looking for a way to get back in the garden. We get to Revelation 21 and 22 and we read about a new garden, a new heaven, a new earth, with trees that line the streets, with rivers that flow from the throne of God, fruit that yields its season or

is yielded in its season. We see a new garden. The question becomes, how do we get to the garden?

And in John's gospel, at the very beginning of the passion, we are in a garden where Jesus says, I am in control of everything that is about to happen. Including drinking the cup of God's wrath. And I will drink that cup Because the only way, Peter, that you enter into the garden of Revelation 21, the only way, disciples, you get back to the garden that was destroyed by sin, the only way that you and I can come out of the wilderness to get into the garden, is through Jesus drinking the cup.

He drinks it sovereignly, purposely, willingly, whatever word you want to use for us. He dies for us. He rises again on the third day for us so that once again, we can come out of the wilderness and be with him in the garden forever and ever and ever. And as we are in the garden with him forever and ever, and I know I said one last thought, but this just popped into my mind. Once we're in the garden with him forever, we get to drink the cup from Psalm 23.

The goodness of the Lord just overflows. And we'll drink that for all eternity. Let's pray together. Father, this morning, we thank you that you are in control of all things. Nothing catches you by surprise. You are not an unwilling participant in the crucifixion. You're not wrong person at the wrong time. You are the sovereign Lord in control of everything, even from the garden that you pick. You are in control.

So, Father, we thank you for that. We thank you through seeing this this morning that it reminds us that as you are sovereignly in control of the crucifixion, you are sovereignly in control of salvation and that we are able to be saved through the fact that you took on God's wrath for us, died to death that we could not die so that through your death, we may have life.

We read this over and over and over in John's gospel, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. And we have that life because Jesus willingly and sovereignly completed his mission. We pray all of these things in Jesus' name. Amen.