Jesus's faithfulness shatters Peter's self-reliance (18:1-27)

John’s account for Jesus’s arrest and trial is interesting for what it omits. It makes no mention of Jesus’s desperate praying int he Garden, and almost nothing of His trial before Caiaphas. Its emphasis is on the sovereign power and majesty of Jesus: His control of all the circumstances and timing, and therefore the willing self-sacrifice involved. There is a striking counterpoint between Jesus’s faithfully pointing out the procedural injustices of His trial, and Peter’s repeated denial of any relationship with Christ.

The Kidron ‘brook’ is actually a dry wadi, except in heavy rain. It's name means darkness, and it drains the valley of Gehenna, where Jerusalem's rubbish was burned. This valley was a symbol of God’s judgement; there was so much detritus that a permanently smouldering fire was necessary to consume everything the worms didn’t eat. (The Kidron was also the stream that King David crossed over when he had to leave Jerusalem due to Absalom’s rebellion.)

These events were happening at night, which was counted as part of the following day of Passover - counted as a sabbath. The garden of Gethsemane was within a sabbath day's journey from Jerusalem, whereas Bethany was not.

It was only three or four hours after Jesus had started to teach the disciples in the upper room: five chapters of John are thus devoted to covering a time period of maybe three or four hours. There is a theory that Judas and his arrest party called at Mark's house, where the Upper Room was, before proceeding on to Gethsemane. That would explain why John Mark ran out of the house in only his nightgown, to try and warn the disciples – but arrived just too late to do anything except watch.

The High Priest was obviously expecting trouble. A detachment of troops could refer to a wide range of numbers of military personnel: there were Roman soldiers, as well as the Temple guards, Chief Priests and Pharisees. It would have been full moon, but the valley was deep and dark, and they may have anticipated Jesus trying to hide: hence the lanterns and torches.

The timing, from the authorities’ point of view, was unfortunate: although the secrecy factors - night-time and a location outside the city - were advantageous. Their rules (see below) meant that Jesus had to be arrested, arraigned & tried by them, then presented to Pilate for the verdict to be rubber-stamped so that He could be crucified, dead and buried before the start of the official Passover the following afternoon.

This presented numerous legal problems: trials were not supposed to be held at night, verdicts were supposed to be at least 24 hours after the trial, and sentencing a further three days later. The Sanhedrin were supposed to assess charges made by others, not to formulate the charges themselves - which maybe why Jesus was first taken to Annas, not Caiaphas. And once charged, they had to find two witnesses whose testimony agreed in every detail. Pilate’s working day only ran from 6:00-9:00 AM!

In the garden (vs 1-3)

The fact that Jesus "went forward” (v4) - or in Greek, went out - suggests that the garden was walled, and he deliberately came out of the gate, hearing the troop arriving. There is powerful symbolism here, Jesus placing himself between the disciples and the attackers so that not one of them would be hurt.

John’s account makes no mention of Jesus’s prior struggle in the garden. The disciples were utterly exhausted and kept falling asleep, whilst Jesus was praying "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will, but I will be done.” What was this cup?

There are various different theories:

• Jesus was near death, due to his sweating large drops of blood. Gethsemane was on the Mount of Olives, and its name means ‘olive press’. (A traditional olive press of that era involved stacking baskets full of olives on top of each other so that their own weight crushed them gently, bringing out the ‘extra virgin’ grade oil used for holy purposes. Then a heavy beam, acting as a lever, was placed on top of the baskets, crushing them further and bringing out the food-grade ‘virgin’ olive oil. Finally, huge stones would be suspended from the beam to add to the weight and the last dregs would be extracted for more humdrum uses such as lubricants etc.) Thus, so said, he may have been praying that God would keep keep him from a premature death before he could be crucified. An angel came and strengthened him in response to his prayers. This theory doesn’t hold water in that Jesus is still referring to drinking the cup as future, when He is being arrested.

• Another theory is that Jesus was struggling with a sense of having failed in his mission to restore Israel to God.. This comes from Jewish interpretation of Isaiah 49:4-5. against that is the fact that according to Hebrews, Jesus was sustained through the crucifixion by a sense of joy at its results, in bringing atonement for many.

• The traditional interpretation is that Jesus was struggling with fear of being crucified, and petitioning God for an alternative way to achieve the same ends. The problem with this is that it implies that Father and Son have separate wills - I.e. they are not One in this respect.

• My own understanding of what was happening in Gethsemane, is that Jesus was "crucifying His flesh ", just as He commands us to. He was praying from His human nature, expressing His human fear of what was about to happen. He was "taking up His cross", in obedience to the Father. Once on the cross, the first three hours would involve rejection and humiliation by the Jews in general, and particularly their leaders. The final three hours involved total darkness, and Jesus being taunted by the "bulls of Bashan” (Ps 22:12): spiritual taunting by demonic powers. The cross therefore involved overcoming (a) His flesh, (b) the world, and (c) the devil.

The arrest, and Peter’s impetuous folly (vs 4-11)

Jesus’s use of the divine name, "I AM“, produces sheer terror amongst the arrest party. They pull back, and fall to the ground, whether out of awe for him, or because they anticipate that God will strike him dead with a lightning bolt. When that doesn't happen, they gather themselves up again, and the second time he uses it they don't seem to be intimidated at all.

Jesus, as usual, is focused on protecting his disciples rather than in any way protecting himself. He is still concerned to fulfil His Fathers instruction to protect the men the Father has given him. His standing in the Garden’s entrance, between His disciples and the threatening mob, and negotiating for their safety, is symbolic of what He will do on the Cross for us. How often He has stood between us and the enemy, without us ever realising it! He made a once-for-all sacrifice, but He also ‘ever lives to make intercession for us’ so that ‘if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous’ (1Jn 2:1).

Prior to leaving the upper room, Jesus had told them that from now on, they would need to be responsible for their own safety: with a money bag, a rucksack, and a sword – even if it meant trading in their coats to buy a weapon: because He was going to be "numbered with the transgressors "(Lk 22:35-38). Apparently they had two swords with them already, which he reckoned would be enough. So Peter had a sword, or maybe a dagger, on his person. It seems strange that he ended up cutting off Malchus’s left ear: it may be that Malchus had come round in front of Jesus to handcuff him. In that case, his back would've been turned to Peter and he wouldn't have seen the attack coming. Either way, the very last thing Jesus does with His hands before being shackled, is to heal the servant’s ear.

Jesus has so thoroughly won the battle with his own human nature, that He now rebukes Peter saying "Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given me?”. The Cross was not just down to a terrible miscarriage of justice, although it was that. But rather, it was the Father himself who gave Jesus that awful cup to drink. There is such contrast between what the Father was asking His Son to do, and the tenderness of a father-son relationship. People such as Steve Chalke, say that to believe that God himself condemned His Son to crucifixion, is to believe in cosmic child abuse. However we believe it is the amazing grace of God, that He would give His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Kudos to Peter for being willing to attempt single-handedly fighting off the Roman troops. He had previously said, ‘I am willing to die for You’ (13:37) and now he proves he meant it. Jesus’ rebuke could seem rather ungracious! But we are so like Peter. We had rather display our zeal for Christ, than truly accept that we need Him to swallow all the filth and corruption of our thought lives, our words, and our actions. Christ may need to block what we think is holy zeal, to bring us face-to-face with the Cross, and His suffering in our place.

So what is the cup that Jesus refers to? (vs 11)

There are many references in scripture to cups of wine being used to humiliate a beaten enemy. The subject would be forced to drink the cup right down to the drugs, so that they were utterly inebriated, trembling, perhaps incontinent or even unable to stand. It seems that the Jewish drinking culture regarded drunkenness as an ultimate humiliation, rather than glorifying it as we tend to.

• Ezekiel records God’s coming judgement on Jerusalem as being like the earlier judgement and destruction of Samaria: ‘Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand. Thus saith the Lord GOD, “Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn: it containeth much. Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria.”’ Ez 23:31-33

• Isaiah records God telling Israel that they have drunk from the cup of his wrath, but now they will never have to drink of it again. “Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of His fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out… Thus saith the Lord thy LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of His people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of My fury; thou shalt no more drink it again. (Isa 51:17,22)

• Jeremiah is told to take the cup of God’s wrath around all the nations of the Earth, starting with Jerusalem, progressing out to every nation on earth, and then finally returning to Babylon. “Thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. (Jer 25:15) No nation can refuse to drink: and the results are desolation, total inebriation, calamity, and warfare. This is not due to some earthly breakdown of world order, but because the LORD has roared from on high, shouting like men do when treading out the grapes (Jer 25:30-33)

• In the Old Testament, when the woman was suspected of adultery, she was brought to the priest and he made her swear as to her innocence. Then he wrote a curse on some paper and dissolved it in water, and made her drink it. If she had lied, the water would cause her intestines to rot and her stomach to swell until she died (Num 5:11-28)

• In Revelation, we hear of Babylon being forced to drink the cup of God’s wrath, she having drunk the blood of the saints. The mystery woman of (Rev 17:1-6) is adorned with gold and jewels: she proudly flaunts her blasphemies, and proffers a golden cup full of abomination and fornication - as if they were the most desirable of wines. She herself, however, is drunk with the blood of the martyrs. The nations (18:3) and the kings (18:9) are seduced by her temptations. But eventually her sins reach to heaven, and she is repaid twice over - out of the same cup she used to seduce others (18:5-8). “Great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the fierceness of His wrath” (Rev 16:19). Those who had received the mark of the beast are forced to drink from it, in the very presence of Christ!

The cup is thus not about a psychological struggle, however we understand Jesus’ agony in prayer. Nor is it about the bodily agony: slow suffocation eased only by pushing against the nails. The cup Jesus refers to, is ultimately a cup of spiritual judgement, full of the wrath of God.

Judgement on nations, which we see playing out in front of our eyes every time we watch the news, is merely a large-scale outworking of the same wrath of God that is revealed from heaven against every individual man (Rom 1:18). We have so suppressed the truth within ourselves, that only the Holy Spirit can convict us of our sinfulness. The very things Babylon offered us in her cup, which seemed so attractive and good to us at the time, bring down the wrath of God on us.

‘All have sinned, and all fall short of the glory off God. There is none righteous, no, not one.’ And if we do not accept Christ by faith, if we do not acknowledge that He has drunk the cup of our judgement down to the very dregs, we shall be forced to drink it ourselves, in His very Presence. We shall be stripped of all self-righteousness and our sins exposed before His burning gaze.

Peter and John shadow Jesus to Annas’s palace (vs 12-18)

During the time of the Maccabees, immediately before the Romans took control of Palestine, the ruling family had amalgamated the Kingship with the Priesthood. Jews regarded the high priest as being appointed for life. But the Romans regarded it as a political puppet role, to be regularly reassigned to whoever bid the most. Annas had been high priest years earlier, but was deposed by the Romans. However he managed to arrange that each of his sons in turn was appointed to follow him, thus in effect being the power behind the high priesthood for many years. Eventually, when all his sons had had a stint in the role, he then arranged for Caiaphas, his son-in-law, to take it up. That was the situation at the time when Jesus was crucified. in Jewish eyes, Annas was still the high priest; but in Roman eyes, Caiaphas was the present incumbent of the role. Nevertheless, Jesus was first taken to Annas, not Caiaphas.

Caiaphas was the one who had argued to his fellow Sanhedrin members, that it was better for Jesus to die then for the whole nation to come under Roman wrath if Jesus was acknowledged as Messiah. John perhaps reminds us of this, in order to underline that this was purely a show trial. The priesthood had had already decided that Jesus must die (11:47-53).

Despite the knock-back of Jesus’s rebuke, Peter recovers composure quickly and with another disciple, shadows the arrest party back across the valley and up to the High Priest’s palace. The other disciple, commonly held to be the Apostle John - the ‘beloved disciple’ - openly identifies with Christ by accompanying Him into the courtyard. It is early spring, Jerusalem is two thousand feet above sea level, and the nights are cold: a brazier is the only source of warmth.

Apparently John was known to the High Priest, and so was allowed in without demur. Why this was, is speculation: but the small fish from Galilee were a prized delicacy in Jerusalem. John’s father Zebedee is thought to have owned a house in the city, and so he may previously have been his father’s sales rep to Annas.

Meanwhile Peter hadn’t dared try and gain admission. John, who’d been close to Peter throughout Jesus ministry, took his courage in both hands and negotiated Peter’s admission - despite the risk that Peter would be recognised as the cause of Malchus’s scar. In all probability, most of the Jewish members of the arrest party would have been standing around in the courtyard!

John’s bold move nearly ended in catastrophe. The young woman peering through the spy-hole in the door, thought she possibly recognised him as one of the shadowy figures behind Jesus in the Garden. She knew John to be a disciple of Jesus, but was wary of letting any more in. Peter, out of expediency, decides to duck the issue by telling a white lie: and thus begins his descent into denying Christ three times, and having to face his own weakness.

Jesus’ interrogation by Annas the High Priest (vs 19-24)

John now breaks off describing Peter’s cowardice and unfaithfulness, to describe Jesus’s interrogation within the Palace. In so doing, he brings out the contrast between Peter’s reflex dishonesty and Jesus’s poised truthfulness.

Apparently there are at least twenty-two known Jewish laws relating to such legal procedure, which were broken by Jesus’s trials before Annas and Caiaphas;-

1. There was to be no arrest that was effected by a bribe. (Ex 23:8)

2. No steps of criminal proceedings were to occur after sunset.

3. Members of the Sanhedrin were not allowed to participate in the arrest.

4. There were to be no trials before the morning sacrifice.

5. There were to be no secret trials, only public.

6. Sanhedrin trials could only be conducted in the Hall of Judgment of the Temple.

7. During the trial, the defence had the first word, before the prosecutors.

8. The accused had to have at least one defender.

9. There were to be two or three witnesses, whose testimonies agreed in detail.

10. There was to be no allowance for the accused to testify against himself.

11. The high priest was forbidden to rend his garments.

12. Judges could not initiate the charges; they could only investigate them.

13. Accusation of blasphemy was only valid if God’s name was actually spoken.

14. A person could not be condemned solely on the basis of his own words.

15. The verdict could not be announced at night.

16. For capital punishment, the trial and the verdict must at least 24 hours apart.

17. Voting for the death penalty began with youngest, avoiding influence by elders.

18. A unanimous vote of guilty must be ‘fixed’ & therefore showed innocence!

19. The sentence could only be pronounced three days after the guilty verdict.

20. Judges were to be humane and kind.

21. A person condemned to death was not to be scourged or beaten beforehand.

22. No trials were allowed on the eve of the Sabbath or on a feast day.

These rules were not written down till much later, after the Priesthood had been destroyed along with the Temple, in AD70. But we can reasonably assume that the written code merely recorded longstanding oral law, current in Jesus’s time. Each of the rules was there for a good reason: to avoid injustice and ‘show trials’ such as this, where the verdict had been decided long before the event. Annas could perhaps claim he was free of such restraints since he was now only the honorary High Priest: and he seems to have been fishing to try and identify what charge would be easiest to establish Jesus’ guilt. This would then make Caiaphas’s task easier in due course. But Jesus challenged the question: an accused man’s testimony could not be used against him, so why hadn’t Annas asked some of the many Jerusalemites who’d heard Him teach in the Temple on many occasions?

Interrogation techniques haven’t changed much over the millennia, and one of Annas’s bodyguards decides to ‘soften Jesus up’ by slapping his defenceless prisoner around. Jesus again responds with supreme poise: quite unlike the parallel event when Paul was later treated in similar fashion (Acts 23:1-5). Peter later comments, “When Christ was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten; but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1Pet 2:23). Peter says Jesus is the role model for how we should handle unjust suffering with patient endurance.

Jesus’s poise under interrogation seems to have led Annas to conclude he was wasting his time: so he sends Jesus on to his son-in-law and the Sanhedrin, hoping they will have more success.

Peter’s self-confidence and fleshly zeal is broken (vs 25-27)

As Peter is trying to stay warm, near the brazier, it’s light makes his face more discernible. One of the arrest party realises that Peter’s face is unfamiliar, and questions him again about his possible allegiance to Christ. Peter denies this a second time. An hour passes, as Jesus’ interrogation is proceeding (Lk 22:59). As it finishes, and the group forms up again to escort the prisoner to Caiaphas, a friend of Malthus notices Peter’s accent and realises he is a Galilean. He comments to his friends, then challenges Peter directly. Faced now with the attention of the whole courtyard, Peter denies it vehemently, even calling down curses on himself as he does so (Mt 26:73-75).

Just at that moment, a nearby cock crows twice. Whilst in UK that would never happen, it is a commonplace occurrence in third-world urban settings even today. The cockerel is in effect saying, “Wake up! Wake up!” But for Peter, it suddenly startles him out of his self-protective lying: and he is wakened to the fact that Jesus told him this would happen! His self-confidence was in fact self-deception, and under pressure his vaunted courage had given way to cowardly lying.

Again, we are so like Peter. We put our confidence in our own strength, not in Christ. So when we find ourselves wanting, and the bubble of self-deception bursts, we ‘go out and weep bitterly’, like Peter. We contain ourselves till no-one else is around, then we sink into despair: we have failed - again! But all along, our faith has been misplaced: in ourselves, not in Christ.

Jesus turns from His interrogators, and looks across at Peter, catching his eye. But His look is not one of outrage or condemnation, but rather one of pity and grace. ‘Peter, I told you this would happen, and you didn’t believe Me. Now it’s happened, and you are so ashamed of yourself you want to hide. But I also told you that I have prayed for you that your faith would not fail completely. The day will come when you reclaim your allegiance to Me - and when that happens I will use your story to strengthen your brothers.’

We so need to meet Jesus’s gaze, not turn away from it, when we stumble or fall into sin. We so need His reminder that He has known our wicked, self-deceptive hearts all along. And that He has prayed for us, and will re-establish us: indeed, will use the account of our weakness and failings, to strengthen others. Take heart, brothers and sisters! ‘When we are faithless, He remains faithful - for He cannot deny Himself’. He is the Faithful One, so unchanging, ‘full of grace and truth. And of His grace have we all received, grace upon grace’ (1:14-17)