Matthew 26:36-75--Betrayal, Arrest, Trial and Denial of Christ

​Matthew 26:36-75 English Standard Version (ESV)
LISTEN:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Matt.26.36-Matt.26.75
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Jesus Prays in Gethsemane
36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. 45 Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus
47 While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48 Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.” 49 And he came up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him. 50 Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. 51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. 53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” 55 At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. 56 But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him and fled.

Jesus Before Caiaphas and the Council
57 Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. 58 And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end. 59 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, 60 but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward 61 and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’” 62 And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” 63 But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” 65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” 67 Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, 68 saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?”

Peter Denies Jesus
69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” 70 But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” 71 And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” 72 And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” 73 After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” 74 Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. 75 And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.

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Don't get too overwhelmed with the large amount of text for today.  I feel like it should be familiar to most of you and we should be able to go through it rather quickly.  The main point that I want you to see throughout this passage is how much Jesus remains in control.

Jesus know the trial is coming--in some ways we could say one of the hardest parts of the entire ordeal was fought right here in these first few verses where Jesus spends hours upon hours in prayer praying for God to make another way if possible, but not his will but the Father's will be done.  We also see in John 17 that during this time Jesus prayed for His disciples, for the Church, for the world, for Himself, and even for the Father (that He would be glorified).  Jesus has much on His mind that He needed to talk to His Father and God about (they just so happen to be one in the same here) before marching off to His death on a cross.  It would not be at all pleasant and Satan since at least the baptism of Christ (and maybe before that) had been tempting Jesus to try and shortcut the process or find some other way that would require Him to go through the torture and pain and sacrifice--"Only bow down and worship me [Satan] and I will give you all these things [the kingdoms of the world that he had show to Jesus]."  Satan had no authority to make that kind of promise to Christ because he may be the prince of this world, but is not the king--he has no ownership, but he knew that if Jesus were to bow down and worship him that it would invalidate any attempt to die to save mankind and would make the true Son of God ineligible to receive His inheritance and the throne from God the Father.  Those who say "there must be some other way" for salvation other than the cross--that bloody, messy, cruel event--are falling right into the trap of Satan.  There is only one Way to God and it is through the blood and the body of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  "No man comes to the Father except by Me."

This battle was fought and won on Jesus' knees in the Garden of ​Gethsemane.  From that point forward the dye had been cast and Christ knew what must be done and accepted all of it willingly for you and for me, but not primarily for us, but for the glory of the Father and the Son.  The goodness of God and His great Name were on the line here.  Was He unwilling or unable to provide a way of salvation for His people?  Was He  unwilling or unable to effectuate the promises that He had given ever since the Fall?  If not, then Satan had won and everyone past, present and future had died in their sins and now belonged to the kingdom of darkness.  There is much more on the line here than you and me.  The cross is all about if God is really who He said He is and can do what He said He can do, and the Father had to make the greatest sacrifice--to kill His own Son in order to provide a way of salvation for those that were His enemies and rebelled against Him and that He knew would be unfaithful to Him.  Would you do the same in His place?  This is why He is God and we are not!

Romans 5:6-11
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

The part that we probably give the least importance to is probably the most important piece--Jesus willingly laid down His life for you.  (See John 10:9-18).  We also see from those verses in John that Jesus already knew He was going to rise from the dead (and we've seen many prophecies of this even in Matthew).  So now let's move on and see the "play" progress to the next act--The Betrayal.

I called it a play not to diminish it, but to put it in perspective here that Jesus is the one in control and there is much dramatic irony.  "The Passion of the Christ" is played out in theaters all across the country this time of year and is rehearsed and recited every week as part of the Roman Catholic mass (full disclosure for those wondering that I am not Roman Catholic but grew up in a Roman Catholic neighborhood and have several Roman Catholic friends and co-workers--apologies to any of them if I used imprecise terminology, I mean no disrespect).  You may have noticed throughout the Gospels that Jesus has told people many times "My time has not yet come," or "The time has not yet come."  Sometimes this was in reference to His true nature being revealed when He told people at the beginning of His ministry to keep quiet about what He had done.  Other times it was in reference to plots to kill Him that could not be successful because His time had not yet come.  Jesus finishes praying and says that the hour has come and is now upon them for Him to be betrayed into the hands of sinful men.  He wakes up the sleeping disciples and tells them to get ready.

Judas comes with a cohort of temple guards.  He has agreed to show the guards who to arrest by betraying Jesus with a kiss--something that would seem innocuous in Middle Eastern culture, especially at that time., but Jesus knew exactly what was going on and just like at the Last Supper told Judas to do what he had to do.  While not named here, we know that it is Peter that drew his sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest and, again, Jesus being fully in control of the situation tells Peter to put his sword away (the same sword that Jesus had instructed Peter to bring with him earlier) and healed the servant of the high priest.  Jesus took time to have mercy on His enemies that were there to arrest Him and kill Him.  We also see in the other gospels that even after the sign given by Judas that Jesus is asked His identity....He responds with the covenant name of God, "I AM" and the priests and guards fill down at the power of His great name.  We see here that Jesus asks why they come to Him with weapons.  Don't they know that they are not going to be able to take Him by force because He is the Lord of Hosts and could call down 12 legions of angels to His defense and the defense of the Eleven disciples that were with Him?  But again, we see that Jesus willingly went with them.  This was always on His terms and conditions and His timetable.  He allowed Himself to be arrested and put on trial.  That brings us to the next act--The Trial.

​The trial is held in secret at the home of the high priest.  There's many things that Matthew says here that are intended for his Jewish audience to pick up on the fact that this is a sham trial.  Those accusing Jesus broke many of God's laws just to have this trial in the way that they had it--at night, in secret, without witnesses that could agree to the charges, and where the accused was ordered to give testimony against Himself.  These are just a few of the things wrong with the trial, but Jesus willingly submitted to it.  However, He did not answer any questions (that was His right, and what prophecy demanded) until the point where the high priest used his position as the spokesman for God to order Jesus to answer.  Again, in submission to the local governing authorities Jesus did answer that question--once again a question of identity.  Jesus once again refers back to the book of Daniel to refer to Himself as the Son of Man that is also the King of heaven.  They knew the exact passage He referenced and that this was a claim to Him being God and they all responded as they should by tearing their clothes when hearing the blasphemy (though the high priest was never supposed to tear his high priestly garments--and he never should have been wearing them...again, probably a discussion for another time).  The used these very words of Christ telling them who He really was as the charges to condemn Him of blasphemy under Jewish law--punishable by death--and this would have been a correct judgement and verdict if Jesus had not been who He claimed to be.  So that is the question that now needed to be settled.  Was Jesus who He claimed to be?  They assumed that if so God would never let His Son die--especially death on a cross, but God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit had other plans--for the Resurrection of Christ on the third day to show that Christ's sacrifice was acceptable and sufficient and that He was who He said He was and that He was loved by God and not cursed by Him for the sin that the Jews presumed He had committed.

The Jews were crafty here and knew that they did not have the authority to carry out the death penalty without the help of the Romans as the Romans had told them that they were allowed to execute any punishment they wanted short of capital punishment upon their own people.  We'll see more about these additional trials later, but the Jewish leaders knew that a religious crime would not suffice for Rome to go through with a capital case, so they had to make a case for insurrection--a crime of treason that said that Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews and was trying to establish an earthly kingdom in opposition to the Roman empire.  We'll see how that goes later.  Onto the next act--The Denial.

​Just as Jesus prophesied the disciples all scattered in the Garden, but Peter and John came back to watch the trial.  John was friends with the family of the high priest somehow and was able to go inside, but Peter stayed outside near the fire where the servants were waiting for news to be relayed out to them.  While standing there the others asked him several questions about if he was associated with Jesus.  Peter being rightly afraid for his life gave into fear instead of faith and denied Jesus three times, just as it was foretold.  We see in other accounts that Jesus actually turns around and looks at Peter the third time with great sadness and this is part of what makes Peter flee and weep bitterly with sorrow and remorse not for being caught, but because He knows He inflicted pain on Jesus and damaged their relationship--he believes in a way that is beyond repair.

As we enter what is known by many as Holy Week, let us not be self-centered with a "me-centric" theology of how Jesus came and died for me so that i might be saved--that is only part of the story, and a small part at that, but this was done for His good pleasure to bring glory and honor to the Father and the Son and Christ to prove that He is worthy to open the scroll (the title deed of all creation) that we read about in the book of Revelation, and so much more.  We are the benefactors of this for sure, and God does love us very much but let's remember to make God and His glory the centerpiece of this story as it is told this week.