Luke 22:47-53
Please remain standing and take
out your copy of God’s Word, turning to Luke chapter 22. Our reading will be verses 47
through 53. As you make your way there, remember
that we are walking through the Thursday night of Passion Week.
Jesus has had the Passover with his disciples. He’s instituted
the Lord’s Supper, inaugurating the new covenant in his own blood.
returned to the Mount of Olives, as was their practice during
Holy Week at the night, and they were in prayer. And so our passage
picks up after Jesus I guess fusses at his disciples for sleeping. Hear the word of the living God.
While he was still speaking, there came a crowd and the man
called Judas, one of the 12 was leading them. He drew near to
Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, Judas, would you
betray the son of man with a kiss? And when those who were around
him saw what would follow, they said, Lord, shall we strike with
the sword? And one of them struck the servant
of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said,
no more of this. And he touched his ear and healed
him. Then Jesus said to the chief
priest, the officers of the temple and elders who had come out against
him, have you come out as against a robber with swords and with
clubs? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you
did not lay hands on me, but this is your hour and the power
of darkness. Pray with me. Lord, so many voices have spoken
into our ears, into our lives this week. Our hearts have been
tugged in many directions. The television, the telephone,
the gadgets, the world, the advertisements, the worldviews, the everything
has screamed for our allegiance. But we want to hear the voice
of the shepherd this day. So unstop our ears, open our
eyes, settle our hearts, and give us this special time to
be in your presence and to hear from you as your word speaks
to us. We ask for your blessing and
help and pray it in the name of Christ. Amen. You may be seated. It was the custom of Jesus and
his disciples every night during what we call Holy Week, during
the week that he had entered Jerusalem, the triumphal entry
after healing the blind man at Jericho, after meeting with Zacchaeus,
the rich tax collector. He entered the city, the few
who recognized him, sang songs of Hosanna and so on to the Lord. And he spent the first couple
of days basically making everybody mad. All of the priests, all
of the temple officials, all of the religious hierarchy, Jesus
angered. And he angered them through his
actions, but also through his teaching. And the people, the
general population loved him. But every night they would make
a retreat. They would make a retreat to the Mount of Olives, a quiet
place where they could rest, where they could relax, where
they could pray and be ready for the next day’s service. And it’s in this dark garden
on the Mount of Olives where we find Jesus and his disciples. Remember, they are having a prayer
meeting. And that prayer meeting is a showdown between the seed
of the woman, Jesus, the offspring of Eve, and the seed of the serpent. I mean, after all, aren’t all
the wonderful stories of the scripture an unfolding of God’s
plan of redemption? And on and on through the scriptures,
we see God’s enemies. And we see his servants and we
see them triumph over sin and death and darkness. And it ultimately
is coming to fulfillment in the life and in the ministry of the
Lord Jesus. So this prayer meeting Jesus
has in the garden is one of the last great showdowns between
himself and the serpent. He’s given his disciples simple
instructions. Watch. Pray, stay awake, and
don’t fall into temptation. Now, pause there for just a moment. Isn’t this our same set of marching
orders for today? We need to be awake, be aware
spiritually, be aware. in reality of what is taking
place all around us in this world. We need to be a people of prayer.
We need to stay watchful because the devil is lurking, seeking
to destroy and deceive and devour the children of the living God.
Do not fall into temptation. And so as we see the disciples
here failing to do what Jesus commands, we recognize that trouble
and trials are on the horizon for the Lord Jesus. He’s been
in agony over drinking the cup of God’s wrath. He’s been wrestling
with the father in prayer and his prayer meeting with God has
been interrupted first by the snoring of his disciples. But
in our passage today, the prayer meeting is interrupted by the
footsteps, by the pounding of the pavement, by the Roman soldiers
and the temple guards. His prayer meeting is now interrupted
by the flickers of the light of torches and the clanging of
swords and other weapons of war. As we enter Jesus’ life in this
passage, we see a crowd coming. And Jesus is going to say at
the end of our passage, it’s appropriate to put it in front
of us now. It is the hour of darkness. It is the hour of Satan
and his power and all his minions, Judas, the religious officials,
and even the willing partners from the Roman empire. They are
coming, they are intruding in this peaceful garden and they
interrupt Jesus’ prayer meeting with the heavenly father. The
power of Satan is at work. The power of fallen humanity
is at work. The power of wicked men is at
work. And I want us to take notice
of a couple of the scenes from this night scene in the scriptures. First think of Judas and his
betrayal. Judas and his treachery. But
before you think of Judas and his betrayal and his treachery,
think of Judas and his privilege. He was one of the 12. I don’t
know if you caught the irony in Luke’s writing, but everything
Luke writes is on purpose. And when there’s a difference
in Luke’s writing from that of Mark or that of Matthew, it’s
maybe personal and even literary, it’s educational background,
but also it’s emphasis. And so one of the things that
Luke is emphasizing here is that Judas was one of the 12. He is the traitor. He is the
treacherous one. Can you imagine that earlier
in the evening, he ran from the supper? No, he didn’t walk from
the supper. He ran, his heart pounding in
his chest, the 30 pieces of silver jingling in the lining of his
cloak. hoping, hoping, hoping I’ll find
a religious official and hoping that when he finds them and tells
them this is the night, this is the hour, this is the moment
that Jesus and his disciples, the other 11 will keep custom
and they will return again to the Mount of Olives where Judas
and the crowd now find Jesus and interrupt his prayer meeting. He’s found these religious officials,
they found Jesus and. As if Judas being one of the
12 isn’t enough of a twist of irony in Luke’s writing, the
signal that Judas gives that this is the Christ, he betrays
his master. He betrays our Lord with a kiss,
a sign of friendship, a sign of affection, a sign of love. We remember the couple of Psalms
we read in recent weeks where David said of his betrayal, I
could take the betrayal if it were from an enemy, but this
is one with whom I walked in the throng up the hills to Jerusalem
to worship God. It’s painful, isn’t it, when
the church hurts us? In a recent conversation in our
household, we were talking about the hurts we’ve experienced.
And very sadly, many of them have come from other Christians.
Many of those hurts have come from people in the church. And
so this is a lesson to us as Christians. Sometimes our greatest
pain comes from those who are closest to us. And that’s the
case here with Judas. He kisses the Christ. And Jesus
says to him, he stares him in the eyes. Don’t you know that
was a painful moment? You betray the son of man with
a kiss. The kiss significant, right?
A symbol, a sign of affection. But the son of man, the royal
one, the mighty one, the one promised of old in the scriptures
and in the prophecies that he would come and save his people.
Yes, that’s the one Judas is betraying. Well, think of Peter
and maybe by implication, the other 10 disciples with him. Now, this passage of scripture
brings up a very painful moment in my life. Back in the fall
of 2000, I went to seminary as a first year student and first
semester you’re in class. You go to a class called communications. We were handed these note cards
as we walked in the door. Didn’t know anybody else. All
new there, fresh on the scene. We were handed these note cards
with a topic. My note card had on it Firestone tires. Some of
you remember 20 some years ago, Firestone put a tire on a Ford
Explorer that would with the heat of its rotations would have
a blowout. And so our task was to stand
up and give a two minute speech on the topic on our note card.
And if you didn’t know anything about it, you were supposed to
ramble about it as if you did. Well, I sat there with my head
down, praying, Dear God, I do not want to give up, get up and
give a speech about firestone tires. I don’t know these people.
I’m, I’m, I’m afraid. Well, somehow I got passed over,
but the next week, all 27 of us had to give a sermon on this
very passage. And I heard 27 sermons or 26.
Cause one was mine, uh, of, of, of Peter slicing off Malcolm’s
ear and Jesus hollering no more of this. It was a pretty awful
experience. But what you get from this little
vignette here is a misunderstanding on the disciples part. Remember
a couple of Sundays back when we looked at our passage in Luke,
Jesus said, when I send you out, it’s not going to be like the
last time. No money, no cloak, no sword, no staff. This time
you better take it all. And if you don’t have a sword,
you better go to the local sword shop and get one. The kingdom
of God is taking a different shape, a different form. And
so you can imagine good old Peter went to the sword shop and he
got his little dagger and he’s wearing it on his belt. And when
he sees the crowd coming, he knows exactly what’s taking place.
There’s Judas in the front, the traitor. There’s Malchus, the
servant of the high priest in tow. And then there’s some of
the chief priest or some of the officials of the religious department
there at Jerusalem. And then most will say about 200 Roman soldiers. and
they are tramping and stomping and rattling into Jesus’ quiet
garden prayer meeting. And so what do you think good
old Peter, rash and brash old Peter does? He says, Lord, I
can take them all. And he thrust out that sword,
missing his mark, cuts off the ear of the servant, of the high
priest. But the disciples, they missed
the point. Jesus wasn’t saying you’ve got
to stop every work of redemption. This is the hour of darkness.
This is the hour of Satan and his power. Jesus has told them
over and over, I must go to Jerusalem to suffer. I must go to Jerusalem
to die. For sure, they knew their Old
Testament well enough to see Jesus was going to be the fulfillment
of all the sacrifices. He was going to be the son in
place of Isaac, whose father did not withhold his knife, but
did sacrifice his son on the altar outside the camp. You would
think that Peter and the disciples would understand this, but they
resort to violence. They resort to trying to put a stop to the
work of redemption. But these events must take place,
they must occur. Well, there’s Judas, there’s
Peter, but there’s also the religious officials. And Jesus is going
to expose their cowardice. He says to them, I was among
you every day in the temple. I mean, you think about it, it’s
Thursday evening, just yesterday for Christ, Wednesday, the day
before that Tuesday, the day before that Monday, he was on
Solomon’s porch. He was readily available. They
could have come and seized him and arrested him. They could
have taken him in for questioning. They could have put him in jail.
They could have already crucified him and put him to death had
they wanted to. But remember, they’re cowards. And that’s the
whole reason Judas came to them in secret. I’ll give you Jesus. I’ll give him up. I’ll make sure
it’s at a place where the crowds who have been healed by him don’t
see this. I’ll make sure it’s at a location where those who
hold his teaching dear, will not know of what’s taking place. And Jesus says, I was among you.
It’s as if he’s saying, I was doing good. I was healing. I
was helping. I was teaching. I was giving people everlasting
life. I was being the good shepherd.
And so these religious officials show their cowardice. Well, that’s
enough of the negativity here. That’s enough of Peter. That’s
enough of Judas. And that’s enough of the religious
officials. Let’s think about Christ. He’s,
as we would say, calm and he is cool and he is collected. Everyone else is redlining. Everyone else is overheating.
Everyone else, their tempers are flaring. Their emotions have
the best of them. But what do we see of Christ?
We see him praying to his father, not my will, but your will be
done. We see him rebuking his impulsive
disciples. He tells them you’re missing
the point. The work of redemption must take
place. It will happen by the hands of wicked people. He heals. The servant Malchus, the high
priest servant, his ears been sliced and Jesus hands, which
will soon be bound his hands, which soon will be nailed to
the cross, touch and heal the high priest ear on the way to
the cross. Jesus is a healing shepherd. He exposes, he exposes the cowardice,
the untruthfulness, the falsehoods of the teachers, but he continues
on to the cross and lest we become like the disciples and fall in
despair and say, look what’s happening to Jesus. I mean, we
know the rest of the story, so we don’t fall into this trap,
but put yourself in their shoes. We think all is lost. Jesus can’t
be bound. He can’t be carried away. He
can’t be put on trial. He can’t be crucified and laid
in the grave. But Jesus continues to the cross
and he falls into the hands of sinners. But what an encouragement
it is for us who know the whole story. We have the gift of faith. We know that darkness does not
win. We know that sinners are judged. We know that righteousness prevails. We know the words to that wonderful
hymn, a mighty fortress is our God. And when we sing that line,
lo, his doom is sure. We are not singing that about
Christ in the garden. at the hour of his arrest, we’re
singing it of Satan and his eventual doom as he will be cast into
the pit of darkness. We remember the preaching of
Peter. This is not the same Peter that we find in the book of Acts,
but Peter, when he preaches just a few weeks from now, about five
or so weeks from this story’s timing, he says very boldly,
preaching to the people, but also to the Jewish authorities
that Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and the
foreknowledge of almighty God. Well, there’s a couple of lessons
we could consider from this passage, a couple of lessons for us as
Christians, but us as a company of Christians and even lessons
for the church as a whole who remain in this world until Christ
calls us home or returns. And the first practical thing
we might ought to consider is we should fear not when darkness
and storms and spiritual evil comes around us. God is never
not in control. Christ is never not the king. Christ is always ruling. God
is always in control. Jesus always wins. We also ought to take a lesson
from this that under the cloak of religion are all kinds of
evil people. That’s why Paul is so careful
in 1 and 2 Timothy and in the book of Titus when he lays out
for Timothy and Titus how to rule the church. You make sure
those who rule over you are godly. Make sure those who rule over
you have faith in Jesus and have the character and the content
of a righteous person of faith. It’s often under the cloak of
religion. that many evil things take place. It’s a third lesson
for us. Make sure your zeal is not like
the zeal of Peter and your zeal is in doing wrong things. Jesus
didn’t want them to fight with swords and clubs and to retaliate.
In fact, they were outnumbered and those Romans would have taken
those disciples down pretty quickly. In fact, that’s why they all
are going to flee into the night. We’ll soon see. But make sure
our zeal is for the right things, the scriptural things, the commanded
things. Another lesson for us, the betrayal
of Jesus ought to send chills into each of our bodies. We ought
to be scared straight, as it were, by the betrayal of Jesus
by Judas. We’ve all tasted the scriptures.
We’ve all been in the house of God. We all know of Christ and
his gospel. And may it be that God, by his
grace and his spirit’s work, have worked salvation in each
of us. But if you are hanging around
the fringes of religion, you’re hanging around the edges of the
Christian faith. May it be a weighty matter for
you this day that you not profess faith, but not possess it, but
that you actually possess a true faith that you have professed
before the church. Judas, Judas ticked away all
the boxes. He showed up, he followed, he
kept the money bag. He was the treasurer for the
disciples. He did all kinds of good and
right and churchy things. But here at the end, we see who
he really was. And so we take to heart the Admonition
of the Apostle Paul, examine yourselves and see if you are
in the faith. It’s a good reminder, a last
challenge for us. Be on mission. The world is a
dark place. This is a dying world, a crooked
and depraved generation, and churches are redefining themselves
to suit this world. You know, I’d rather have a small
faithful flock than a huge congregation of unfaithful people. And you
can, you can, you can get a crowd up. You can offer them the world.
You can, you can build things. You can buy things. You can offer
things. You can promote things. You can have a swanky graphics
and advertisements. You can, you can have all the
bells and whistles of the American church and not have a true congregation
of God’s people. but we ought to stay on mission,
making sure the voice of Jesus is heard, making sure the voice
of the shepherd is at work in the lives of his people, and
making sure that we are worshiping the true shepherd, the great
shepherd of the sheep. This passage, in a sense, is
not just telling a story. It is that, but it is issuing
a warning. Don’t be like Judas. Don’t be
rash like Peter. Don’t be a religious official
doing church, but keep your eyes on Christ, the calm and cool
and collected savior who resolutely walks through hell and even receives
a kiss from hell and he heals the sick. and he continues to
march to the cross. That’s our savior. That’s our
God. And may our faith in him be strengthened
today. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that
you would bless us today with your truth, that it would sink
deeply into our hearts and that it would change our behavior
so that as we live life before a watching world, People can
see that we are strangers, pilgrims, exiles, that we are from another
place, another home, with a whole nother set of values from a whole
nother kingdom. And we need your help. So we
ask for it. In the name of Christ, amen.