Betrayed, Arrested, Abandoned, Denied and Abused -- John 18

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Goal:

To truly hear what God is saying to us in this passage
and respond to it

1–12 ”Book of Signs”	13–21 ”Book of Glory”

13 A meal with the disciples

14–17 New Teaching
from Jesus
to the disciples

18–20 Arrest
Crucifixion
Resurrection

21 A meal with the disciples

We are a gift from the Father to Jesus: beloved companions for him
He gives our love back to the Father as a gift:
to be revealers of God’s self-giving love to the world (and universe)
This is the highest expression of the Christian faith you will ever hear.
More than that, it is the highest point of human existence

We are going to read a story that includes institutional violence
- systemic oppression and injustice
As I was preparing I kept thinking “Wow, this is interesting, I can see some parallel’s here”
- But then it concerned me that we might be tempted to so read the passage through our own lens that we might miss what the main point is.
- I’ll come beck to this in a minute
Read v1–12: Link to John 18
- Note I have highlighted Jesus’s words in yellow, because we will come back and look at them. Also Peter in Red
- Comment on:

How many times Judas had been there as his friend. Wow!
Was it overkill to have weapons? yes and no. We know Jesus, but they (and even Peter) did not!
What was going on with Peter?
- History tells us about The Zealot movement. (Barabbas was one of them)
- It was when Judas realized Jesus was not part of this, he turned against him
- The Romans were cruel, oppressive, and some of the governors did things that were deliberately provocative, designed to anger and humiliate
- Three rebellions. AD 66 resulted in the Romans destroying the temple

Kitos War in 115–117
Incredibly well planned third rebellion 132–136. Started out killing a lot of Roman solders
- The Romans were so determined, they brought armies from all over the world - 6 full legions!+ 6 partial ones
- In the end they won, and decided to utterly destroy the nation and the religion
- They even renamed Judea to Palestine, to wipe the name Jew off the map
I think that Peter was toying with this ideology. Jesus had prayed for him that he would be kept from Satan who wanted to “sift him”
- But for God’s grace, Peter could have ended up another Judas
- But that could never have happened, because Jesus held him, and would never let him go.

The temptation is to read every passage in the Bible as if it were intended to be about current events
- The problem is that if the story is not actually about them, then we will not hear what it is actually about
- God has spoken, and we need to listen carefully
- Doing an expository series like we are doing in John does protect us to some extent
Unfortunately what many preachers do is first decide on the message they are going to preach, and then search around for some verses to base it on, to make it “biblical”
- It becomes very difficult for the congregation to know if they are hearing God, or merely the preacher.
Think of it as a conversation, with God speaking to us
- We own it to God to listen on his terms, not ours
If I have something to say, my hope is that people will hear what I am actually trying to say, not pick out what they think is relevant
Having said that, God’s word is always relevant,
- If we make the first task and try to really hear what he is actually saying, with his own agenda, not ours
- Then once having heard it, we should ask how it speaks to our current situation
The temptation would be to make this passage primary about institutional violence
systemic oppression and injustice
- And it does say something about these issues, which we will get to
I believe the passage does speak to current issues, but only if we let it speak on it’s own terms first.
Read v13–27: Link to John 18

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.

I want to be quite clear here, because there is a branch of Christianity that would say this

Jesus did not engage in debate because he wanted the unfairness to be evident
- but he did point out injustice in the process. see v.19–24

Jesus was verbally strong, even when threatened
He refused to be trapped by questions like “Is it true that you claimed to be God?
“When you were interviewed on TV, is it true that you claimed...”
Later on in Acts the apostles never fought the authorities physically, or encouraged people to
- But were very robust in their defence, e.g. Paul at Philippi
So we have to understand Jesus was a special case here in some respects

been there at the trial, risking their own lives to stand up for justice
- Non violent but defiant
- The Bible says they all forsook him. But John was there, how did he fail?
  - Even he failed to stand up for the injustice being done against Jesus
  - Would he have died? —probably
So this is not intended to be a discourse on responding to violence
I don’t think this is the purpose of this passage, but I believe that as citizens, we will sometimes have to stand up for change,
- Even when the cost might be high for us
Just as the disciples should have spoken against the injustice being done to Jesus
- So we should speak out against the injustice we see in the world today.
- Right now there is institutional racism, and there is police brutality and they are very wrong. God hates them
- I included a 10 min youtube video in the email last Thursday about this
  - Tope Koleosp...

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Get into a quiet place and ask Jesus what it was like for him at this point
Ask him to bring to your mind how his love could flow out of you in your life situation right now
Take a step in faith, even though you don’f feel like loving
story of Corrie Ten Boom