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I remember a few years ago, a friend called me. Their spouse had been put in jail. They thought that they had taken care of some minor traffic incident, but they had not. The next time they got in contact with law enforcement, this was on the record and this person was arrested. When I got the call, they were distraught. It was totally unexpected. Now, their spouse was locked up in jail.
That’s scary. To be taken against your will and arrested is very hard. This is what Jesus experienced. We now turn in this sermon series to consider the suffering of our Savior on our behalf. We should remember two things here. First, how great his suffering was. Second, that it was all done out of love for the human race, to bring us back to God so that we could be freed from suffering and given eternal life.
In this passage, we will consider three things here: the prelude to the arrest, the arrest, and the loneliness of the arrest.
The Prelude to the Arrest
After the celebration of the Passover, the disciples and Jesus went to a place they had gone often. They went to the Mount of Olives to pray.
When Jesus arrived, He told His disciples to pray. He had a concern for them. He said, you should pray so that you may not fall into temptation. They were about to enter into a great trial, and they needed help to be delivered from this trial. When we have a great trial, it is an important time for us to begin to pray.
After that, Jesus went off to pray by Himself. There, we have a record of what He prayed. He said, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Alfred Edersheim writes in his amazing work, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah:
We are here in the full view of the deepest mystery of our faith: the two Natures in One Person. . . . Was there, then, any thought or view of a ‘a possibility,’ that Christ’s work could be accomplished without that hour and Cup? Or did it only mark the utmost limit of His endurance and submission? We dare not answer; we only reverently follow what is recorded (846).
Wonder seems to be the best response here. It is an astonishing moment. It is the deepest wrestling of Jesus with the great suffering that He will undergo.
A question here arises, why is Jesus so distraught when so many martyrs went joyfully to death, even singing? Because this is not suffering for the Father. It is suffering from the Father. It is the alienation from the Father that will manifest itself in Jesus’ cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?” The cup is the cup of the wrath of God. As we read in Psalm 75:8, “In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.” This is what Jesus was going to experience for us. Our sin deserved the wrath of God, but Jesus would experience the full wrath of God in our place. That is what it means to drink the cup. This is the cup that Jesus prayed might pass from Him . . . if it were possible.
The Father gave His answer. “An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him” (Luke 22:43). The Father would not take the cup away, but He would give Him all the support He could to enable Him to endure that trial.
Jesus wasn’t through, though, wrestling with this before God. He continued to pray. “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). We should see here how much Jesus suffered in soul as well as body. He was in anguish. He experienced torment. It is amazing how many pictures of Jesus in Gethsemane fail to picture this. He was in agony as He prayed. He experienced the fear and the struggle as He went to the cross. We might say that He struggled emotionally and suffered in His soul as He was going to do in His body.
The same was true for the disciples. They were filled with sorrow as well. They had heard the words of Jesus, and it had begun to dawn on them what was going to happen. When people feel great distress or sorrow, they often fall asleep. That’s what happened to the disciples. “When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow” (Luke 22:45). However, Jesus warned them that they needed to keep in the game. “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Luke 22:46). The hour of temptation may be hard, but it calls for prayer and seeking the Lord.
Jesus Arrested
Judas knew that this is where Jesus often went. So he led a crowd to Him. This was the final hour. Judas came up to him and greeted him with a kiss. It is a disgusting act of betrayal. “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:49). Jesus said.
Then, the rest of the disciples responded with the idea of defending the Lord. They asked, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” Apparently, at least one of them didn’t wait for an answer. He went on the attack. He injured the high priest’s servant’s ear, which has always seemed kind of pathetic to me, like he really didn’t even know how to attack.
Jesus responded “No more of this!” Then He touched the high priest’s servant ear and healed it. This teaches us two things. When we see the fights and battles of the world, we are reminded that Jesus is going to bring healing in place of destruction. Second, it teaches us the amazing blindness of people who already have a preconceived notion. They saw Him heal in a miraculous way right in front of their eyes, and they still rejected Him as the Savior! Instead, they wanted to kill Him.
Jesus then addressed the crowds. You could have arrested me any time, but you did not. “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs?” (Luke 22:52). He was not. It was shameful what they were doing.
However, this was their time. Jesus had power to stop it, but He submitted to it. “But this is your hour—when darkness reigns” (Luke 22:52). Darkness had to reign for a moment so that light might reign for all eternity.
And this was the darkness. Move down to verses 63–65. This is what the soldiers who arrested Jesus did to Him: “The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and demanded, ‘Prophesy! Who hit you?’ And they said many other insulting things to him.” They treated Jesus with utter contempt. All respect was gone, and they poured out their hatred upon Him.
This was the power of darkness. Jesus arrested and suffering under the shameless acts of these men. However, it’s one thing to experience the contempt of people you don’t know well. It’s another thing entirely to experience rejection from your closest friends. It is painful. That’s what we will consider next.
The Loneliness of the Arrest
When you are in prison, you quickly realize who cares about you the most. Those people who keep in contact with you become your greatest treasure as you wait your time of release. What is hard is that many people may contact you at the beginning. Over time, you lose contact with most, and it gets lonelier and lonelier. You just don’t have the opportunity to make friends on the outside. Loneliness is a big part of the punishment of the imprisoned criminal. That’s what Jesus experienced, too.
After Jesus was arrested, His disciples fled. To Peter’s credit, he at least followed closely behind. Peter was there in the courtyard.
However, Peter was scared. When a servant woman saw him, she said, this man was with Jesus. Peter said to her, “Woman, I don’t even know Him” (22:57).
A short time later another person identified him as a follower of Jesus. “Man, I am not!” Peter replied.
An hour later, someone else made the same claim. They could tell from Peter’s accent, most likely, that he was from Galilee. So, they knew he was really one of Jesus’ people. “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” (Luke 22:60). Then, the rooster crowed, and an amazing thing occurred. “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter” (22:61). What a moment. Maybe you have felt that. You knew you had done something wrong, and it’s as if the Lord is looking right at you. All Peter needed was the look. He remembered the words of Jesus: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times” (Luke 22:61).
Peter was cut to the heart. “And he went outside and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62).
Conclusion
We should have those times as well, for we too have often betrayed our Lord. We need to see our own sin and weep bitterly when we recognize this. We caused the arrest of our Savior. We are like criminals in God’s court. We deserved to be taken. But Jesus said to His Father, “Let me be taken instead.” Jesus was taken and arrested on earth to carry out the decree from heaven.
This is the good news for us. Jesus was taken so that we might never have to be arrested by the court of heaven. He experienced this agony for us so that might never have to experience it. The wrath of God was carried out on Him so that it might not be carried out on us. Darkness reigned for an hour, so that we might reign forever with Him in glory. May it humble us and cause us to weep but then raise our hearts and cause us to rejoice. He has suffered once the just for the unjust to bring us back to God. Hallelujah. Amen.
Benediction: Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.