The Sovereign Lamb: Power in Sacrifice

Well, we're in the Gospel of John, like we talked about, and we're wrapping it up at the start of Advent.

And where we find ourselves this morning is the beginning of the Passion of Jesus.

And this here sets forth this kind of series of events that leads to the crucifixion of Christ.

And John is opening up the narrative for us in a way that I felt it necessary to not preach kind of the normal sermon that we do here at Sacred Mission, but to try to dive into the details in the story so that we can see it for all that it is.

Because if you're doing your own like Bible devotional plan right in the morning and you're reading John 18, 1 through 11, you're going to read some stuff and it's going to just be glancing over this depth of what John is hoping to communicate and for the readers to understand.

And so I want to make sure that we take our time and dive into that together.

So it's going to be a little different this morning in the way that we approach the text, but I think it's going to help us build the tension that John wants us to have as we walk through the rest of the Passion of Christ.

And so let's work through that together, right?

In the Gospel of John, we're given a unique viewpoint into Jesus' Passion.

And it stands apart from the other three synoptic gospels.

So Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

They're called the Synoptics because the word literally means together sight.

Right?

When we're talking about the Synoptic Gospels, what we're saying is that there's this together sight, there's this common reality, this similarity and view and story that they tend to focus on in those other gospels that is more chronological in its very nature.

So Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as they endeavored to tell the gospel story of Jesus, their focus was more timeline chronological, right?

John, though, stands apart from the synoptic gospels in that his concern is much less chronological, but it is more theological.

John is writing these things so that we might know and understand who Jesus is and put our faith in him.

His entire gospel narrative is shaped by a desire for us to understand that truth, who Jesus really is, and that by believing in him we might have eternal life.

And so the emphasis from John permits us as the reader to witness different moments in the life of Jesus that are shared within the other three synoptic gospels, but also to witness shared events like the Garden of Gethsemane at the beginning of the Passion of Jesus that we're in today.

It's a shared event in all of the Gospels, but John lets us see it from a different viewpoint.

The Passion of Jesus is one of these things, and John's going to tell the story with a unique aim.

He shares details for us not found in the other gospels so that we would see more clearly that Jesus is the Son of God who has been sent on mission to save the world.

That's what John wants us to get.

Right?

And he's going to tell this story from that aim.

So as we're brought into the Passion of Jesus, he has just finished his upper room discourse with his disciples, right?

That was chapters 14 through 16.

He's gathered with them to celebrate the Passover meal, and he's giving him them his final instruction and teaching.

Then we come into the high priestly prayer.

As they're still gathered in that upper room, John 17, Jesus raises his voice and he prays for his disciples.

He prays for the cross that lies before him, right?

The mission of which God the Father has sent him onto.

And he prays for us.

He prays for us who would believe that we would be one with the Father as He is, that we'd be one with the church, the bride of which He's going to purchase with His blood.

He offers up this prayer.

And at the end of that prayer, John continues the story in chapter 18, verse 1.

When Jesus had spoken these words, the high priestly prayer of 17, he went out with his disciples across the book, brook Kedron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

So since Jesus and his disciples were together celebrating the Passover in the city of Jerusalem, they would be leaving the city center and heading east toward Bethany.

Bethany is where Martha, Mary, Lazarus live.

This is where he entered Jerusalem from after they had a feast in his honor because he had raised Lazarus from the dead, right?

He'd be traveling from Jerusalem east toward Bethany, and he was heading to the garden on the Mount of Olives.

Now, as they traveled, they would have to cross the brook Kidron, which lies at the bottom of the Kidron Valley that divides the city of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.

So I want you guys to see this picture for a moment.

This is the Kidron Valley.

You see Jerusalem on your right.

You see the Mount of Olives on your left.

And so Jesus and his disciples would have been leaving the city center there, journeying down the valley slope to go back up on the Mount of Olives into the Garden of Gethsemane.

And there at the bottom lies this brook of which they would have to cross.

Now, during the Passover celebration, Jerusalem would have been filled with Jewish pilgrims journeying to the temple to participate in the remembrance of the Exodus story where God had delivered his people from the land of Egypt.

A central element to celebrating the Passover was the sacrifice of what they called the Paschal Lamb.

The Paschal Lamb.

Now, this sacrifice was held at the temple where each family was called to sacrifice and roast a lamb without blemish, to remember the lambs whose blood had covered the doorposts of their ancestors in the land of Egypt on the night when God was going to send the final plague into the land to deliver his people out from the oppression of Egypt.

And this blood that was on the doorpost of the Jewish home would be a sign to the angel of death, the destroyer, God called him, was going to come through the land and slay the firstborn sons of Egypt.

And when the destroyer saw that blood, he would pass over that home, and all who were in it would be safe.

And so to celebrate Passover, the Paschal Lamb was a part of that ceremony, that sacrifice to remember how God had spared his people and delivered them out from the hand of Pharaoh.

We see this in Exodus 12, 13.

This is the story of Exodus.

God telling his people, the blood, the blood of the lamb, shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are.

And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

Now, as I said, these lambs would be sacrificed at the temple in Jerusalem.

And here's how they set it up.

They set it up to where when they poured out the blood of the Lamb in worship on the altar, they had built a channel to be able to wash that blood out of the temple and down that sloping valley side of Khadron.

Now, to try and understand the scene a little bit more clearly, we actually have a historic census from 30 years after this day that John is writing about.

And according to that census, in Jerusalem, they sacrificed 256,000 lambs for Passover.

So for a moment, let's think about this.

The blood of 256,000 lambs are channeled out of the temple, down that valley, and it would fill the brook of Kidron.

This is where Jesus and his disciples are crossing right now.

Some say that the bed of the Kidron Valley was permanently stained red by the blood of the lambs that were sacrificed.

That only doesn't just simply tell us the magnitude of like the people that were there to celebrate the Passover feast, right?

But it also allows us to understand the gruesome scene that floods the brook at the bottom of the valley.

You see, Passover is held near the end of April.

And in Israel, the end of April is actually the beginning of their dry season.

And so the brook would have been low and easy to cross for Jesus and his disciples, but on this night, it would have flowed with the blood of 256,000 lambs.

No doubt, I have to imagine, as Jesus is walking down and crossing that with his disciples, he's contemplating the reality that in just a few hours his own blood would flow down as the Lamb of God who was sent to wash away the sin of the world.

Jesus and his disciples cross the brook to ascend the Mount of Olives to enter into the Garden of Gethsemane.

Gethsemane literally means olive press.

So he's on the Mount of Olives, entering the Garden of Gethsemane, which means olive press, right?

And here we see that in the synoptic gospels, they invite us in to be able to witness Jesus' very soul being pressed down as he prays to the Father through agony and sweat that falls like drops of blood from his brow.

John, however, he cuts straight to the action.

He doesn't include that in his narrative.

He is going straight to the action, bypasses some of the events of the passion in order that he can keep us on track theologically.

He doesn't want us to drift off of the focus that he has for us.

So we read in verse 2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, the garden.

For Jesus often met there with his disciples.

It was familiar to them.

So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons.

Here's what we need to see.

Jesus goes to the garden because he knew Judas was going to the garden.

What John wants us to understand is the power, the authority, the control that Jesus has over this situation.

Jesus goes to the garden because he knows Judas is going to the garden.

It was a place that was common for Jesus and his disciples to gather for preaching and teaching.

And John wants us to understand, Jesus was never a victim.

Right?

Jesus isn't a victim in this story, in his mission.

It was intentional that he stepped toward what lied ahead of him.

He was always in control.

And sure enough, Judas comes to the garden, leading a mob of both Roman and Jewish authorities carrying lanterns and torches and armed with weapons.

To provide some context, I think there's a few things we need to take into consideration.

The first one being this Jerusalem was filled at that moment with an estimated amount of people of around two and a half million people.

That was just the pilgrims who had come to celebrate the Passover festival.

So you can imagine this city that on average had around 200 plus thousand citizens is now filled to the brim at two and a half million people celebrating the Passover meal.

Now, in that, that means that Roman military presence would have intensified to be able to suppress any sense of a revolt against their empire.

If that many people are coming into the city, that much presence of military power was going to be able to match it.

It was going to be able to handle business if it felt like it had to.

So through his public ministry, we see that Jesus has already obtained a significant following as the streets of Jerusalem were filled with people singing his praises, hailing him as the king of the Jews as he entered the city from Bethany that we read about in chapter 12.

So you really have three tension-filled realities here in this moment.

Number one is you have the Jewish leaders who desire to stop Jesus in the following that he's created.

They don't like the disruption that he's created, they don't like the things that he's been stating, the fact that people are calling him the king of Israel.

They don't want that.

They want to stop that.

Second, is you have all these followers.

If we can understand the triumphal entry of Christ from Bethany into the city at the beginning of Passover, there's two and a half million pilgrims present here, and the streets are filled with people claiming that he is the one who was spoken of, the Messiah, Hosanna to him, he's the king of Israel.

And then what else do you have?

The third tension that we see is Roman military saying, if this gets out of hand, we're gonna have to be able to do something about it.

Because this is our territory, this is our dominion.

You see, the political and social tension was so high that all you would need to do is light a single match, and this city of dry tender would erupt into flames.

So, what does Jesus do?

Jesus goes outside of the city, away from the crowds in the midst of night, so as to not allow any disruption to the purpose of this hour that stands before him.

And Judas persuades and gathers men from both sides of the divide to track him down and to arrest him.

Now, if we read this story, we would think, oh yeah, a handful of dudes came to arrest Jesus, right?

No.

I would estimate, now there's a lot of different conversation around this historically.

I would estimate there was somewhere between 100 to 200 men who came to arrest Jesus in that garden.

The language John uses lends itself to up to 500 men, just in the Roman soldier side of things.

But what we see is a company of men coming to confront Jesus.

And this company of men were there to contain him and to crush any resistance that might have happened.

We read in verse 4.

Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, Whom do you seek?

They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus said to them, I am he.

Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them.

When Jesus said to them, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground.

So he asked them again, Whom do you seek?

And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.

Here's what I love about what John's allowing us to see.

You have this company of men, let's 100 to 200 men, Roman soldiers, Jewish authorities, lanterns, torches, weapons coming at him.

Jesus in this story takes the first step toward the mob.

Who are you looking for?

He's not retreating from the mission, he's stepping into it.

And he asked them a very pointed question: whom do you seek?

This rhetorical question was asked in order to create an effect, to make a point about what was happening here in this moment, because when Jesus responded, it says that they fell back to the ground.

Imagine a man opening his mouth and two hundred powerful men fall to the ground in response.

You see, what actually happened here in this moment, we don't really know.

But John seems to be incorporating it into his account to communicate the power of Jesus' divinity in contrast to the earthly power of the mob.

So these 200 men carrying lanterns, torches, weapons come to arrest Jesus in the garden, and they are no match to Christ himself.

John wants us to grasp that here in this moment.

Jesus is not a victim, he's stepping into this with all power and authority.

Now let's start with Jesus' answer here.

The word he is not in the original language.

I am he is how Jesus responded as we read it, especially in the ESV translation of which we use, that he is added for readability.

Jesus actually responds to them in the Greek egoemi, which means I am.

It's the very statement that we get of the name of God Himself.

This is the declaration of his deity, of his oneness with the Father.

This is the name of the sovereign creator of all things, Yahweh of the Hebrew Old Testament, revealed to Moses in the burning bush in Exodus 3.

We see this 3 verse 14.

God said to Moses, I am who I am.

And he said, Say this to the people of Israel.

I am has sent me to you.

In the Hebrew, it's the word Yahweh, I am.

In the Greek, it's ego emi.

I am.

This is the same way that he revealed himself, Jesus himself in chapter 8 of John, to the Jews who were questioning his authority.

Jesus said to them in John chapter 8, Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.

John 8 · chapter mention

You see, throughout the gospel, Jesus has revealed himself through a series of I am statements.

I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the door, I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the way, the truth, and the life, I am the vine.

But here, in this most powerful statement about his identity yet, he declares without any need of a qualifier.

I am.

And at the sound of that holy name, at the revealing of his glory in the garden, a company of men would fall to the ground.

You see, they had come in numbers bearing lanterns and torches and weapons, yet they could not stand against the word of God made flesh, simply bearing his name.

Jesus is in complete power and control here.

As they gained their composure, Jesus asked them once again, Whom do you seek?

But this time it seems to be with the intent to isolate the attention on himself and away from the disciples who are with him.

You see, this is his hour, this is his mission, this is his fight to prevail.

So this is what I think John wants us to see in this passage, in this story that he shares with us in John 18.

Jesus is the sovereign, sacrificial, a substitute.

Jesus is the sovereign.

Sacrificial substitute.

Verse 8.

Jesus answered, I told you, I am.

I am He in our translation.

So, if you seek me, let these men go.

This was to fulfill the word that He had spoken.

Of those whom you gave me, I have lost not one.

John wants us to know without any ambiguity that Jesus is not a victim, but he's in complete authority and control.

He's sovereign over every step that he takes.

He's sovereign even over the steps that others take.

And this moment here in the garden shines forth the beauty of the gospel.

Take me and spare them.

Take me and spare them.

This is the gospel for us.

That Christ died in our place to save us from the wrath that we deserve for our rebellion.

Except we didn't stand in front of 200 angry men carrying torches and lanterns and weapons.

We stood before the creator of the cosmos, whose wrath was kindled against us because of our sin and rebellion, and Jesus, in full power and control, declared, Take me and spare them.

You see, this was exactly what the high priest Caiaphas had prophesied in John 11, John 11, 49 through 51.

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, said to them, You know nothing at all, nor do you understand that it's better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.

He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation.

One would die for the many, and he would be a representative substitute that would sacrifice his own life to spare the life of others.

This is what Caiaphas had prophesied to.

You want the entire nation to die for this lunatic who's declaring that he's the Son of God, that he's the Messiah that's been prophesied about?

Is that what you think is best?

No, let me tell you, it's better that he dies and that the nation, the people, are spared, suffering because of his actions.

And he had no idea what he was prophesying.

He had no idea what he was saying, that he was articulating the very message of God the Father that he would send his son to be that substitute for us, his people, that would be gathered from every tribe, nation, and tongue, that they were his.

And instead of pouring his wrath out on us, he pours it out on Christ alone.

It was him in our place.

Not a victim, but in full authority and power.

This is the beauty of the gospel put on display for us in the garden.

This is how Paul actually displays Jesus as the Passover lamb.

Paul the Apostle writing to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 5 7, he says, Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, speaking of a new life in Christ in righteousness, as you really are unleavened.

Why are we unleavened?

Why are we righteous?

For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.

How are we spared, the destroyer?

Because the Lamb of God marks us as it did the doorposts in Egypt.

It marks us, and God's wrath passes over us as we're brought into fellowship and reconciled to him as we experience the fullness of his blessing and favor.

Because he was able to pass over us because Christ's blood marks us.

You see, Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of God, so that his people would be spared the destruction that their sin and rebellion had incurred.

Just as a lamb was sacrificed that night in Egypt, so that God's people would be spared from the destroyer, so on this night in the garden, his son, his lamb, would be slain, so that those who are his would never be destroyed by the Father's wrath.

This is good news.

This is the good news.

Yet still, here at the arrest of Jesus, as Jesus was revealing that he was the one who had come to die for the many, one of his disciples with him desired a different outcome.

Bold and spirited Peter was ready to have the mob die instead of Jesus.

This is what Peter wanted in that moment.

You're not going to kill him, we're going to kill you.

And we read here in verse 10.

Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear.

The servant's name was Malchus.

Here's what we need to understand.

Peter wasn't aiming for the ear, right?

If you think Peter was that good of a swordsman that he was able to just simply cleanly cut off the right ear of Malchus there, we might be fooling ourselves a little bit.

Peter was going for the head.

Aren't we just as messy and like sloppily zealous as Peter?

You see, Jesus, for the second time that night, he rebukes Peter openly.

He's already told Peter, get behind me, Satan.

Like this guy's so dense he doesn't get the lesson.

Jesus then rebukes him again.

Verse 11, so Jesus said to Peter, put your sword into its sheath.

Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?

Man, listen to the obedience of Christ there.

One, I don't know how Peter thought 13 of them, right, or 12 of them at this point, because one's on the other side could have taken on 200 men, but like he was ready.

But Jesus says, no, this is why I'm here.

You see, Peter looked at the opposition in front of him and felt like the fight was being lost.

And the only way that he was going to be able to turn the tides into their favor was to use force in any sense of his own power.

But he ended up wielding that power recklessly, failing to strike a fatal blow.

Peter only manages to injure a slave.

But Jesus wasn't afraid of the opposition in front of him.

As the Gospel of Matthew records, Jesus actually responds.

So in the synoptic gospel of Matthew, Jesus responds to Peter's ignorant effort in this way.

Do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?

Peter, I don't need your sword.

I don't need your sloppy zeal in this moment.

Think about what Jesus is saying there.

He'd already knocked down 100 plus men backwards with just the revealing of his very name.

If he wanted to make quick work of the situation, he could have 72,000 warrior angels, transcendent, glorious beings at his beck and call.

He didn't need backup here.

Because he wasn't the victim.

Jesus knew that this was the plan.

This was the will of the Father that sent him on mission to seek and save the lost.

The victory was not going to come through Peter's fatal blow.

It was going to come through a different one.

It would be one that he himself would have to suffer.

So on that night in the garden, the power, the strength, and the authority of Jesus was on full display.

Not by taking the lives of those gathered to arrest him by force, but by willingly in full power laying down his life.

Church Jesus is our Passover Lamb who was sacrificed in the full power of his own will so that you and I would not be destroyed.