John 18:1-11 "Why Did Jesus Have to Go to the Cross?"

Okay.

Alright.

We come to our time together in God's Word.

We are continuing our series in the book of John.

We are in John chapter 18 verses 1 through 11 this week.

John 18:1–11

Let's pray before we begin.

Thanks, guys.

All right.

No, for real.

For real.

Father God, as we open your word this morning, this message that you've given to us as your people so that we can know you more, so that we can hear what you have done for us.

Lord Jesus, we as we look at this episode from your life, I pray that the Holy Spirit would use this word in bringing our hearts to life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Question.

Why the cross?

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?

This is something that we're so used to it as being part of the story that we say, what's the necessity of it?

Like, could we just have Christianity without the cross?

If Jesus just lived to a ripe old age, teaching, you know, healing people, providing fish at banquets, that sort of thing, and wine for that matter.

Like, would you have the same thing?

What is the necessity of the cross?

Well, this text gives us an incredibly emphatic answer to that, uh, to that.

But first, we have to get the hang of two closely related words.

Guilt and consequence.

Guilt and consequence.

So the first time that uh my band ever left California to play a concert, we were going to Texas.

And we were excited, not about going to Texas, but about the fact that we were going to Arizona on the way.

And the reason we were excited about Arizona is because in California, you couldn't get real fireworks.

We had spent our entire young lives deprived of anything dangerous.

We only had sparklers.

And so as soon as we crossed the state line of Arizona, there was a big, glorious black cat sort of fireworks store.

It wasn't even a stand, because they knew people are coming from California, they're gonna drop money here.

So we like spent our mass money there.

Like we went all out.

We couldn't control ourselves, and it was still mid-afternoon in summer, and so we said, you know, as excited as we are, let's have a little self-control.

It's daytime, let's wait until the cover of night.

We got a long drive still.

As soon as it's completely dark, it is on.

And so we did with great restraint and self-control.

We made it all the way until nightfall, and then we found the first exit we could, which just happened to be a truck stop, that had a large paved area, so safe, surrounded by a bunch of dry brush.

But we were sure it was gonna be fun.

Our prefrontal cortex had not developed at this point either.

And so it was glorious, it was everything we thought it could be.

We were letting off fireworks with whoops of glee and joy, and uh, and we even uh, you know, there's those little green crackley balls, you know, these things?

Okay, there's these little plastic green crackley balls.

You light them on fire, they go shh everywhere.

Well, we figured out that if if you just sneak up on people, light them, and throw it behind their legs when wearing shorts, and you know, it's it's not it's it's not gonna send you to the hospital, but it sure is funny to see people jump like that, right?

So we were doing that to each other.

And uh one of one of these uh green ball commando attacks was you know, he he one of our members he came to the van.

We were on one side of the van and he was on the other.

Oh, there's someone back there who wants to come in if someone couldn't get that.

Thank you.

Uh and chucked it over the van.

Not a bad plan, however.

This green crackly ball, as luck would have it, landed right in one of the stuffed firework bags of one of our members and exploded.

The first thing that happened is the bag burst into flame.

And the second thing that happened is that these fireworks all went off at once, and we ran in every direction.

There's bottle rockets flying at gas pumps.

We're like, oh, that wasn't a good idea.

Right, like just it it was a curtain exploding like the movies, just and right at this moment, a police car rolls right into that area where we were.

Imagine from the point of view of the police, there we are standing in front of a curtain of fireworks at a gas station.

Like the whole, like, what were we gonna say?

Fireworks, us?

Must be some other guys with California plates shooting off fireworks at a gas station in the middle of a bunch of dry brush in summertime.

We were the textbook definition of guilty.

There was no contesting our guilt.

And guess what?

When you are guilty, a consequence comes with it.

And you don't get to decide what the consequence was, do you?

We can't say, we're guilty, we get ice cream, you know.

Like it doesn't work like that.

We had to pay a fine, and we got a severe talking too from that police officer.

He was not at all amused.

Guilt and consequences go together.

Guilt and consequences is are actually inherent to creation.

Every human society that we see, they might disagree on what constitutes guilt or what the consequences should be, but every single human society that we have ever witnessed has some version of guilt that carry consequences.

And you know, like we sometimes think of ourselves as beyond all that.

Like, hey, we're not really into like punishment and saying people are bad.

Oh, yes, we are.

Remember me too?

Guilt, consequences.

Among what appropriate consequences for that matter.

It's also part of creation.

There's a reason why it is so very universal among human beings.

As soon as God made man and woman, he gave them limits.

He said, Don't eat of this tree.

Now we talk about the tree some other time, but the main thing is obedience to God or disobedience to God.

And if disobedience, if guilt, there are consequences.

The guilt of violating God's law bears consequences with it.

Now, this is another place where people say, Well, haven't we come to a more enlightened view of God than thinking that God is like angry or you know, like I believe in a God of love, not wrath.

But here's the thing: love and wrath are hand of glove.

If you have no wrath, you have no love.

All right?

We've got some very loving moms in here.

Okay?

Ladies with some babies.

They love their babies, even the ones that are taller than them.

Try hurting one of those babies.

You will see wrath.

Why?

Because of love.

Someone who's angry at nothing loves nothing.

Okay?

And also, God's wrath is not him like losing his temper.

We sometimes imagine, oh, God just can't trying to keep it together.

No, that's not God's wrath.

God's wrath is deliberate and is a deliberate and appropriate response to evil.

And, you know, it's not really enlightened to think that God has no wrath.

That's not an enlightened version of God, because think about this.

You want a God that's mad at nothing?

Like he looks at child abuse and the slave trade and exploitation of the weak and genocide, the destruction of the environment.

It's just like, NBD guys, I'm not bent out of shape about anything.

Right?

Like, like that is not a God.

That's not, that's no, in no way is that enlightened.

Right?

Like, it is appropriate that God would look at the abuse of his creation that he loves and be angry.

But guilt bears consequences.

The real problem, though, is that every human being is guilty.

In Romans, the book of Romans, uh, it says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So the bottom line is that everyone, me, you, Mother Teresa, MLK, whoever you can think of, the best people and the worst people are all guilty before God and bear the consequences.

Now, for some of us, this is a shocker.

For some of us, this is a wait, what?

I've always had this idea that God is like a bigger, older Oprah.

He just tells everyone they're awesome and gives them pontiacs when they need it.

And so, yeah, this is a shocker, but it is very much in the scripture, in God's self-disclosure, in God's self-revelation, that he does not wink at evil.

Some of us are like, yeah, yeah, God is the judge, but you know what?

I'm gonna pass judgment.

I am gonna present my life, and sure I'm not perfect, but I've done way more good than evil, but that is not how God judges.

Our standards are not God's standards.

He's not, did you do more good than evil?

Which, by the way, we don't come out good on that either.

It's more one strike and you're out.

Right?

God has much higher standards than we do.

And for some of you, you're like, I'm aware of all this, and I'm terrified.

When I go to meet God, how could I possibly present my life and hope to escape the judgment of his wrath?

So this is the central problem of God's relationship with humanity.

It's that he is just and everyone is guilty.

And if if justice were carried out, everyone receives God's wrath.

What can we do about that?

Because I will tell you, the older you get, the more you think about the day you meet God.

Yeah.

Mark, right?

Yeah.

You're with me.

That brings us to John 18, verses 1 through 11.

John 18:1–11

Let's get into the text, because it kind of, it's one of those texts where the main point comes at the end, but it builds to it.

Let's take a look.

It says, when Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden which his disciples entered.

Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place where Jesus often met there with his disciples.

So he just finished up the upper room discourse, the farewell, the last supper, that whole thing, and now they're going to a garden.

That's a it's an olive grove, literally an olive garden, guys.

But to set the scene, this is not like a this is not a flower garden, it's trees, right?

At night.

And they're meeting in there.

This is important.

Verse 3.

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.

So Judas, who has betrayed Jesus, right, he gives the the the Jewish leaders have been trying to kill Jesus for many chapters now, and Judas is the key because he knows where he's gonna be, away from the crowds who seem to think Jesus is the Messiah.

They're always afraid of a rebellion.

And it is Passover when you're more likely to get a rebellion, and we see that there are Roman soldiers stationed here.

The word for banned there, it could be anywhere from a couple of hundred to about 600 soldiers.

So they are coming along with the Temple Guard, which is the only police force in Jerusalem.

So a few hundred guys, armed, trained killers, are coming.

What are they expecting?

They're expecting a revolutionary leader to put up a fight.

And at Olive Grove, like, can you imagine being a Roman soldier?

Okay, they're in there somewhere and it's dark, there's no street lights.

Right?

You're gonna have this is gonna be a slog, this is gonna be a fight.

Going into this grove and rooting out some determined resistance, fanatical resistance.

That's what they're expecting.

Hence the hundreds of guys.

Look at verses four and five, though.

Then Jesus, knowing all, 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.

Don't miss that.

Knowing all that would happen to him.

That means the trial.

That means the humiliation.

That means the torture.

That means the cross itself.

Knowing all that would happen to him, what does he do?

Does he stay in there and say, Come get me?

We're gonna take down some of you with me, right?

No, what does he do instead?

He goes out of the grove and he presents himself to them.

Jesus goes knowingly and willingly to the cross.

But there's something more that we're reminded of, because it's not just that he goes knowingly and willingly, it's that there's something different about Jesus.

In verses 6 and 7, it says, 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.

Now, for this to make sense to us, what is going on here?

We have Jesus saying, I am he and the soldiers back up and get down.

Well, we have to remember how John starts.

Anybody remember the first verse of the book of John?

In the beginning was the word.

The word was with God, the word was God.

Okay, so that's the first verse.

The word who becomes flesh, who is Jesus, is God.

Now, bear that in mind as I tell you a couple of as I tell you something that seems unrelated.

Back in the book of Exodus, when Moses comes to the burning bush and he's being sent to the Israelites, and he encounters God in the burning bush, and he says, Who should I tell them sent me?

It in the what God says, he says, Tell them I am has sent you.

Now the Greek words for I am, some of you might remember this, it's ego emi.

It's ego emi.

That's what God says.

Tell them ego emi sent you.

In John chapter 8, verse 58, he's talking to the Jewish leaders, and he says to them, I tell you before Abraham was, I am.

John 8:58

He says, before Abraham was, ego a me.

He is claiming to be the same God who was at the burning bush.

And remember in that John 8 sermon, they pick up rocks to throw at him for blasphemy.

Okay?

Do you want to venture a guess?

When Jesus says, I am him, do you want to venture a guess what that Greek phrase is?

Ego a me.

They say, We're looking for Jesus of Nazareth.

He says, Ego a me.

And they take a step back and get down.

Did they understand the full impact of it?

No, but we are told again and again that when Jesus speaks, authority comes with it.

There was something different about him.

What John is reminding us is that Jesus is God Himself.

Not only does he go knowingly and willingly, but God is going to the cross.

Why would someone with the power to avoid this horrific ordeal, this trial, this torture, this humiliation, the crucifixion, why would he go knowingly, willingly when he could choose otherwise?

Why the cross?

Why do we need it?

Well, we get the first hint here in verses 8 and 9.

It says, Jesus answered, I told you that I am he, 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.

So he is saying, Take me, leave, let these guys go free.

He gives himself in place of his disciples.

And this is a miniature version of what he's going to do on the cross for all who believe in him.

Him instead of us.

Do you see that pattern?

And this next part is the key, because it's the last little bit here.

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.

Peter's like, oh, is it fighting time?

Right?

One dude against hundreds of armed killers, right?

He's like, don't worry, Jesus, I'm here.

You gotta love him for his heart, right?

That's guts.

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

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

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

What is this cup?

So let's observe a couple of things here.

This cup does not come from the Jewish leaders, and it does not come from the Roman soldiers, does it?

Or from Pontius Pilate.

Who does it come from?

The Father.

The cup is from the Father.

What is this cup?

It's an important Old Testament image.

If there's a cup and coming from the hand of God, it could be one of two things.

One, it's a cup of blessing.

So in Psalm 23, verse 5, the psalmist David says, My cup overflows, right?

Psalms 23:5

He's talking about all the blessings from God.

The other thing that the cup could have in it is the wrath of God.

For instance, in Psalm 75, 8, I have these on the screen, right?

Awesome.

It says, For the hand of the Lord, for in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dreads.

Or Jeremiah 25, 15 and 16.

Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me, Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.

They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the work of their hands.

There's a lot more of these.

We could be here all day looking at most of the verses from the Old Testament.

If there's a cup from the hand of God, there is wrath in it.

And what is that wrath against?

The answer is evil.

So let's put all this together.

Jesus says he is going to drink the cup of God's wrath at evil.

It comes from the Father.

He is taking it willingly.

Whose evil earned this wrath?

Is it the evil that Jesus committed?

No, because we know that he did not commit evil.

We know that he was perfectly righteous.

Then whose evil is he taking the wrath for?

The answer is ours.

Remember, guilt has a consequence, the wrath of God.

We are all guilty.

And yet, God himself pays the penalty for our guilt.

His wrath falls on himself.

This is one of the this is the reason why it is so crucial that we insist that Jesus is both fully God and fully man.

God's wrath is against the evil of humanity, and God Himself becomes human to take his own wrath, to bear the penalty, to bear the consequence of his own wrath.

What are we to do in response?

What can we do?

Well, um, a few years ago, uh, when all of our kids were were small, right?

There was that, there was this period where none of them were helpful and they were all little.

And uh and we um when we would go on hikes, it it still takes a decent amount of bribery, but we had bribed our kids because we were going on a decently long hike.

We were like, listen, if you don't fetch the whole way, we are gonna go to a restaurant, like this is a treat.

We're gonna go to a restaurant and you guys can order what you want.

You can get can we get lemonade?

Yes, you can get lemonade.

Can we get ice cream?

Yes, you can get ice cream.

Okay, if you'll just hike and not complain too much.

And so, after the hike, we when we would roll into a restaurant in those days, it was a production.

You're like, how many do you have?

We're like, seven, and they're like, oh gosh.

They're like, get the big tables, bring them together, you know, high church, bring them in, sippy cups, here they come.

Right?

It was a whole to-do, like the whole restaurant is in a kerfuffle because the Morgenskis were there and their kids were post-hiking.

You need to bring those fries quick.

This could get ugly.

There was this dude sitting at the bar, and as I'm like strapping kids in and like, you know, putting their helmets on or whatever for a meal, this guy at the bar, he looks at me, he looks at all the the family, and he goes like this.

And I was like, felt good to be seen.

And uh and so the kids are ordering, they were so hungry, and they were like, burgers, fries, appetizers, lemonade, right?

The whole thing.

And I was just like, I, and and it was it was fine, we made a deal.

It's the deal we made, don't don't pity us.

And so then I'm starting to think about what that bill's gonna look like.

And I was like, oh man, this is gonna get this is gonna be rough.

And so I uh as I'm shuddering, I I I say to the server, I'll take the bill now, I'll pay the bill now.

And she said, It's actually already been paid.

And I said, sorry, my kids were loud.

It sounded to me like like someone paid the bill for us ordering everything on the menu with seven people.

But that that can't be right.

She said, no, no.

I was like, I how?

How is our bill paid and who paid it?

She said, that guy over that was sitting over at the bar.

And I look, and he's gone.

It's just a feather on the stool or something.

And I said, Well, well, can I leave the tip?

She's like, he did that too.

What then what was there for me to do?

What was what was rightfully mine to pay had been paid.

There was nothing for me to do except receive it.

As you consider the full weight of what it would mean to face the consequences for what we've done, for the ways that we are guilty before God.

What experiencing wrath would be.

This is good news, Lord.

We thank you that what you require, justice for our guilt, has been paid by Jesus.

That you have taken your wrath on yourself.

This is a mystery.

This is this is a glorious truth that we can only begin to comprehend.

I pray that you would give us a growing awareness of how this gospel, this good news, sets us free to live lives of joy and meaning.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.