Matthew 26:47-75, 27:11-26
Anyone
have a roast in the oven you don’t want to burn? Ok, good.
I’m not sure if I’ll have to trim material or not, so I wanted to make
sure I didn’t have to buy anyone lunch today before I got started.
I
was humbled, excited, and terrified when Carl asked me about a month ago to
teach today. I’m still humbled, excited,
and terrified. I’m humbled because he
asked me to teach the Word of God, excited because he asked me to teach the
Word of God, and terrified because I get to teach the Word of God.
I
don’t know if Carl and John experience this, but it seemed for me that after
Carl asked me to teach that Satan started a new series of attacks and it
culminated this week with a lot of different things, and even struggling this
morning. I just want to challenge us as
a church to pray for whoever is speaking each week because Satan really hates Sunday
mornings, and he really hates especially the series we’re going through right
now with Jesus’ final days on earth, because those days signaled the end of
Satan’s reign, so he’s really attacking, so let’s keep these men in our
prayers.
Welcome
to part two of our series “Jesus, the Overcomer.” Last week we looked at the soul wrenching
time He endured in Gethsemane praying and asking God if there was any other way
to redeem mankind. We saw Him at the end
fully submit to the Father by praying, “Not my will, but yours.” We are picking right back up somewhere in the
middle of the night on that Thursday night.
Jesus has just finished praying when our passage for this week starts. Before we jump into the text, let’s take a
minute to look at the major characters of the scene, a kind of playbill if you
will.
Major
players in the passage:
First,
we obviously have JESUS and the eleven DISCIPLES. Then of course JUDAS returns.
In
a few minutes, we will meet CAIAPHAS the High Priest, the son-in-law of Annas,
the previous high priest. There is this
wonderful thing called money, and Annas was a man of wealth, popular with Rome,
and most likely bought his family’s position within government. When Annas left the position of High Priest,
not only did his son-in-law, Caiaphas, rule as High Priest, but Annas’ 5 sons
and a grandson later served as High Priest; at the pleasure of Rome, I might
add. During a sudden lapse in the Roman
governor due to Festus’ death, Annas’ son Ananus usurped the power of capital
punishment and had James, the brother of Jesus, executed. (By the way, Caiaphas was most likely a
Sadducee, as they had control of the Sanhedrin).
Caiaphas,
as High Priest, was most likely the president of the SANHEDRIN. As
we discuss the Sanhedrin, take note of their methodology, though I’m going to
be very brief about it. There are two
camps of thought when it comes to Jesus before the Sanhedrin. Some argue that it was an illegal, late night
trial in every sense of the word “trial”.
Others argue that it was merely an inquisition trying to find charges
worthy of death.
The
Sanhedrin was the highest Court of Israel that tried civil, criminal, and
religious cases. There were 2 lower
levels of courts. The lowest had 3
judges and was for a very small town (likely ones that had 200 or fewer males). Then there was a court of 23 judges. This was the most common, and some writings
suggest that Jerusalem had 2 of these as well as the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin didn’t have to wait for cases
to be appealed to them, they could hear any case they wanted. It was made up of 71 members appointed from
either lower courts, or students of the Sanhedrin itself. It met in a special chamber in the Temple
known as the Chamber of Hewn Stones. It appears that the High Priest served as
the President, and that would make sense that Rome would want their puppet
leader to also lead the highest court in the land. There was a required quorum
of 23, but this didn’t apply in capital cases, where more was better. A guilty sentence in a capital case (a case
in which the punishment could be death) was not passed down on the same day,
but instead usually held the sentence for a day or two in case new evidence
came up in favor of the defendant. This
was partly due to the Jewish strong belief in the sanctity of life. Discussion
of a capital case could not start at night; and if it were to start in the
afternoon, it was generally postponed until the next morning. Younger, more
junior members voted first in an effort to keep them from being influenced by
the decisions of the older, more experienced members. The Sanhedrin lost the power
to execute when Rome took over. They
could try the case, but then they had to take it to the Roman governor and get
him to agree to carry out the punishment.
Speaking
of Rome, we have the Roman governor during this time, PONTIUS PILATE. He was Governor from A.D. 26-36. He was primarily
responsible for maintaining peace and collecting taxes. Jewish historians considered him corrupt and
cruel. At one point he had soldiers
carry ensigns into Jerusalem with the likeness of Caesar. Jews considered them idolatrous and demanded
their removal. Pilate threatened to kill
them, so they bared their necks and laid down, but Pilate quickly backed down. Also,
Pilate took money from the Temple treasury to build an aqueduct into Jerusalem,
then used soldiers in plain clothes to massacre Jewish rioters. A third time,
he made shields with Tiberius’ likeness, which the Jews again demanded, to be
removed, and they appealed directly to Tiberius. Finally Pilate was recalled in
A.D. 36 for massacring a group of Samaritans.
I
also want to show you a map of
Jerusalem:
I’m
a visual person, so let’s talk about the settings of our scene. On the map you
can see the temple up in the northeast corner of the city, Gethsemane (where Jesus
is currently praying with His disciples) is over to the east of the
temple. Herod’s palace is on the west
side of town. Jerusalem was interesting in
that it was set up on two hills with a valley in between. You have the old city on the eastern hill,
and the upper city on the western hill.
Some people believe that Pilate was probably in the Hasmonean Palace (he
normal reigned from Cesarea but was in town during the time of the Passover). Golgatha is on this map to the west of the
Temple, but some maps I’ve seen suggest it was even further north. There are suggestions that Caiaphas’ house is
in the south west section of the city, but that doesn’t make sense to me that
he would live so far away from the temple.
As someone who has a long commute to work, it seems odd that the high
priest would live somewhere that required him to walk a long way to work. Finally, we have the Antonia Fortress in the
north of the Temple, which was the Roman garrison.
That
was all introduction, so let’s pray before we dig into the passage. Father, I pray for this time, that You would
speak through me, that You would bless the time of preparation for the sermon,
that Your Word would go forth boldly, and that we would have hearts to hear, hearts
to learn, and hearts willing to grow and make changes in our lives. Bless this time now, we pray.
Now
let’s focus on the betrayal. We’re going
to begin by picking up the last verse from the passage last week:
Rise, let us be going;
see, my betrayer is at hand."
While he was still
speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords
and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had given them a sign,
saying, "The one I will kiss is the man; seize him." And he came up
to Jesus at once and said, "Greetings, Rabbi!" And he kissed him. Jesus
said to him, "Friend, do what you came to do." Then they came up and
laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And
behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his
sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword
back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do
you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more
than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled,
that it must be so?" At that hour
Jesus said to the crowds, "Have you come out as against a robber, with
swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and
you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the
prophets might be fulfilled." Then all the disciples left him and fled. –Matthew
26:46-56 (ESV)
Judas,
one of the twelve. He had heard
countless sermons, teachings, and explanations.
As a disciple, he got even deeper explanations of Jesus’ teaching than
most. He had seen hundreds of
miracles. But still refused to accept
Jesus as Messiah. The Jews to this day
are still looking to a more political Messiah, perhaps that’s where his
confusion came in.
The
“crowd” or “band” that accompanied Judas and armed with swords and clubs was
most likely a detachment from the Roman Garrison in Jerusalem stationed beside
the Temple. The Greek word John uses in
the parallel passage refers to a military cohort or the 10th part of
a legion (this would equal about 600 men). The Temple Guard was an unarmed,
untrained “police” force available for civil purposes to the Jewish
authorities. Why would Rome allow the
Jews, who regularly revolted, to have an armed guard in their most holy,
volatile city?
In
verse 49 we come across the sign Judas said he would give. A sign was needed due to the darkness and
large crowds. The Greek word for kissed
used here means “to kiss much, kiss again and again, kiss tenderly” (Strong’s Concordance). We aren’t talking about the “greet each other
with a holy kiss” here, but rather a more affectionate, repeated kiss. Jesus refers to Judas as a “Friend”, and then
tells him to do what he came to. I’m
sure, as suggested by one commentator, that this was probably Jesus giving one
final chance for Judas to repent.
And
then, Jesus’ command to put away the sword seems more to be a way to calm the
arresting crowd, so as not to have the other disciples killed. (Similar to pulling a gun on a well-trained
soldier or police officer.) He follows that by reminding Peter that this was
the Father’s will. If it wasn’t, He
could have called 12 legions of armed, ready to fight angels. A Legion was conservatively 6,000 soldiers (or
up to 6,826 [6,100 foot soldiers and 726 horsemen]). So He could have called 81,900 angels. Does anyone know the capacity of Death Valley
stadium? It’s 81,500. He could have
called more angels than fans we could fit in Death Valley to deal with about
600 Roman soldiers, odds of 120:1 up to 136:1.
But He didn’t call the angels, because the Scriptures had to be
fulfilled. Jesus twice repeats “the
Scriptures [may] be fulfilled” in a short period of time, yet again reminding
the crowd that He is the true Messiah.
Now we’re going to move on to the “trial” (and I
use that term loosely).
Then those who had
seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the
elders had gathered. And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the
courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see
the end. Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false
testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none,
though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said,
"This man said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it
in three days.'" And the high priest stood up and said, "Have you no
answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?" But Jesus
remained silent. And the high priest said to him, "I adjure you by the
living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." Jesus said to
him, "You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son
of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of
heaven." Then the high priest tore his robes and said, "He has
uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his
blasphemy. What is your judgment?" They answered, "He deserves
death." Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying,
"Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?"—Matthew 26:57-68
(ESV)
Jesus
was led to the High Priest’s house, not the usual meeting place of the Sanhedrin,
(the Chamber of Hewn Stones in the Temple that I mentioned earlier). Also, the Greek verb used for “were seeking”
in the verse literally means “kept trying to obtain.” This didn’t start on the Thursday night
before Passover. This started a long
time ago with them actively seeking false testimony. Also, earlier in the week,
Jesus had gone into the temple to destroy the money changer tables and those selling
animals for sacrifices, and that directly affected the high priest. Within Jewish leadership, there were two political
parties. The Pharisees, mentioned more often in Scripture and thus more known
to us today, and the liberal Sadducees. The Pharisees were a more conservative
group who were focused on the faithful observance of Jewish oral law. But they
were so focused on the oral law, that they missed the purpose of the law. The Sadducees
were more liberal. They did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They
were in power during the time of Christ, and had been for a while. The Sadducees question the validity of the
oral law, and focused solely on the written Mosaic Law, the Pentateuch. They
controlled all of the Sanhedrin. They had
money, and controlled temple worship. So, when
Jesus destroyed the money changers, He was directly affecting Caiaphas and Annas
and the others who are ruling.
Going
back to the passage, and the reference to Jesus’ prophecy to destroy the temple
and raise it again in 3 days; to the Jews, the Temple was almost more holy than
God. That was where He lived. If you destroyed the Temple, God became
homeless. How could one man rebuild in 3
days what it took Solomon about 20 years or the Jews 46 years to build (John
2:20). We all know now, hindsight being
20/20, they totally missed which temple Jesus was referring to.
In
verse 63, Jesus wouldn’t answer any charges against him (as a sheep before his
shearers is dumb – Isaiah 53:7). The
High Priest, tired of his silence, “adjured,” forced him to take an oath of
whether he was the Messiah or not. Jesus
simply responds, “You have said so,” which in Greek can be translated “You have
said it yourself.” The Son of Man was a
common phrase for the Messiah (Ps. 110:1, Dan. 7:13). To be at God’s right hand, was a sign of
authority and power. This was a claim of
equality with God, and the Jews didn’t like that at all.
So,
in verse 65, Caiaphas thinks he has finally found a way to get rid of this
nuisance. He just “blasphemed” openly in
front of many members of the Sanhedrin by claiming to be equal with God. To the Jews, there is only one God (Deut.
6:4, the first part of the Hebrew shema).
To claim equality was nothing but blasphemy, as they didn’t recognize the
theology of the Trinity.
The
unanimous “vote” (Mark 14:64 “all”), meant that sympathizers such as Nicodemus
and Joseph of Arimathea were probably not present for this so-called trial. The ones at this meeting or “trial” were
probably hand-picked by Caiaphas and Annas for one purpose—to get rid of Jesus.
Then, out of anger, and out of character for a member of the Sanhedrin, they
began to inflict punishment of their own against Him. Their demand to “Prophesy to us, you Christ!”
was nothing but blasphemy of their own.
It was a direct refusal to believe Jesus’ words, and his works as he
begged them to do in John 10:-37-38.
Now
let’s move on to Peter’s denial. I feel
kind of short-changed here as I could spend a whole sermon on Peter’s denial alone.
Having experienced the need this week to go to someone and ask forgiveness for
a deep hurt I had caused, this part of the passage really impacted me. So, we’ll get back to Jesus as Overcomer in a
minute, but let’s dig into this next section.
Now Peter was sitting
outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, "You
also were with Jesus the Galilean." But he denied it before them all,
saying, "I do not know what you mean." And when he went out to the
entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders,
"This man was with Jesus of Nazareth." And again he denied it with an
oath: "I do not know the man." After a little while the bystanders
came up and said to Peter, "Certainly you too are one of them, for your
accent betrays you." Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to
swear, "I do not know the man." And immediately the rooster crowed. And
Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, "Before the rooster crows, you will
deny me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly.—Matthew 26:69-75
(ESV)
Peter’s
first denial was a little, white lie of “I don’t know what you’re talking
about. The second time, he added an
oath. Our common vernacular would put it
as “I promise you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Except this isn’t fully what it meant to a
Jew; an oath was always considered as made before God, in essence, calling God
as a witness to his denial. The third time, the Greek word translated “curse”
had the idea of pronouncing death on one’s self if what he told were a
lie. “May God kill and damn me if I am
not speaking the truth.” “I do not know the man.”
At
this point, the rooster crowed. And
Jesus - hands bound behind his back, spit dripping from his beard, bruising handprints
on his cheeks - turns and looks straight at Peter. The combination of that look and remembering
what Jesus had told him just the day before, broke Peter to his core. I don’t know about you guys, but when I was
little it was worse to get “the look” of disappointment from my dad even than
to get a spanking. I can only imagine
how Peter felt when he got “the look.” Unlike
Judas’ remorse, Peter had true repentance.
His faith was not broken. Rather,
I’d argue, it was strengthened by his resolve to never, ever see that look
again. Having struggled myself with
something this week that made me feel unworthy to teach today, I found this
quote very encouraging. This is from
John MacArthur in his commentary on Matthew:
“Peter’s
denial of the Lord is usually looked on as a great tragedy, which it obviously
was. But viewed in the light of Peter’s
repentance and the Lord’s gracious forgiveness, the story also brings great
encouragement.
“In
all the history of redemption, few saints have fallen to the depths of sin and
unfaithfulness that Peter did in denying Jesus.
Yet few saints have been so powerfully used by God as Peter was after he
repented and was restored. The account
of his denial is a sobering testimony to the weakness of the flesh, but it is
also an encouraging testimony to the power of God’s grace. Even in the extremity of His children’s sin,
the Lord is there to forgive and restore.
“Every
Christian at times comes before the Lord overwhelmed and broken by the
awareness of his sinfulness. A person
who never had such an experience either is very cold spiritually or is not a
Christian at all. Nothing is more
shattering to a believer than suddenly realizing he has denied the Lord by what
he has said or not said, done or not done.
And yet nothing is more exhilarating to him than knowing God’s gracious
forgiveness of the unfaithfulness after it is confessed.
“It
was not until Peter saw the Lord’s face and remembered the Lord’s words that he
came to his sense, acknowledged his sin and helplessness, and repented. His sin did not make him repent. Many people are very much conscious of sin in
their lives, readily admitting its reality and its consequences. But until it is surrendered to Christ for
forgiveness and cleansing, the mere acknowledgement of it will only drive a
person deeper into despair and hopelessness and even deeper into sin. Forgiveness and restoration come only from
turning from sin to God...so that, in His righteousness and grace, sinful men
not only will discover the heinousness of their sin but also the only hope for
its removal.”--John MacArthur, Matthew
24-28.
I’m
not going to add anything to that; I quoted it because I couldn’t say it any
better myself. Now let’s move back to
Jesus before Pilate:
Now Jesus stood before
the governor, and the governor asked him, "Are you the King of the
Jews?" Jesus said, "You have said so." But when he was accused
by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him,
"Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?" But he
gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was
greatly amazed. Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the
crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner
called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, "Whom do
you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" For
he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while
he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, "Have
nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him
today in a dream." Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the
crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them,
"Which of the two do you want me to release for you?" And they said,
"Barabbas." Pilate said to them, "Then what shall I do with
Jesus who is called Christ?" They all said, "Let him be crucified!"
And he said, "Why, what evil has he done?" But they shouted all the
more, "Let him be crucified!" So when Pilate saw that he was gaining
nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his
hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to
it yourselves." And all the people answered, "His blood be on us and
on our children!" Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged
Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.—Matthew 27:11-26
Jesus
answer “You have said so” in Greek is the same thing that He said to Caiaphas
when he asked Jesus if he was the Son of God. Jesus strategically chose not to answer any
more questions. Doing so may have
granted Him His freedom. But He had
fully submitted to the Father’s will in Gethsemane, and He was making sure that
His Father’s will was fulfilled. In
other passages we find that the Jews told Pilate that Jesus was trying to start
a rebellion against Rome. Luke 23:2 says
“And they began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man misleading our nation
and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is
Christ, a king.’” If Jesus really was
guilty of any of these allegations, Rome probably would have already executed
Him, as they did not put up with any kind of civil unrest. Jesus was innocent of these charges. For example, in Matt 5:41 He said carry a
soldier’s gear an extra mile. In Matt
22:21 He said “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Also, in John 6:15 Jesus disappeared when
some wanted to make him a king by force.
Pilate
had made some serious errors as governor, and the Jews hated him. His position of governor was one riot away
from being stripped from him. A riot at this point would have quickly ended his
rule, and possibly his life. Due to
Pilate’s precarious position as the Roman governor, he was desperate for a way
to make peace with the people. Freeing
Jesus would most likely incite a riot started by the Jewish leaders. Executing Jesus could have started a riot by
Jesus’ supporters. Too coward to really
make a decision, he hoped that by following a custom started before him of
releasing a prisoner, he could get all of the people to go against their own
leaders and be satisfied with selecting Jesus as the one prisoner freed that
year. He chose the vilest, most
dangerous criminal in the Roman jails as their dichotomy with the hopes that
they would choose the innocent Jesus. Pilate
underestimated the craftiness of wicked Annas and Caiaphas. They persuaded the crowd to not only choose
Barabbas over Jesus, but to demand Jesus’ execution.
Pilate, miffed by the crowd’s choice of
Barabbas, asked in disgust, “Then what am I supposed to do with Jesus, who is
called Messiah?” Persuaded by their
leaders, the people demanded his execution.
And not just any execution, but specifically what most historians argue
to be one of the most humiliating, horrific, painful, and grotesque death
sentence in all of history: crucifixion.
Trying to reason with the mob at this point was futile. Their mind was made up. Pilate, still trying to make sure everyone
knew he wasn’t involved (again, trying to preserve himself), claims that he is
innocent of Jesus’ blood and tells them to see to themselves. Pilate used a Jewish tradition of washing his
hands while declaring no fault was found in Jesus as a way to remind the Jews
that he still believed Jesus to be innocent (Deut. 21:1-8); but was too coward
to release Him, despite having full authority to do so. Unfortunately the bloodthirsty crowd was all
too willing to take the blame, only to quickly forget it (Acts 5:28 when the
apostles reminded them of this event).
Finally, the Roman scourge was often enough to
kill a man. Two men took a whips with
short wooden handles which several leather thongs were attached to. At the end of the leather straps were tied
pieces of broken clay, bone, or metal.
The prisoner was tied with his hands over his head and his back bared to
the floggers, who strategically scourged the prisoner to inflict the most
pain. Often this left him with little to
no skin at all on the back.
So, we’ve gone though a lot of details, but I don’t
want to just leave you with information.
Here are some applications we can take from this passage:
First, God is in control over all our
circumstances. God even used the sin,
hatred, and blindness of the Jewish leaders to accomplish his purpose. Secondly, Jesus had constant focus on
accomplishing the will of God. In the
garden, He prayed “Not my will but thine be done,” and He meant it. He could
have called over 72,000 angels to free him and protect the disciples, but he didn’t.
He could have answered the charges when he was being tried and been freed, but
he didn’t. He could have just disappeared and continued with His earthly
ministry, but he didn’t. He had a mission.
He was going to fulfill it.
Finally, we see His immense love for us.
And I could have put this one first, because this is what drove him to
the cross, but I want it to be the one that we end with. His immense love for us...why else would He
go through this? He experienced abandonment,
loneliness, betrayal, denial, intense and continued emotional and physical
pain. For the first and only time in all
of history, all of time, and even before time and after time, He experiences
separation from God the Father. Why? Because
He loves us and wants us to be redeemed.
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