Having finished the Olivet discourse, including His prayer, Jesus and His disciples went across the Kidron brook into a garden. John does not identify Gethsemane as Matthew and Mark do (Matthew 26:36 and Mark 14:32). But he does say in verse 2 that Judas knew the place where Jesus would be because He often met there with His disciples. And we know from several scriptures (Luke 21:37 and Luke 22:39, for example) that it was His custom to go to the Mount of Olives at night. Knowing that this was the time, Jesus came forward to the soldiers and officers of the Pharisees that Judas had brought. Much commentary has been written about verse 6 (“When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground”) – but we just do not know exactly what happened there. Clearly however, this was a significant response that we would not have expected from Jesus’ captors. But it really does seem appropriate for the Son of God at this hour in His life.
Verses 15-17 contain the account of Peter’s denial. Though we are not told, the “other disciple” mentioned in verses 15-16 is probably John himself (the disciple that Jesus loved – as in John 20:2). John is the only one of the four gospels that gives us the account of Jesus going first to Annas. He had been High Priest from 6-15 A.D., but had been deposed by Valerius Gratus, the former Roman prefect of Judea (Josephus Antiquities 18.26, 34, 95). But the position stayed in the family – currently his son-in-law, Caiaphas. Since the position had traditionally been one that was life-long, Annas was still considered a High Priest by many Jews. Jesus was then taken to Caiaphas. John does not record the events of that encounter, but the synoptic gospels do (Matthew 26:57-68, Mark 14:53-65, and Luke 22:66-71). It was Caiaphas that had suggested that Jesus should die back in John 11:49-51.
From there, Jesus was taken to the Praetorian – the Roman governor’s residence – to appear before Pilate. In verse 31, Pilate wants them to “judge him by your own law.” But the Roman government had supposedly taken away the Sanhedrin’s right to capital punishment (though clearly they exercised exceptions to this, as with Stephen in Acts 7:57-60), and they wanted Him put to death. Besides, as verse 32 reminds us, it was the Roman method of execution that would fulfill the scripture (Isaiah 52:13, John 12:32-33). When Pilate speaks with Jesus asking what He had done and whether He was a kink, Jesus lays aside all doubt as to what type of Kingdom He had come to establish in verse 36:
“My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
Pilate still tries to avoid the responsibility for their blood lust, but he lacks the courage to go against the crowd. So he offers to free either Jesus or the known criminal Barabbas, no doubt thinking they would choose the latter.
But such was not to be. Jesus took the place of all of us, including Barrabas.
some images © V. Gilbert & Arlisle F. Beers
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