37. Matthew 26:31-75

“You will all become Deserters” (Mt.26:31-35)

However thrilling, if mind-boggling, it might have been for the disciples to hear and see Jesus proclaim and enact their ancient hopes and display his own joy in the face of the grim prospects ahead of him, as they trudged on the way with him those questions they have had about Jesus all along came back in spades.

-How can Jesus’ death fulfill their hopes and longings?

-How can a suffering and dying figure ever be considered Messiah?

Unlike the unnamed woman who lavishly anointed Jesus for his burial they cannot come to terms with his death. Here at the end, as has apparently been clear to Jesus all along, it is necessary for him to make them face the truth of who they are as those who want to follow him. Truth is the condition of healing and freedom, and Jesus gives the disciples a face full of it!

“You will all become deserters because of me this night,” adding Zech.13:7 as a fulfilment text. Even this mass desertion of the disciples falls within the sovereign oversight of God. “The rejected Shepherd-King that Yahweh placed over Israel (Zech. 11:4-17) will be struck, and the people scattered into the fire of exile (Zech. 13:7-9).”[1] And the end of this striking and scattering is the restoration of God’s people!

Though doubtless small comfort at the moment, this citation by Jesus may come to be of some encouragement for them as this weekend unfolds.  They have come to Jerusalem with Jesus and stayed up to the penultimate moment. But they will in fact go no further. They are not fully aware of this, or cannot bring themselves to acknowledge it (v.35). Peter’s proud but pathetic declaration of his loyalty even unto death (v.33) echoes the sentiment of them all. Jesus’ brusque dismissal of this claim with his announcement of Peter’s impending threefold denial of him “before the cock crows” (proverbial for the coming of morning) portends the desertion of them all.

And then there’s that enigmatic promise of resurrection again: “But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee (v.32). 

“Based on this prophecy, Jesus predicts a mini-exile, but also an eventual ‘return from Babylon,’ as the disciples gather with Him in Galilee (Matt. 26:32). This is the way God always works. He never glorifies His people, or extends His kingdom, in a straight line. For our God, the way to glory, to life, to health, to safety, to salvation is always a crooked path. There is always a deviation through exile, through scattering, through the waters and the wilderness, through death. Glory is always on the far side of the cross; to have a bride, you always have to be taken near death and torn in two; to have day, you have to pass through night.”[2]

And on into that night they go as the disciples follow Jesus to Gethsemane.

Gethsemane (Mt.26:36-46)

Mystery, tragedy, and horror join hands as we enter the garden[3] of Gethsemane with Jesus and the disciples. He has come here pray and prepare himself for what is to come. He wants their support and presence as he prays (v.37). The first Adam and his spouse Eve turn away from God (“the tree of life”) and depend on themselves (“the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”) when tested. The second and last Adam turns to that “tree of life” in his time of infinitely greater testing. His spouse, though, the disciples (Peter, James, and John), remain oblivious to what is going on, fail to heed Jesus’ admonitions (vv.39,41,45) and sleep (vv.40,43,45).

Jesus is here afflicted and tormented by death (v.38). His own, the possible martyrdom of his disciples (if they remain faithful) who he loved, his family and other followers, his people at the hands of Rome in their coming judgment, and that of the world, and who knows who else. It overwhelms him and he wants out: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (v.39). Here enter the Holy of Holies of Jesus’ life with his father. The cup he now envisions is not that of blessing as at their recent meal. It is the cup of God’s wrath upon his people (see 20:22-23).

“He didn't want to drink it. He badly didn't want to. Jesus at this point was no hero-figure, marching boldly towards his oncoming fate. He was no Socrates, drinking the poison and telling his friends to stop crying because he was going to a much better life. He was a man, as we might say, in melt-down mode. He had looked into the darkness and seen the grinning faces of all the demons in the world looking back at him. And he begged and begged his father not to bring him to the point of going through with it. He prayed the prayer he had taught them to pray: Don't let us be brought into the time of testing, the time of deepest trial!”[4]

But the answer he heard was “No!” Yet he was still compelled to do God’s will, as horrible as it was; to do God’s will on earth as it was done in heaven. Just as he had taught his disciples to pray and as he himself doubtless prayed every day. And here the rubber hit the road for him on that big time!

This was the time of trial he had taught them to ask the Father to deliver them from (6:13; 26:41) but such deliverance was not coming for him. He had to bear it, to see it through. And Jesus submits and readies to face this ordeal. 

He prays three times for this terrible unpleasantness to be removed (even as Paul would later pray three times for some problem he perceived in the way of his ministry to be removed). And like Paul the answer he received was “No, but my grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor.12:9). 

This doubtless what the author of Hebrews has in mind in his reflection on this episode:

“In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb.5:7-9).

He was heard, not with an affirmative answer to his request, but with a promise of grace sufficient to meet his need, a greater need than any human before or since has experienced, and to save him through death, not from it. And this answer came in response to his willingness to “do God’s will on earth as it was done in heaven: through “reverent submission.”

And what he “learned” (Heb.5:8) was, in Leithart’s words, “that the way to life is not a straight line; the way to life deviates through death. The way of life is always a crooked way . . . He was delivered by enduring it in faith. This is the lesson Jesus learns in the garden: ‘power is perfected in weakness.’”[5]

That Jesus could and did “learn obedience” has ramifications for our doctrine of Christology to be sure. But however we work that out, Jesus’ humanity, if it be truly our humanity, surely entails this capacity which we must never downplay or ignore.

The disciples (the inner three, at least) are asleep at the wheel (literally). They do not understand that they too are undergoing a time of testing, of trial. They should have been praying as well. Remaining alert to drama unfolding right before their eyes. Well, if their eyes had been open, that is. Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls on Christians to become those who “stay awake with Christ in Gethsemane” today in these memorable words:   

“If one has completely renounced making something of oneself—whether it be a saint or a converted sinner or a church leader (a so-called priestly figure!), a just or an unjust person, a sick or a healthy person—then one throws oneself completely into the arms of God, and this is what I call this-worldliness: living fully in the midst of life’s tasks, questions, successes and failures, experiences, and perplexities—then one takes seriously no longer one’s own sufferings but rather the suffering of God in the world. Then one stays awake with Christ in Gethsemane. And I think this is faith; this is metanoia. And this is how one becomes a human being, a Christian. (Cf. Jer. 45!)”[6]

May it please God that this be so for us!

Jesus’ Betrayal (Mt.26:46-57)

Before Jesus finished talking to them the storm descends upon him. Judas and an armed crowd sent by the Jewish religious leadership arrive. Judas greets Jesus and kisses him (the sign to identify him as the one to arrest (v.48).[7] As one song writer has written “That’s not what a kiss is for.” But alas, this night was the sing given for this dastardly deed.

They came at night because, as Matthew has already told us, the leadership feared what the people might do of they arrested him on the day in the middle of a crowd at Passover time (21:46). Jesus calls them on this cowardice (v.55) but affirms that even this foul deed falls with the purview of God’s sovereign control (v.56). 

Twice Jesus makes non-specific references to both his follower taking arms to defend him and his arrest on the down low fulfilling scripture (v.54,56). What is he referring to here? The first may reflect Zech.13:7-9 (“Strike the shepherd”)’ the latter Isa.53:12 (“he was numbered among the transgressors”). Or it may reinforce the general perspective of Matthew that whatever happens God is in control.

Jesus himself seems to be in control of the situation once Judas and his group arrives. The frightened and distraught figure of the preceding scene who struggles mightily to reconcile himself with what he has to do and become, through that struggle, self-possessed and the dominant figure in the scene. 

-He addresses Judas as “friend” (v.50) and “orders” him to do what he intended to do.

-He tells the sword-brandishing follower who cut off the slave of the high priest’s ear (v.51) to cut it out rather than cutting it off. Matthew doesn’t say this was Peter and that reticence when he regularly names him in other scenes suggests it was not him though it fits his character. He is unlikely to be the only impulsive character in the bunch.

-He announces that violent resistance is not his way or the way his Father’s purposes will be carried 0ut by his followers (52-54) and implicitly condemn this follower’s sword-bearing as a failure tantamount to joining himself to the other sword-bearers in the story, the “bad guys” who work against Jesus and have come to “strike the shepherd” (v.55). The contrast to the unnamed follower who “took up” his sword and Jesus’ call for is followers to “take up” the cross (10:38) is compelling. And that is the answer to any who might claim that this follower of Jesus having a sword means Jesus either approves or does not care if his followers are armed.

-Judas’ crowd want to treat Jesus as a “bandit” arresting him at night out of public scrutiny. This would enable the authorities to treat him as a law-breaker with no evidence to contradict them. Jesus calls them on this cowardice. But even this, Jesus asserts, is under God’s control in spite of their intentions.      

Jesus Before Caiaphas (Mt.26:57-68)

Betrayed and arrested Jesus is now led before Caiaphas, the high priest, in his home, for interrogation. Peter lurked behind them and settled in Caiaphas’ courtyard mingling with the guards to see what would happen (v.58). This gathering of religious leaders (the Sanhedrin, Israel’s Supreme Court) were hoping to gather credible false testimony against Jesus. Meeting in the darkness of the night (which mirrors the inner darkness which engulfs them), they need at least two witnesses to condemn Jesus. A parade of false witnesses parade in and out but all fail the smell test. Finally, two come forward with matching, plausible accusations: “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days’” (v.61). They correctly get the drift of what Jesus said (24:2; Jn.2:19) but, like Eve in the Garden responding to the snake’s demonic questioning, they misstate it slightly. Jesus never claimed he would be the one to destroy the temple! But that’s what these fellows claim and, like the snake, it is here the high priest finds his point of lethal attack. He demands a response from Jesus.

But he remains silent (like the suffering servant in Isa.53:7). But his silence itself deafening and accusatory. It condemns the Jewish religious leadership for failing to hear and embrace Jesus for who he is and what he came to do. Jesus has made that clear for any who wish to hear and follow him. But in the stubbornness of their hearts they have only heard impenetrable parables and heretical utterances. When the high priest next demands to know if Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (v.63), he answers with a non-demonstrative affirmative: “You have said so” (v.64; see v.25).

Jesus immediately pairs this (weak) affirmation that he is messiah with a strong assertion of his favorite self-designation:

“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.”

Here he combines “Son of Man,” an affirmation from Dan.7:13 that he is the embodiment and representative of the suffering people of God to whom the Ancient of Days grants victory over the pagan beasts who challenge and oppose God with Ps.110:1, an affirmation that the Messiah will be enthroned at God’s right hand. This creative mash-up of texts, so characteristic of Jesus, is a red flag waved at an angry bull.

And Caiaphas charges. “Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, ‘He has blasphemed! Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict?’” (vv.65-66). The high priest had what he wanted; now he could do what he intended with Jesus. Little does he suspect he has just initiated Jesus’ coronation procession to his throne on Golgotha!

“From now on” Jesus said. And he means it. Caiaphas cannot know that in this Machiavellian elimination of a troublemaking messianic “pretender” he is (willingly) fulfilling his role in the outworking of God’s long-term plan. He cannot know that by the close of this weekend the climax of God’s plan will have occurred and that by his hand (though not his hand alone). And that means the defeat and judgment of his nation. His resurrection will vindicate Jesus (and his followers) and validate his way of being Israel as the Abrahamic way God long ago promised their matriarch and patriarch. As I said, Caiaphas cannot know this. At his moment he can only think of moving him on to his demise. 

They begin to abuse, torment, and assault Jesus as the fraud they have just “proved” him to be! At daybreak they turn him over to Pilate (27:1-2). Leithart captures the tragic irony in this:

“Passover is turned inside out: on the first Passover/ Exodus, dawn found Israel delivered from a defeated Gentile power; on this Passover/Exodus, Israel lets herself be reabsorbed into the nations: “We have no king but Caesar.” Israel spends this night renouncing the Lord who delivered them on the night of Passover. Yahweh shows up, and Israel puts Yahweh on trial.”[8]

Peter’s Denial (Mt.26:69-75)

Matthew takes us back now to Peter waiting in the courtyard with the guards to see what eventuates.  As Jesus came to he and James and John three times in Gethsemane only to find them denying him by falling asleep as he wrestled with demons to come to terms with his destiny and vocation, now two servant girls and a group of bystanders come to him and he denies Jesus again by disavowing him and the vocation to which Jesus called him. All his good intentions, presumptive attempts to follow Jesus and be his sole defender among the disciples, pride in being the “rock” on which Jesus would build his movement, all his efforts, good and bad, crash and burn on the “rock” of his denials outside Caiaphas’ house. He does not yet know what has happened to Jesus inside but there in the courtyard he has passed his own verdict and cast his lot with those who would condemn Jesus. 

Peter could hardly fail to remember that this is precisely what Jesus had predicted when he heard the cock crow (v.74). Though that meant a new day for the world, an implacable and impenetrable night descends on Peter. He leaves that place and went out and “wept bitterly” (v.75).

“Peter's tears at the end of this story are the main thing that distinguish him from Judas in the next chapter. There is all the difference in the world between genuine repentance and mere remorse, as Paul wryly notes in one of his letters to Corinth (2 Corinthians 7. 10). The one leads to life, the other to death. Peter's tears, shaming, humiliating and devastating though they were, were a sign of life. Judas's anger and bitterness led straight to death.”[9]

But that is run ahead of our story.

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[1] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 4164.

[2] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 4170.

[3] It is John that identifies the place of Jesus’ arrest as a garden (18:1,26). Matthew and Mark call it simply “Gethsemane.”

[4] Wright, Matthew for Everyone: 160.

[5] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 4194.

[6] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison: DBW 8: 13864-13871).

[7] “It was dark, and to the Jerusalem guards one Galilean visitor would look much like another.” (France, Matthew: 1455.

[8] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 4305.

[9] Wright, Matthew for Everyone: 170-171.