Allen Jackson - Gethsemane to Golgotha - Part 1
We've been working through the Gospel of Luke for a few sessions, and I've invited you to do a little extracurricular reading. I won't ask for a show of hands because I know you're all participating. I'm an optimist. There's only 24 chapters in the Gospel of Luke. If you had read a chapter a day since we began this initiative, you'd have more than read through the Gospel. I hope you're doing it more frequently than that. Change enough of your routine to make a little space. I'm about through with this particular study, so if you've so far taken a pass, come on. You got another session or two to jump in. It will change how you understand your Bible if you will learn to read it in some new ways.
The habit of a 15 minute block of time where you systematically read through your Bible is a wonderful habit, but it limits how you learn. You would never learn a language that way. You'd never learn organic chemistry that way. I'm not sure you'd learn how to use your smartphone if that was the way you approached it. And while I applaud the engagement and the investment, there are some other ways to engage the Word of God. And so this isn't the only way, but it's one way. I hope you'll join us with the Gospel of Luke. You can read the entire Gospel in less time than it takes to watch a movie or a ball game. We've been with Luke, Luke has taken us in some interesting places with Jesus. We went with Jesus to dinner at the home of several Pharisees, more than one home. At every home Jesus went into, he was an instigator.
In fact, I pretty much decided after that I didn't want to go to the Pharisee's house with Jesus because there was just, I was too awkward I couldn't even stay peaceful enough to enjoy dessert. And then we went to the temple with Jesus and that was quite a bit of direct conversation as well. We went to several synagogues with Jesus. Luke has really given us an adventure with Jesus. We've been commissioned and released by Jesus, verse 12 and then 72. Well, in this session we're gonna go with Jesus to the Last Supper and then we're gonna walk across the city of Jerusalem to the Garden of Gethsemane and we're gonna hear the soldiers come. It's maybe a bit more familiar to you, this part of the story and the narrative, but Luke is inviting us into something, and I hope it is opening some thoughts and ideas in your heart.
And while we're studying Luke, I put Proverbs 19 in your notes. So I'm gonna start there because it's in your notes. I have a habit of reading the chapter of Proverbs that corresponds with the date and there's usually a verse out of that chapter that seems illuminated to me, not always but much of the time. And when I read yesterday's Proverb chapter 19, verse 3, it just seemed to me to be in neon. It says, "A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord". It seems to me what we're watching on a broad basis across our country is the hearts of men and women raging against the Lord. They don't intend to submit to his authority, to his perspective, to his boundaries. They really, "I don't want any of that," they say.
And it's forceful enough and loud enough and intense enough and broadly communicated enough that the people who have a different opinion are very reluctant to express their opinion. And what I would submit is I read that, I thought, Lord, I can't give in to the rage against you. I have to have a joy in you that is greater than the rage against you. Again, I know it's not in Luke, but it really is in the Bible. In Hebrews it says, "For the joy before him, Jesus endured the cross". The hatred, the violence, the torture. There was a joy in him that superseded that. So he wasn't quiet, he didn't compromise, he didn't withdraw his assertion, he didn't deny his assignment. The world we live in, there will be, one translation says "foolish people," this translation says "people filled with folly," same word, who rage against the Lord in their hearts. It's their fundamental orientation. "I will not give in to the Lord".
Now, if you're in a church, or you're listening to a church service on a Sunday, you probably don't hold that conviction. But I find that we do hold things like, "I will not forgive that person," or, "I'll not yield to that person," or we drive these stakes in the ground where we say to the Lord what we will not do. And please hear the wisdom of Proverbs: they said that's folly. Give you one other Proverbs, then we'll get to Luke. It says, "Above all else, guard your heart". More than you guard your money or your future or your kids or your cars or your animals or whatever is important to you, guard your heart because it will chart your course, it will determine your future in time and for all eternity. Guard your heart, it's so important.
Now, let's go with Jesus from Gethsemane to Golgotha. I'll give you a little timeline, it might help. You know, I like to read my Bible and I like to learn, I like school, but sometimes the way we're trained to approach our Bibles I don't think is helpful. You know, there's four Gospels, three of them are similar, John is very different, and so, you know, the academics and the Bible studies, they get them together, we do comparisons. "This is what Mark says, and Luke says, and Matthew says, and John says, and you need to overlay them in order to know what's going on".
And I mean, it's legitimate, okay. But sometimes you get so caught up, and this parable is mentioned twice and this one's only mentioned once. The adulterous pericope in John was not actually in this chapter, it may have been in that chapter. And I don't know what a pericope is anyway, but apparently it'll get you in trouble and even stoned, so you don't wanna be caught in a pericope. And sometimes we do all of that and we miss what's there, and I've decided it's almost a tool of the enemy. So I'm just gonna use Luke to give you a little bit of a timeline for Jesus. They have dinner in the upper city of Jerusalem, in the upper room. It's that famous dinner that so much attention is drawn to. Jesus is washing feet and identifying Judas, and they leave that upper... some of you have been to Jerusalem. They leave the upper city of Jerusalem and they walk all the way across the city through the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives to Gethsemane, which just means "olive press," it's an olive grove on the Mount of Olives. They needed the olive oil in the temple.
I told you in a previous session the folks that controlled the temple controlled the shepherd's fields in Bethlehem because they needed the sheep. Guess who controlled the Mount of Olives? Same crew. They had a good thing going. So they've walked from the upper city to the Garden of Gethsemane. It's in Gethsemane where they come to arrest Jesus late at night under the cover of darkness and they take him from there to the house of the high priest from the previous year, Annas, and then from there to Caiaphas, who is the current high priest. He's held all night long there, or the remainder of the night there, while they interrogate him and it's early when, sun's just breaking the horizon, they take him to the Praetorium to present him to the Roman governor Pilate.
The Praetorium is a part of the Roman fortress that's just north of the temple of Jerusalem. They appear before Pilate, he figures out that he can hand him off to Herod, so he sends him to Herod's palace, which most archaeologists seem to think somewhere around Jaffa Gate, if you know Jerusalem. Herod tries for a little while and he sends him back to Pilate, so back to the Praetorium, and it's there where he's ultimately condemned, and he carries his cross a portion of the way through Jerusalem en route to Golgotha. It's a physically demanding block of time, if you weren't being tortured. If we were on a tour and I made you walk that route, you would not love me.
We're gonna follow Luke. It's Luke 22. "A dispute rose," they're in that Last Supper. "A dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be the greatest. And Jesus said to them, 'The kings of the Gentiles lorded over them; and those who exercise authority over them call them Benefactors. But you're not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who's greater, the one who's at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who's at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. And you are those who stood by me in my trials. I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel".
Now, by now you should be familiar with Luke a bit. Some of these things he's been telling us repeatedly. He's told us the disciples act like clownish children frequently. Oh, you can say that about them, it's okay. They're at the Last Supper, Jesus is identifying Judas, he's telling them about the suffering that's about to begin, he washes their feet, and they have a private argument about which one of them is greatest. And Jesus is totally undeterred. At that point, I might have just, you know, thrown my towel on the table and walked out. Aren't you glad I'm not Jesus? That was a great point for an amen right there. You could have leapt into that. But Jesus is undeterred. He doesn't really scold them, he kind of repurpose them. He points them in another direction. He said, "You stood by me in my trials. I have been amongst you and served". He's reorienting their perspective one more time. And then he comes back to this theme through Luke's Gospel. He said, "I confer on you a kingdom".
Can you imagine being at the table with Jesus? I mean, imagine a dozen of us got to go have dinner with Jesus, and I look at Coach, say, "I'm better than you". And he goes, "Absolutely not. I know I'm better than you". And it picks up all the way around the table. And Jesus looks over and goes, "I know what you're talking about". Oh jeez, I'm embarrassed when I read it. And he repurposes them and he says, "I confer on you a kingdom". Luke has been telling us from the very beginning when he sent the archangel to talk to Zechariah on his temple service in the opening chapter that there's a dimensional life, a spiritual life. There's something beyond time that can bring life to a barren couple, or in chapter 2, can bring life to a virgin. It has been the narrative from the opening chapters, opening verses, to the Passion of our Lord.
Now Jesus says, "I confer on you a kingdom". How emotionally invested are you in the kingdom of God? "Well, I mean, I wanna go there when I die. But for now, what's the minimal daily requirement"? You see, everything Jesus has shown us, everything Luke has related to us, the authority he has over the wind and the waves and the demons and the sick and the dead, all of that is an expression of this kingdom. He's about to be executed because he refuses to separate himself or diminish his alignment with that kingdom. What puts him on the cross is the statement that "I'm a King". He could have said, "I'm a healer," "I'm a teacher," "I'm a rabbi," "I'm a prophet," "I'm a miracle worker," "I'm a scholar," or "I'm a scoundrel," and he could have escaped the cross. But when he said, "I'm a King," he handed them all the authority they needed to put him there.
And now he looks at his friends and he says, "I confer on you a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones". I smile here, there's a big segment of the church that says God rejected the Jewish people, that everywhere you read "Israel" or "Jewish," you can just write in "Christian" and "church". Somebody should have told Jesus, because he said to those Jewish men at the table with him, "You're gonna sit on thrones in my kingdom". Sounds like they got a big seat at the table, folks.
Same chapter, 22, verse 31. "'Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you've turned back, strengthen your brothers.' And he said, 'Lord, I'm ready to go with you to prison and to death.' And Jesus answered, 'I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you'll deny three times that you know me.'" There's, I guess, a lot of ways you could understand that. To me, it is such an expression of compassion and kindness from Jesus. He's not criticizing Peter. I don't understand it that he's chastising him or rebuking him. He's preparing him. "Peter, you got something hard you gotta walk through tonight, something you don't understand".
Peter is completely unaware of the intensity of what is before him. In the same way a parent would prepare a child for something that was in front of them that wouldn't be simple, Jesus is preparing Peter, and Peter lacks the awareness to even be anxious. "No, no, there's nothing gonna rock my boat. I'm in. Rest of these clowns, I agree with you, they could fade away. But not me". But Jesus in his compassion is preparing him. By verse 47 of that chapter, they've made it to Gethsemane. "And while Jesus was speaking a crowd came up, and a man who was called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, Jesus said, 'Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?' And when Jesus's followers saw what was gonna happen, they said, 'Lord, should we strike with our swords?' And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear".
I'm pretty confident he wasn't aiming for the year. Peter wasn't much better with his sword than he was sometimes his comments. "But Jesus answered, 'No more of this!' And he touched the man's ear and he healed him". I've always wondered the rest of that man's story. You think he stood at the cross like this? I mean, he has a personal, we don't know. Luke doesn't even give us his name. You know, I think we'll meet him one day and he'll say, "You know, I'm the guy with the ear". Verse 52, "And Jesus said to the chief priest, and the officers of the temple guard, and the elders who had come for him, 'Am I leading a rebellion, that you've come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you in the temple courts,'" and Luke took us there. We've been with Jesus in the temple courts. "'Every day I was with you, and you didn't lay a hand on me. But this is your hour, when darkness reigns.'"
Times and seasons, we don't often make allowance for that in our spiritual journey and how we pray and how we walk and how we lead and how we occupy the place God's given us to occupy when he tells us, "Having done everything to stand, to stand therefore". Sometimes we stand at the front of a triumphal march and in a victory formation, and sometimes we stand in dark places when darkness reigns. But stand, we must. Luke presents this series of contrast throughout his Gospel, we have looked at several. In this chapter, there's a stark contrast between Jesus's followers and the chief priest and officers of the temple guard and the elders.
In verse 49, Jesus's followers, when they saw what was going to happen, this is what Luke says, when they saw what was about to happen, his followers said, "Lord, should we fight with our swords"? His followers are ready to die for the cause, Jesus's followers. On the other end of the spectrum are the chief priest and the officers of the temple guard and the elders, the people you would expect to be leading the Jesus movement. They have come with swords and clubs to take him. It's a contrast between belief and unbelief all amongst the people of faith, all amongst the people that gather on the temple, all amongst those who celebrate the religious holidays, all amongst those who keep kosher, all amongst those who read scripture.
Again, I think we've had a different imagination. We thought because we sat in the same church together and we shared community together, or we stayed in the same denomination and we read the same translation of the Bible that we would all be in lockstep. Every one of us has to make a decision about belief and unbelief and faithfulness and unfaithfulness. And you've may made a decision a dozen years ago, or two dozen years ago, but are you walking faithfully with the Lord today? "Well, Pastor, are you trying to say I could lose my salvation"? I'm not. Today's not the day for that. I can tell you one thing I know for certain: you can lose your rewards. Are you saying yes to the Lord every day? In Luke's presentation, there are those defending the Lord and there are those arresting and accusing him. Which camp are you in?
Verse 63, "The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and demanded, 'Prophesy! Who hit you?' And they said many other insulting things to him". These are not Roman guards. These are the temple guards that have come with the leaders of the people to get Jesus in Gethsemane and they're holding him that evening, all the high priest and their associates are doing their interrogation. So they know Jesus's reputation. They've been in the crowd when he's ministered, they've heard the stories of his messages. It's another contrast.
Luke introduced us to a Roman centurion, a Roman soldier, in Capernaum who Jesus said had the greatest faith he had seen in Israel. And now the temple guards, the security officers at the temple, are blindfolding him and hitting him and saying, "Prophesy". Does that make you uncomfortable? It does me. It's one thing if a Roman soldier's doing it, but when the temple team? It's a stark contrast. The unexpected, who are believers, and the expected believers are the primary source of rejection. Even Pilate is going to be surprised that these people want a Roman crucifixion. "They seized him and they led him away and took him to the house of the high priest. Peter followed a distance. When they kindled the fire in the middle of the courtyard and they sat down together, Peter sat down with them. And the servant girl seated with him in the firelight, and she looked closely and said, 'This man was with him.' And he said, 'Woman, I don't know him.'" "Not me, not me".
Now, we know that, that's a part of the lore of those of us who attend churches. But Peter's denial, it seems, to me, is pretty, it's explainable, it's understandable. He's trying to avoid the rejection and the possible consequences that come with being affiliated with Jesus. Gee, that couldn't happen in the 21st century. We wouldn't dial it back or be quiet or fail to represent, because identifying with Jesus might mean rejection. You could get, like, canceled, or there'd be consequences you'd prefer not to have. You'd rather have a broader network and greater opportunities. And after all, if I suffer because of my identity with Jesus, my kids would suffer, and I have an assignment to protect my kids, so I'm going undercover and bury my Jesus affiliation.
So Peter said, "I don't know him". Same chapter, verse 66. "At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, and the chief priest and the teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. 'If you're the Christ,' they said, 'tell us.' And Jesus answered, 'If I tell you, you won't believe me, and if I asked you, you wouldn't answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.' And they all asked, 'Are you then the Son of God?' And he replied, 'You are right in saying I am.'" For all of those people who say that Jesus was conciliatory and that he was always a peacemaker, read the Bible.
Now, the reality of life is that pressure transforms us. It either transforms us in a destructive way into something that's no longer useful, or it shapes us into something of greater value. And my prayer for myself and for you is that we will cooperate with the pressure God allows to become something more useful in his kingdom. Let's pray:
Father, we choose you. We choose to say yes to you and to cooperate with you. Forgive us for complaining. We want your best. In Jesus's name, amen.