And So It Begins

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 27

Psalm 27 ESV

Of David. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.” Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, O you who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation! For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence. I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 53:1-3

Isaiah 53:1–3 ESV

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Sermon:

Good Morning Church!

I was Glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

I have often told people (and I stand behind this) that the bible character that i am most like is probably Jonah. But here not in all the good ways that we might want, A prophet of God, used by him for mighty things like leading an entire city to repentance, no, not that part of Jonah, but the guy who spent a portion of his life running away from what God wanted him to do over and over and over again to disastrous consequences. Then, once I was where God wanted me doing what he called me to, I keep messing that up over and over and over again. In other words, often my life feels like I spend a lot of time jumping form one failure to another.

I bring this up because I know that I am not alone in that feeling. I know that we can all look around and think: Messed that one up, messed that one up. Even on my best days I struggle not thinking: I should be a better husband, better father, better pastor, better student, better, name anything that I put my hands to.

Well In our passage for today we are going to see the same sort of thing unfolding over and over and over again. If you look at your blanks even now, before we fill anything out it should not take a whole lot to understand and contemplate what the theme in many ways of this morning is. Failure. In particular the failures that piled up over and over and over again in the passion narrative.

We start it today. In the passage that we will read and look at this morning. It is not soon, it is not coming, it is not even on the horizon. Jesus will be arrested. The prophecies have all been made, the exhortations to the disciples have ended (well, there is one more here, but we will get to that...) No longer is it “one of you will betray me” but the betrayer will do his diabolical deed. It is no longer all of you WILL fall away become of me, but by the time we get to the end of this passage “ALL THE DISCIPLES WILL FLEE HIM AND LEAVE”.

And with that, So it begins, lets read our passage for today, Matthew 26:47-56

Matthew 26:47–56 ESV

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.

These are the words of the Lord for us this morning. Lets open with a word of prayer.

Our Father in Heaven. Holy righteous and perfect is your name. We pray that your kingdom come and your will be don on earth as it is in heaven this morning. Even as we here read in some sense the ignoble ushering in of that kingdom we do confess and proclaim that you are the sovereign Lord of all things and that your ways are far above our ways. And so we pray that you would reveal to us who you are and what you have done. open our eyes to see our savior afresh and new this morning. Stir out affections to him as we contemplate and read those things he endured so that we might find healing. As we see the brutality of the cross, and the depth of sin here give us your heart. Help us to glory in the power of our savior! For it is in his name that we pray, the name that is above all other names, the name of Jesus christ our Lord! AMEN

As we approach this passage, I want to use this as a bit of the foundation to what is really the rest of the Book of Matthew. Because each failure here lays the groundwork and really paves the way for the murder of Jesus. WE see the seeds of a whole bunch of things bearing fruit here on this night. For none of these failures was this just a “oops it just happened” sort of failure, but rather each one that we will be looking at has deep roots and starts long before what we will read here.

So since there is a whole whole lot to cover here, Lets open with the first failure that we look at. Matthew 26:47 “While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, (and do not worry, we will get to him in a bit, but lets skip him for a second) and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people.”

So the first failure is one of a grand scale, it is not just one person making one mistake, for we turn to the failure of THE CROWD

The Failure of the CROWD

How many people make up a crowd? That I do not really know. but it is a large enough group that when the 11 disciples saw it coming they were wiling to, with one notable exception turn tail and flee. What sort of people make up the crowd? Well this we have a bit more information on, for it was people who were sent “from the chief priests and elders of the people”

And this is where we can dive into how great of a failure this is. This crowd here is the arm really of the chief priests and elders. So in what ways did they fail? just about every one.

They rejected Jesus, the Messiah, the one sent from God, they saw him as competition, he was not the messiah they wanted, they were afraid that he would undermine them, they didn’t like what he taught. he is of the devil (for he casts out demons with the power of the Devil), he is taking on too much authority for himself (because he speaks not like them, but like one who has authority), he is requiring too much of them (you know, with all that “you must repent” and the seven woes to the pharisees stuff). The failure of the crowd starts at it’s root as a failure of the ones who sent the crowd, the chief priests and elders of the people who were hell bent of killing Jesus such that they would go to these lengths to get him.

As we look at the failure of the crowd we have to start here, with the ones who sent them, with those who are, as we talked about in a sermon a whole back “all the usual suspects”. But the crowd itself give light to the true heart of the failure here.

This crowd that was once proclaiming hosanna to the son of David -- blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord -- hosanna in the highest. From that crowd, that was singing his praises we nnow find out that the chief priests and the elders were able to find people who would go arrest, in the cover of darknes,s Jesus christ. These are all people who should have had in their spiritual DNA the ability to see the messiah. Yet they could not and they would not. The failure of the crowd is a failure because they expected a different messiah. Because they were willing to go along with whatever the chief priests and the elders wanted. They couldn't see or know their savior when he was standing right in front of him.

Literally, they didn't know him. They had to go through this whole charade with Judas to even know who it was to arrest. We need to go arrest this guy. We don't know who he is. We don't even know what is crime is if we don't really know who he is. Yeah, sure. Let's just go arrest him with clubs and swords. Its like they were just looking for any reason to riot. So here they are, coming to arrest the savior. It's pretty bad failure. The failure of the crowd. It's a failure, on a large scale. Failure of anyone who was here to truly be able to see who jesus was.

But that pails in comparison To the failure of the betrayer.

The failure of the BETRAYER

Quite possibly the greatest failure that We will look at this morning. The betrayal that we read of here is the most heart-wrenching and painful betrayal that has ever been recorded in all of history. For truly, the one betrayed here is the only one who did not deserve it. We can think of all the other great betrayals that have happened. And whichever it is, the person being betrayed is, simply put, a sinner. They're not perfect. Yet here we find Jesus being betrayed by Judas.

Again in verse 47: “While he was still speaking. Judas came.” We could pause here. This isn't some unknown betrayer. It's not someone who's been lurking or sneaking, this is Judas. He has a name. Most of the disciples don’t even get that. He is, I would argue, one of if not THE the most remembered of all the 12, disciples. I mean, there’s peter james and john sure. Maybe we know Matthew, i mean, he wrote this book, but what about the other 8? Who would come next? Probably Judas.

So Here's the betrayer. While he's still speaking. Judas came. but note in how Matthew reiterates the pain of this betrayal by reiterating: ONE OF THE TWELVE. Even here. Even in this moment of this betrayal here is Judas, one of the 12 betraying The savior. And he does so with a kiss.

This is probably a fairly common form of greeting. But it was a fairly common form of greeting to someone you knew and loved. The sort of modern example, the Americanized example would be like this: There's greetings, right? We shake hands and you shake hands with just about anyone, well post COVID, maybe you don't shake hands with as many people as we used to. But there's greetings, right? There's a high five, then there's a handshake but then we would also go and give someone a hug. This is an intimate betrayal. And the one betraying him. It's one of the 12. He comes up and he gives jesus a kiss, probably two on the cheek.

But jesus knows. Jesus said to him verse 50: Friend. Do what you came to do. Even in saying this friend, it's sort of important. We understand this isn't the same sort of like oh you're my friend. Happy go, lucky. The last time we actually saw the wording here, this word that is translated friend, it was in jesus Parables In chapters 21 and 22 specifically chapter 22. With the parable of the The wedding feast. If we remember back to that parable, the man sort of sneaks in and he's not wearing the right clothes. And the owner, or the master comes in, verse 12 of chapter, 22 and says friend. How did you get it here without a wedding garment? So even here, the last time we saw the word friend used, it was Someone who is heading out to judgment. so it doesn't mean friend the way we might be like, oh, that's my friend.

But what it does show is the resolute heart of jesus. Note jesus resignation: do what you came to do. The die has been set, and Judas, your heart's set against me. The failure of the betrayer is one in which he's so calloused and hard that he's willing to be betray jesus in an intimate manner. And there's nothing that could change his mind. It's complete and utter and total failure. We will see here in a couple weeks, the fallout of Judas's failure, suffice to say, it does not well end well for him.

But there's a few things we should note about this failure, to apply to our lives. The oldest commentary, i have Jerome riding around 300 AD. So, Said this of Judas: “He is pitiful. Yet not worthy of pity.” He's pitiful. He’s a wretch. He doesn't deserve our pity. Wrath and judgment. Is what he deserves. WE need to be honest about the weight and pain and depth of sin. Sure, he is pitiful, but he does not deserve our pity. because this heart is still rampant. Because then Spurgeon wrote this:

This sign of Judas, speaking of betrayal, by a kiss, the sign of judas. Is typical of the way in which jesus is generally betrayed. When men intend to undermine the inspiration of scriptures, how do they begin their books? While always with a declaration that they wish to promote the truth of what jesus really said. Christ's name is so often slandered by those who make a loud profession of attachment to him. But then they sin. Truly, they sin foully, as the chief of transgressors.

First note that even in the 1800’s the challenge and battle was people seeking to undermine Jesus, this is not a new thing, and Spurgeons point is that this has ALWAYS been thee way people operate.

This is still the same way. Everyone who comes to jesus, even those who would greet him with a kiss are not always on the up and up. Or not always praiseworthy, we'll say it that way. The failure of betrayer is one that we can still see all the time.

Then we can start to think in this way: anyone may fail. Because everyone does fail. We can move from the failure of the betrayer. To the failure of the disciple.

The failure of the DISCIPLE

As jesus being arrested, this is the way Matthew tells it: one of the disciples cuts off the ear of one of the servants. And then jesus teaches him something. But if we read through Luke and john and everyone else who tells us this story, we know this is peter. We actually know the name of the servant. It's Malcus. He's the servant of the high priest. We actually know from Luke that jesus ends up miraculously putting this guy's ear back on. But Matthew Leaves out all of those details. Why Didn't Matthew tell us It was peter? He knew it. I mean, Matthew saw it, he was there! It was peter doing this. Why doesn't he give us all those details? Because i think Matthew's point is It could be anyone.

All the disciples end up fleeing. We get that at the end so the failure of all the disciples is they fled. But here i want to look at the failure of peter in particular.

As jesus is being seized peter jumps into action, he grabs his sword. Again, Spurgeon is helpful here: “a good man's hand is never more out of place than it is, then when it is on a sword hilt. Yet, there's always a tendency even among Christians to draw the sword from the scabbard. It would have been better if peter's hands had been clasped in prayer.” That was the whole thought of our last passage when jesus is praying in the garden. Peter James, and john. Come pray with me, they fall asleep. Come pray with me. They fall asleep. You need to watch and pray that you don't fall into temptation. Here truly peter fell into the temptation.

So to start, Peters failure is a failure to understand what christ was doing. It was a failure to live how christ taught him to live. We have this teaching even here: All, who take the sword will perish by the sword. I believe what jesus is saying here is not sort of Pacifism at all times. Rather this is a proverb. Violence, begets more violence. We talked about this at grace group a couple of Thursdays ago: sin, begets more sin. But ultimalty this thought shows us What jesus is truly doing. The way the world will be saved is not through Violence done by christ. That isn't the messiah that he came to be. So the failure of peter is a failure to stand by and understand what god is doing. It's a failure to as Spurgeon pointed out: Be about the business of prayer rather than the business of cutting people's ears off. But ultimately the failure is a failure to endure.

Peter supreme failure, we covered it a couple weeks ago, it's still to come in the passages here is when he denies christ, three times. But in all of this, The disciples won't stand by jesus. For what he is called to, they are not ready for. It would have been to their honor. If any of them. If any of these 11 disciples would have stood to the end. But peter denies him three times. ALL verse 56. All the disciples leave him in flee. None of them. The beloved disciple: John he does not stand here. Steadfast resolute and rather bold peter does not stand firm. The sons of thunder, cannot stand here. The reason i believe peter remains nameless in this passage is for us to realize we're no better. We don't often understand what's going on, which leads us to our next thought Which is the failure of the messiah.

The “failure” of the MESSIAH

Please note the quotation marks here. Jesus by no means failed in anything ever. Rather i'm trying to get us to see the point and the heart of the passage here. Jesus did not fail, by any means at any time. In fact, one commentator points out: While Jesus has no chance of escape, the narrative nonetheless reads as if he is in charge of the whole situation… The Jesus whom Judas and his posse meet is now resolute, calm and authoritative. He himself makes no attempt to resist arrest, and when one of his disciples tries to defend him, it is Jesus himself, not the arresting party, who puts an end to the attempt.

When we talk about the failure of the messiah, This is what probably the disciples are feeling. Jesus could have — He could have done something different. The messiah came to liberate us from roman oppression, to do the things we wanted to do. He came to make war to bring god's judgment on our enemys. This is why peter was so willing to grab the sword. I truly believe this is why peter was willing to say, even if i must die with you because he was ready to fight, he was ready to do these things. The messiah didn’t do that. He failed to defeat Roman oppression, he failed to be the messiah that they wanted him to be. Because he was the messiah, they desperately needed.

As we understand the failure of the messiah, we can even see jesus understands what they want. He’s just not going to do it. When Peter picks up his sword and he cuts off this guy's ear and Jesus says: We're not doing that-- those who live by the sword, die by the sword. He says this in verse 53.

Matthew 26:53 ESV

Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?

This is 72 thousand angels if you want to know the number, Jesus is saying i could do this. I could be delivered, i don't need you to fight for me peter, i can find my own battles. But Jesus failed to fight. Why didn’t he do what the disciples thought he was called to? Why did the messiah allow himself to be betrayed by one of the twelve when he knew it was coming? Why did he allow this great crowd with a swords and clubs to come? Why was he in the garden? If he knew what was coming, As he was walking into jerusalem, marching in, on the colt people were shouting, his name, why did he fail at that moment to take that crowd and march all the way to Rome? Why do the messiah “Fail”. Because all of these failures, and this is the heart and this is what we have to get to. All of these failures, truly everything points to the victory Of god.

The VICTORY of GOD

We could go through and list every single failure and there's countless more that occur throughout all of this whole story. We can look at each and every individual disciple, as they flee and leave. WE could look at the heart of every person in the crowd. We could look at each and every failure that piles up from the failure of the crowd to the failure of the betrayer to The failure of Peter to the failure of just some generic disciple to jesus failure to defend himself here, and all of this culminates in the victory of god.

For this ultimately will be the vindication of jesus, of god and his salvation for his people. He was not the messiah they thought they wanted. To use the same language: Jesus failed to be the messiah that they wanted because he truly was the messiah They needed. All of this works for the greater plan of God. So jesus came not just to defeat Rome, not just to be some political messiah. But to defeat all of the enemies that have plagued mankind for all time. Sin and death are defeated because of this, that happens here. This starts it all.

All that god has said will take place-- Will take place. This is the repeated thought. Over and over again. Why doesn't jesus call his angels verse 54? But then how should the scriptures be fulfilled? God said it was going to be this way so it's going to be this way. Verse 56. All this has taken place that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. What god has said will happen -- will happen. Ultimately, all of this is the victory of god on display. As his justice and wrath are seen on the cross as his beauty and grace are seen on the cross as his mercy and love are seen on the cross. All of this is the victory of god as he purchases salvation for his people.

All of this is god's plan. how does that work? I don’t exactly know how, because his ways are not our ways. we read it, it's heartbreaking. It's failure after failure. It's betrayal by those whom jesus loves and who know Him. It's a failure of the disciples to be what we would expect when we hear disciple. and yet in all of this God has the victory. Let's pray.

Communion: