The Night At The Garden Of Gethsemane

John 18:11  

"Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into 

the sheath: the cup which my Father hath

 given me, shall I not drink it?" 

    When the last meal was finished and when Jesus' talk and prayer with his disciples were ended, he and his friends left the upper room. They were bound for the Garden of Gethsemane over the brook Cedron. Often Jesus and his disciples had gone there for peace and quiet. Judas knew that he would find Jesus there and it was there that he had decided it would be easiest to engineer the arrest. There is something extremely surprising about the force which came out to arrest Jesus. 
    John said that there was a company of soldiers, together with officers from the chief priests and Pharisees. The officers would be the Temple police. The Temple authorities had a kind of private police force to keep good order, and the Sanhedrin had its police officers to carry out its decrees. The officers, therefore, were the Jewish police force. But there was a band of Roman soldiers there too. Even if we take this word to mean the smallest force, what a force to send out against an unarmed Galilean carpenter! 
    Few scenes in scripture show us the qualities of Jesus as does the arrest in the garden. It shows us his courage; when they arrived, Jesus stepped out. "Whom seek ye?"  "Jesus of Nazareth," they said. Back came the answer: "I am he." The man they had thought they would have to search for was standing before them with glorious defiance. Here is the courage of the man who will face things out.  It shows us his authority. There he was, one single, lonely, unarmed figure; there they were, hundreds of them, armed and equipped. Yet face to face with him, they retreated and fell to the ground. There flowed from Jesus an authority which in all his loneliness made him stronger than the might of his enemies. 
    It shows us that Jesus chose to die.  Here again it is clear that he could have escaped death if he had wished to. He could have walked through them and gone his way. But he did not. He even helped his enemies to arrest him. He chose to die It shows his protective love.  It was not for himself that he took thought; it was for his friends. "Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore you seek me, let these go their way:" (John 18:8).  Jesus' protecting love surrounded his disciples even in Gethsemane. It shows his utter obedience. "Shall I not drink," he said, "the cup that God has given me to drink?" This was God's will, and that was enough. Jesus was himself faithful unto death. My Friends, how can man die better than facing fearful odds and giving his life for his friends?
Amen! 

Reading: (John 18: 1-11)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You 

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry