Jesus: Deserted

How is it possible that someone from Jesus' inner circle betrayed Him?

We'll learn the answer today on Truth for Life. Alistair Begg looks at the confusion, corruption and compassion displayed on the night Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. We're continuing our study in chapter 22 of Luke's Gospel. Mark, in his reference to this in chapter 14 and verse 50, in five words, gives us the summary of the event when he says, They all deserted him and fled. Now, in trying to come to terms with the seven verses that are before us, in verse 48 there is a question for Judas, then in verse 49 there is a question for Jesus, and then in verse 52 there is a question for the chief priests and the officers and the elders of the people.

And by means of each of these questions, we can get a handle on the material before us. Question number one introduces us to what we might refer to as an awful treachery. And, of course, this treachery is famous throughout the world. People who only know a little bit about the Bible will probably know the name of Judas. They may refer to a friend who has backstabbed them as being a Judas.

And they may even do so without understanding the derivation of their epithet. Well, in point of fact, it comes from the Bible here, and it is the recounting of the fact that Judas comes into the darkness of this garden scene ready to give the predetermined signal to the accompanying crowd of who Jesus was. Now, he's very skillful in what he does. He doesn't come in and say, Well, I'm going to hold a flag above his head. He said, What I'll do is I'll just go in and give a customary greeting. And in the same way that we would walk into a room and shake hands with someone, so they would come in and kiss on the cheek or on either cheek as an Eastern greeting, and that says, Judas, when you see that, you'll know that is the man that you ought to move for. And so, as he approaches Jesus to kiss him, Jesus then asks this question, Judas, Are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss? Now, there's more than a little irony in the question.

There's probably more than a little compassion in the question. He, using the phrase the Son of Man, reminds Judas of what he's doing. He is not simply betraying a human friend, although Jesus had been that to him, but he is betraying the Christ. He is betraying the Messiah of God. He is about to betray the only one who can grant him forgiveness for his sins, eternity, and hope in this life. Don't you sense there is something of an appeal here on the part of Jesus in this final phraseology to him? Are you going to betray the Son of Man with a kiss? Now, some of you are looking at this, and you're saying, Well, why would there need to be a sign at all? After all, isn't Jesus famous by this time?

He's been doing a tremendous amount of teaching, he's been healing people, and the crowd have been gathering in his wake. Well, the answer to that is fairly straightforward. If you think about the last time that you were at a bonfire or that you had a fire pit in someone's yard or down by the beach, and you went away to get something to drink, and you came back to the group, and you stood next to the person that you thought was your wife, only to discover that you were standing next to someone else's wife. And the reason you did so was because of the darkness. This obviously was an equally attractive person. Otherwise, you wouldn't have snuggled up as you did, but it's obvious now I'm here talking to the wrong person. And the lady looks and says, What?

Sorry, I don't understand. Oh, you say I'm dreadfully sorry. In the darkness, I took you for someone else.

We all do that. And in the same way that Jesus was part of the crowd, how were the crowd going to identify Jesus unless somebody went up and made it obvious to them? And so Judas identifies Jesus in this way. Now, the plot had been hatched earlier. Luke tells us that the precursor to this had to do with Satan entering Judas, an enigmatic phrase, Judas going to the chief priests, discussing how he can betray Jesus. Their response is delight.

They agree on a fee, and they discover that at the earliest opportunity, they will put their plan into action. So there was something behind his kiss. There was a background to it.

Listen, friends, there always is. This dramatic moment of betrayal did not appear from nowhere. There was a journey in the life of Judas Iscariot, a journey that took him from being the treasurer to the traitor. He was known as the one who kept the purse. When they went for groceries, they went to Judas. Judas, can we have some money?

We need some bread. He was in charge of the purse strings. What was it that brought him from treasurer to traitor? That somehow or another, Judas had begun to disguise how he really felt about Jesus and about his mission while he was still going along with things on the outside.

In other words, his secret life was different from his public persona. He had presumably decided that he could live hiding his small sins. Little sins.

Do you ever say to yourself, but this is just a little sin? This doesn't really matter. This isn't something big.

This isn't in the top seven. This isn't one of the dreadful sins. And so we say to ourselves, Well, I think, you know, we can cope with this.

We can just put this in a corner and live with it for a while. It's a dangerous strategy. Because what happened to Judas may happen to you and may happen to me. What happened to him was that he reached the point where he would rather have Jesus destroyed than have his sins discovered. He'd rather have Jesus killed than have his cover blown.

He'd rather run away from Christ than run to Christ and admit that he'd been a fraud. And this happens all the time. Somebody begins to drop to the back of the group, somebody who was once involved, running with a crowd, giving leadership. They begin to silence their voice. They begin to remove themselves from the play and from the contributions. And you begin to say to yourself, I wonder why this is happening.

And it is often just this. You see, at the end of the day, betraying Christ came more easily than confessing his sin. He reached the point where it was easier for him to betray Jesus than to confess the fact that he was a hypocrite.

Now, we didn't miss the warning. It's imperative that you and I learn to confess our sins, because failure to do so may find us swallowed by the darkness of deceit—a darkness that may, in the end, engulf our souls, even as it engulfed the soul of Judas. You see, when they discussed this, when Jesus had said to them that one of you is going to betray me, it's significant that they didn't say, Oh yeah, and we know who that is. They began to say, Lord, it's surely not me, is it?

There was no obvious suspect when it came to the issue of betrayal. Well, that's the first question we must hasten on—a question which introduces us to the awful treachery that we find in Judas. The second question is at the heart of a dreadful comedy which we find in the disciples. Now, some of you may be put off by the word comedy. I think I can legitimately use it here.

I didn't go to the Oxford English Dictionary, but I'm pretty sure there's a way to get around this. I think comedy is the right word. The more I thought about it, I didn't know in reading verses 49 and 50 and 51 whether I should laugh or cry. This is a farce right here in verse 49.

When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, when they realized that their master was about to be taken from them, when they failed to recall that he had predicted this and that they would all fall away—you will all fall away, he had told them—failing to remember what Jesus had said, failing to understand the nature of what is happening, they respond in complete panic. I don't think it's a harsh judgment to say that what we have here is a complete shambles. Isn't it? Isn't it? Just when there's getting a committee together to discuss the potential use of force, Jesus, we thought we might take a moment and discuss the… What are you doing? Oh, look at the man's ear! Oh, for goodness' sake! Hang on, Jesus.

Wait. This is the A-team. These are his boys, handpicked, ready for anything. What a shambles! Oh, I'm so encouraged by this. I hope you are too. Of course, those of you whose Christian lives are completely watertight and tidy, who never rattle, never rock, never roll, get everything right, you won't be able to identify this at all.

But for the rest of us, we don't want to use this as an example, but we do identify with it. And their shambles is about to give way to a shuffling departure. They're all just going to leave now. They're all just going to go. I wonder, did they go one at a time, slipping away, or did they go just as a group, eleven of them, off down the road? What an embarrassment, hey? We'll follow you anywhere, Jesus.

Excuse us, we'll get back to you. Well, you do that, don't you? I do it on a Sunday. Jesus says, This is a great word from you, and I want to preach it, and I want to hear it, and I want to learn it, and I want to follow it, and boom, all of a sudden it's Tuesday. Isn't it super as well that the Bible has been put together in such a way that we have the disciples in all of their historic ugliness and shambolic stupidity and dreadful, tragical comedy in Shakespearean terms? We've got it here, and the people want to tell us, you know, the Bible is a manufactured book. It was put together, you know, hundreds of years later, and the early church wrote it, and we don't know what the things were that happened, but they put it together in such a way to make everything look good. Oh yes, like this? They all sat down and said, Why don't we look like a bunch of nitwits?

You know, why don't we write a scene where instead of going for it, we all shambol around and chop ears off and ask dumb questions and eventually run away into the darkness of the night? And just as in the case of Judas, there was a background to what they did, there was for these disciples a background to what they did as well. Their failure in this moment to act as they may have done is surely related to the fact that they were passive when they should be active, and they were active when they should be passive.

We say, Well, where do you get that? Well, just go back and read the early part in the garden. Jesus said, Watch and pray. Well, they fell asleep. So they went passive when they should have been active. And now they got active when they should have been passive. They gave in, if you like, to justifiable weaknesses. Jesus was compassionate towards them, wasn't he?

He came back and he said, Are you still asleep? There's no indication that he lambast them, that he was unduly critical of them or forceful with them. His heart was tender and compassionate. Of course, he understands our lives, he knows the feelings of our hearts.

But listen, my friends, and listen carefully. These disciples gave in to what we might refer to as justifiable weaknesses, without realizing that our justifiable weaknesses have consequences. Oh, well, I don't read the Bible with my children. You know, I'm not really that kind of leader.

I'm not that kind of father in my home. I'm sure that God understands that I'm weak in that area. Well, yes, I'm sure he does. But there will be consequences for that justifiable weakness. Well, you know, I don't really find it easy to tell anyone that I'm a Christian or to witness. I'm sure God is sympathetic to me. He knows my personality.

Yes, he does. But there will be consequences to that justifiable weakness. Well, I know the Bible says that I should take seriously the thought of listening to it taught and gathering with his people. But, you know, I can only do so much in a day, and I'm sure that God's not really down on me if I don't take seriously the responsibility to do what his Word says. There are consequences to our justifiable weaknesses. And in the case of these disciples, their failure to do what they had been asked to do led to further failure, disappointment, regret, and embarrassment.

Look at them. Do you see yourself in the crowd as they slip off under the cover of darkness? What a dreadful comedy. The awful treachery that we find in Judas, the awful dreadful comedy we find in the disciples, and then notice in 52 and 53 the masterful serenity that we find in Jesus. The masterful serenity that we find in Jesus. His followers are confused, but Jesus is composed.

In spite of all appearances to the contrary, Jesus is as much master of this event as he was master over the winds and the waves in Luke chapter 6. The crowd has shown up. What do these people think they're doing? Why have they appeared in mass, and why have they come under cover of darkness, and why in the world did they show up with all these swords in their clubs? What possessed them to appear in this way? Were they afraid?

It's possible. Did they think that they might intimidate Jesus? Well, when you read John's account, you will discover that they were completely ineffective if that was their desire. Indeed, they were intimidated by him. At every point, they were intimidated by him. Some of them even remembered that when he had read from the Old Testament in the synagogue in Nazareth back in Luke chapter 4, and he had read the section that says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim good news to the captives and delivery and sight for the blind and so on.

Some of them remembered that he actually said on that occasion, Today the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And it annoyed them, but as they had watched his life, they knew that that was exactly the case. And they were ticked. They were annoyed. They were resentful, because they heard the people in the bazaar saying to one another, You know, when you go to the local synagogue, these fellows are like, But when Jesus teaches, man, it's fantastic!

The time passes. He speaks with authority, not like these other fellows. And they resented that. They also resented the fact that the people who were so messed up, who were so obviously out of it and sinful, they seemed to gravitate towards Jesus.

And somehow or another, these stiff-faced jokers, they couldn't make a dent on the community. And also, whatever they were able to say concerning the power of God, it was this Jesus of Nazareth who was giving sight to the blind and setting the limbs of people loose for walking and dancing. No, if they thought to intimidate him, that chance he intimidated them. And so Jesus is there, apparently the victim, apparently the captive, and yet in a deeper sense, he's in charge of the situation.

His question is essentially this. He looks at the crowd, and he says, Do you really have to show up after dark with this unnecessary display of force? Every day in the temple, of course, I was teaching, and you could have arrested me there. But of course, he knew the answer to his question. Their arrest was illegitimate, and that's why they needed to come under cover of darkness. And so he says to them, But this is your hour.

I recognize that. This is according to the plan of God. This is the time when darkness reigns. And if your eye can scan verse 37 of our chapter, you will see that Jesus recognizes that what is taking place is what has been written about him, and it's now reaching its fulfillment. Confusion among the disciples, corruption on the part of the Judas crowd, and compassion on the part of Jesus. A compassion that is there in his question to Judas, a compassion that is there in the restoration of the high priest's servant's ear, a compassion that is there as he essentially appeals to the consciences of these individuals who come in the crowd. He's saying to them, I know that many of you are acting on orders, but how many of you are acting out of conviction? I know you're here with a party line, he says, but is that really the conviction of your heart?

Now notice finally, because it's important. What is this crowd? Who is this crowd? What is the nature of the crowd? Well, we're told, aren't we? And this wasn't a random mob that had gone into the marketplace and said, Hey, we're gonna go and see if we can rustle up Jesus of Nazareth. Anybody want to come?

Let's go. No. This was apparently a select group—the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders who had come for him. Others with them, perhaps, but they were the group. In other words, religious people, antagonistic to Jesus, seeking to silence him.

Isn't that what this is? This is religious orthodoxy in its day, seeking to silence the voice of Jesus. Now, what, then, are the disciples to do? What are the followers to do? Now, someone to put up a pathetic, silly fight, go chop a few ears off. And there's not a week passes without somebody calls me or writes me or emails me and says, You know, we're gonna have to do something about this.

And they are to be commended for their desire for activism, but it is a pathetic, silly idea in the main. What are we to do? Put up a pathetic fight? Run away under cover of darkness?

No. What was it the disciples couldn't get? The disciples couldn't grapple with the notion that the arrest and the crucifixion of Jesus could possibly be in the plan of God. How can there be victory out of such defeat? That was what they were saying. And when it became apparent that Jesus was to be arrested, they said, Well, we may as well go. They didn't come to get us. Our leader has gone.

I'm going home. It's understandable, isn't it? And here we are today. If you and I misunderstand the times in which we live, then we will be tempted to the same confusion, the same silly fighting, or the same dreadful flight. But if we recognize that in and through it all God is fulfilling his plan, keeping his promises, and saving his people, then we may put our heads on the pillow at night in the awareness of the fact that one day, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father, either in the amazing display of gratitude for his grace or in the awareness of the fact that when our friends and neighbors told us that Christ died to be our Savior, we pushed it aside and moved off on our own.

We may embrace him now as our Savior or face him then as our judge. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg with a message he's titled, Jesus Deserted. If you're a regular listener to Truth for Life, you know our pattern here is to teach the Bible verse by verse, knowing that the Bible is without error. It's the authoritative word of God. In fact, you'll often hear Alistair begin our program with the phrase, I invite you to open your Bible. That's why our mission at Truth for Life is to teach the Bible clearly in a way that's relevant to our daily lives. We do this knowing that God will work in the hearts of many who listen, bringing them to know and trust in the Lord Jesus. So if you are someone who longs to see unbelievers brought to faith, believers established in their faith, local churches strengthened through the teaching of the Bible, we'd ask you to come alongside us in this mission. Every time you donate to Truth for Life, your gift goes toward the worldwide distribution of this program. It helps offset the cost so Alistair's online teaching library can be free to access and share at any time. And when you give today, we want to say thank you by inviting you to request a 48-day devotional to be used following Easter called, O Sacred Head Now Wounded.

You can donate through the mobile app or online at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can call us at 888-588-7884. What is it that caused Peter to deny Jesus after he had so vehemently declared that he would never desert him? And is it possible for someone with strong faith to do the same thing today? Tomorrow we'll consider those possibilities. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.