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The Passion of Christ

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these studies were first written in 2006, and substantially updated for Easter 2010

Bible study for Matthew 26:14-25

Matthew 26:14-25 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Review

(consult Dictionaries)

From this point onwards in the Gospel of Matthew, we are plunged into the drama of Jesus’ last full day on earth.  The whole of the narrative in Matthew Gospel, from this point until the very end, flows through as if written together as one piece.  After reading the rest of the Gospel, with its short stories and episodes from Jesus’ life organised together to say something consistent about the life of Jesus, this final story is dramatic.  Perhaps the only way for us to come to terms with it is to read it all as one, but in this study series we do not have this luxury.  We must read it and take it in verses by verse, section by section, and bearing in mind the impact on the whole Gospel of this immense divine and human drama.

Today’s passage is largely about the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, but it contains the famous incident in which Jesus told his disciples to go and make preparations for the Passover meal they would all share together.  The Passover was a weeklong religious festival for which thousands of Jews came to Jerusalem annually, but it seems that for Jesus and His disciples, it came down to one meal shared together.  It would have been difficult to find rooms to share this meal simply because of the congestion of the capital, but Jesus had this under control (26:17-19).  The incident is rather like that of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, where He seems to surprise his disciples by having contacts in Jerusalem and being in command of all that was happening, despite the uncertainty around Him.

The other Gospel writers, Mark and Luke, both give more detail about this incident (Mark 14:12-16, Luke 22:7f.), but Matthew’s concise story quickly conveys Jesus’ mastery of the occasion.  The Passover was the Jewish celebration of God’s deliverance of His people, and Jesus knew that it was the time His Father had chosen for Him to die.  He would die to save both His own people, and the people of the whole world, even though neither people knew it. 

It is not surprising therefore that alongside the preparations for the Passover Matthew reports the sordid details of the preparations made for Jesus’ death.  For reasons we will never fully understand or know (though we will explore this later on), Judas was not able to let things continue and felt he had to betray Jesus to the authorities.  He went to them (26:14) and negotiated his price.  We will find out later that Judas was required to identify Jesus to an arresting mob at night time, and he was rewarded in advance with a sum of money, ‘thirty pieces of silver’ (26:15).  So while Jesus was instructing the disciples to prepare a meal to be shared, Judas was plotting to bring Him down; Jesus’ actions were selfless, and Judas’ actions were motivated by money.  Throughout history, Satan has used money to confuse people’s motives and create the mayhem of death and destruction, even if on this occasion, he was set to lose the battle!

Lastly, we read the report of an awful incident during the Passover meal (26:20-25).  Jesus challenged his disciples about their loyalty, and after all the others had responded with shock to Jesus’ words, Judas spoke last.  His reply to Jesus was hardly different from that of the other disciples, but the meaning was very different and Jesus knew this (26:25).  He knew Judas was His betrayer.  We hear no more of Judas until he appears later in the chapter, in the very act of betrayal (26:47).

Tomorrow, we will read the rest of the story of Jesus’ ‘Last Supper’, with its description of the ‘breaking of bread’ and the sharing of the wine, the ‘blood of the Covenant’.  Our story today has prepared for this, but the dramatic tension of the story is extraordinary.  The preparation of the meal is interwoven with the preparation of Judas’ treachery, and the manner in which the story switches between the two adds to the tension.  This, however, is far more than intriguing literature.  This is the true story of the salvation of the world.

Going Deeper

The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues:

• The plans for the betrayal of Jesus
• Preparations for the Last Supper
• The conversation between Jesus and Judas

Matthew 26:14-25 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Going Deeper

(consult Dictionaries)

Plans for the betrayal of Jesus

We know from the story so far in Matthew that the authorities, namely the chief priests and the elders of the people (26:3), were seeking a way to arrest Jesus by deceit.  This was necessary to avoid any reaction by the large crowds in Jerusalem at the Passover festival, something that could leave the authorities in considerable difficulty with their Roman overlords.  We cannot be sure about how Judas and the authorities were tracking Jesus’ movements, or what they were looking for as the right time to arrest Him, but it is not hard to imagine that if Judas was harbouring misunderstanding, dissatisfaction or disillusionment, he could easily have found the authorities. 

Judas’ decision to betray his master is probably the biggest mystery of the Gospels, despite the details we know from Matthew and from the other Gospel.  He went to the chief priests (26:14) and offered them the ‘inside’ knowledge of Jesus’ movements they needed; he alone could say where he would be and when (26:15).  He was offered thirty pieces of silver with the minimum of haggling, and all Judas had to do was to give the authorities a signal at the right moment, when Jesus could be arrested away from the crowds (26:16).

Thousands of people have proffered their theses as to why Judas should do this.  As the only Judean in the group, was he jealous of the Galilean leadership of Peter?  Did he expect the Messiah to triumph visibly at the point of His death?  Did he believe he was doing God’s will by hastening Jesus’ path to the Cross?  Was he acting out of despair because Jesus the Messiah had not proved to be man he expected?  Or did he come to the same conclusion as the young Saul of Tarsus, and believe that Jesus was a false prophet (Gal 1:13)?

All or any of these explanations are possible, because scripture gives us virtually no clues with which to come to any conclusion.  It does seem to me, however, that financial gain was at least a factor.  The price offered by the chief priests was thirty pieces of silver; about four months pay at current minimum wage levels.  This was not enough to make a major difference to Judas’ life but a tidy sum nevertheless to have in hand.  The sum reported to us may well have been influenced by either Exodus 21:32, giving the price to be paid for the release of a slave, or more probably Zechariah 11;12,13 describing the derisory wages of a rejected shepherd (a Messianic figure) ‘they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver’.  Jesus had frequently taught about the perils and corruption of money (6:19-21, 24; 19:22, 23-26), and it clearly had a hand in His betrayal!

Preparations for the Last Supper

The scene changes rapidly (26:17-19), returning to the feast of Unleavened Bread.  This was a week long celebration concluding with the Passover meal.  While the Jerusalem Temple was standing, all lambs for the Passover meal were killed there.  There is one aspect of the event that may well escape a reader today, and this is the timing of everything.  For Jewish people, a day started and ended at sundown, not in the middle of the night.  So, for example, the lambs for the Passover sacrifice were killed on the afternoon of the day before Passover, but the Passover meal itself was eaten in the evening of what for us would be the same day, but for the Jews, because this was after sundown, this would be the next day!

The disciples then made preparations for the Passover meal (26:19 – see also Exodus 12:28).  It is easy to forget that the Passover meal was normally eaten in a family groups, but this Passover meal was eaten by Jesus’ with His ‘new family’ (12:46ff, 19:29), which was the elementary community of the gathered people of God, soon to become the ‘Church’.  Jesus knew that His ‘time was near’ (v18) and the Greek words of this phrase are indicative of the end of the age and the beginning of a new era.

There are many disputes about when Jesus actually celebrated the ‘Last Supper’, and some of the arguments about this can only be studied when we look closely at John’s Gospel.  Nevertheless, it is worth noting that John says Jesus died at the same time the Passover lambs were sacrificed in the Temple, which was the day before the Passover meal (meaning earlier in the day, as above).  If this was the case, then Jesus had His last meal the day before Passover; and we know He certainly wanted to celebrate Passover before He died (see Luke 22:15,16).  Would it have worried Jesus to celebrate the Passover meal one day before?  The meal that is described in Matthew’s Gospel certainly lacks any reference to the essential food for a Jewish Passover, which is the ‘lamb’; the concentration is on bread and wine, and of course, Jesus was Himself about the become the sacrificial lamb for the whole world!  The meaning of all this and the timing of it all remains something of an enigma, but it is undoubtedly true is that our passage describes a meal with some but not all of the elements of a Passover (26:20f.).

The Passover Meal and the role of Judas

Most Passover meals began with the following words from scripture, which celebrate Israel’s deliverance; ‘I will bring you out from under the yoke of slavery’ (Ex 6:6).  When the time came for the meal, Jesus began differently, not with these words, but with a prophecy of his betrayal by one of His closest family.  He said, ‘one of you will betray me’ (26:21).  This must have been something of a shock to those present.  The disciples had heard Jesus talk of His coming death and betrayal, but it was the first time they heard that it would be one of them!

Nevertheless, the meal must have continued, and Matthew speaks of something that is a feature of the Passover, the dipping of herbs into salt water (26:23).  Dipping is mentioned, but not the details of what is dipped; of course, this would be quite normal for Matthew, for whom the very mention of the word would imply everything else.  Jews dipped the herbs to remember the bitter experience of slavery (see verse 23).  In Mark’s Gospel (Mark 14:20) Jesus is described as dipping bread into the bowl, but Matthew misses this out, pointing to the pathos of the betrayal of Jesus by one who had shared the hard life of discipleship with Him.  The Passover meal continues within the passage we shall look at tomorrow (26:26-35), but in our passage today, the story now pauses, giving close attention to the last interaction between Jesus and Judas before the famous betrayal kiss (26:49)

The height of the drama with Judas occurs at the end of our text.  When Jesus prophesied His betrayal (26:21), the disciples responded with distress and shock, asking in turn ‘surely not I, Lord?’ (26:22).  Jesus prophesied again with fierce words which condemned of any who undermine the work of the Son of God (26:24).  Now Judas had already begun the process of betrayal, so it is interesting that in his reply, Matthew records that he could no longer call Jesus ‘Lord’.  He said ‘surely not I, Rabbi’.  Jesus knew what was going on, but refrained from exposing Judas openly, something that would probably have caused the lynching of Judas before he could reach a door.  We, too, who read the story, know that Jesus’ quiet response ‘you have said so …’ was an acknowledgement of what Judas was about to do.

In this way, Psalm 41:9 was tragically fulfilled in the life and death of the Saviour of the World; ‘Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate with me, has lifted the heel against me.’

Matthew 26:14-25 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Application

What can we do with this story?  It is surely impossible to interpret it fully because Scripture does not say enough about why Judas took the action he did.  Yet even this lack of knowledge may of itself be of importance.  If Matthew’s Gospel told us that Judas betrayed Jesus because of envy, for example, how tempting would it then be for us to focus on envy as the sin that caused the death of the Saviour?  If Judas betrayed Jesus because he could not accept Jesus’ claims, would that mean that we would persecute people because of doubt?

It may well be the Lord’s will that we do not know, and we therefore have to accept the truth, that ‘any sin’ and ‘all sin’ is responsible for Jesus’ betrayal.  Put another way, even our own sins have taken our Lord to the Cross.  All of this is necessary if we are to make the case that Jesus ‘died for our sins’.  Yet even though this sin of Judas was his own free choice, God could see and had foreseen the whole picture, and Jesus was ready for what would happen.  When, in the Old Testament book of Genesis, Joseph spoke to his brothers at the end of the long story of his rise to fame in Egypt, he said ‘you meant evil against me; God meant it for good’ (Gen 50:20).  This is the divine paradox with which we must live when reading the story of Judas.

It is possible for us to find a number of ways to make good out of evil, but ultimately, only God can do this.  The unique evidence that good triumphs over evil is found in the life of Jesus, and in His death and resurrection.  Now, although it is tempting to read the story of this and focus on the ‘good’ bit at the end, we should never forget that the Gospels provide us with an intriguing account of the evils that led to Jesus’ death, and amongst this is that of Judas.  Like all evil, we cannot pin it down, but it is real.  We would be advised to remember that this is the nature of much evil.

Matthew 26:14-25 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Discipleship

Questions (for use in groups)

1. Does this passage of Scripture help you understand the ‘Last Supper’, and why we celebrate this as Christians today?  What does it tell us about this meal?
2. Have you experienced a Jewish ‘Passover’ meal?  If not, look this up on the internet, and compare it with what happens in your church at communion.
3. This passage is a story about human betrayal and human love.  What does the passage say about each of these?

Topics covered by this text

• The establishment of the Last Supper
• The sin of betrayal, and the betrayal of Jesus
• Jesus’ command of all human life

Personal comments by author

The celebration of the Lord’s Supper is a profoundly important part of life for all Christians.  Jesus asked His followers to share this meal in remembrance of Him.  However, I have always felt that the Christian church has over-institutionalised what is supposed to be a family occasion, as was the first ‘Passover’ as celebrated by the Jewish people.  Surely there is some way in which the father or mother in a family might celebrate the Lord’s Supper in the home, and therefore make a mark of faith where it counts most?  I have found few takers for the idea in all my years of ministry.

Ideas for exploring discipleship

• Spend some time thinking about what Judas did, and reading the stories from scripture that explain what he did.  Do his words or actions remind you of any problem or sin in your own life?
• Google the word ‘Judas’ and see what you find; indeed, pray about what you find.  You will discover that the world is quite interested in Judas, and how and why He betrayed Jesus.  The world often acts rather like Judas, so pray for the world and its strange perceptions of right and wrong.

Final Prayer

Dear Lord Jesus, forgive us if we read these stories from the Gospels and misunderstand the truth about what You experienced.  You were there, and You said these words.  You understand the truth of all that happened.  Speak into our own hearts with a word of truth and comfort, so that we may know You are speaking to us through these Scriptures, and what we witness in our hearts is the truth.  We ask this in Your name, Lord Jesus, AMEN

Bible study for Matthew 26:26-35

Matthew 26:26-35 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Review

(consult Dictionaries)

After the tragedy of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas (26:14-25) the theme of suffering changes dramatically in this reading, as Jesus shares the Passover meal with His disciples.  It seems that Judas had now left the group of disciples (something confirmed by John – 13:30), and Jesus was able to be more intimate with them now that the betrayer had gone.  The disciples would hardly have understood what Jesus said when sharing the bread and the wine, but they were deeply moving, and they have become sacred to Christians throughout the ages.  However, the moment passed, and after speaking to the disciples yet again about what was about to happen (26:31f.), Jesus was drawn into a dispute with Peter.  Did Peter not understand yet that his Master knew best and could tell him the truth about what would happen?

There is something powerfully simple about the way Matthew describes Jesus’ action of breaking bread and drinking wine.  We do not know exactly where this might have happened within a Passover meal (see later), because we do not know much about the practice of the Passover in first century Judaism.  However, it was traditional for the senior figure in a group, or the father in a family, to ‘break bread’ and give thanks at the beginning of a meal, and it is best to imagine this setting.  Alongside this, the Jewish Passover meal has a number of places where it is appropriate to drink a small portion of wine, so this would be expected to accompany the breaking of bread.  The two were entirely complementary, and should remain so in the way we think about them today.

Remarkably, Jesus identified personally with the bread and the wine.  In the Passover, the bread was a symbol of God’s provision in the wilderness (‘manna’ Ex 16:31) and the wine was drunk in the Passover meal as a sign of the new life God gave His people through His redemption (from Egypt into the new life of the ‘Promised Land’).  At this point, it helps if we go back to the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel and recall his words at the birth of Jesus.  Matthew wrote of Jesus ‘He will save His people from their sins’ (1:21).  So here, in this simple meal, Jesus explained to the disciples that the salvation He was bringing would be the sacrifice of His body; He would die for the salvation of the world!  Moreover, the shedding of His blood would establish a new ‘covenant ... for the forgiveness of sins’ (26:28).  As if this was not enough, Jesus then made it clear that the time had come for the Messiah to be revealed; ‘I will never again drink this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink new wine with you in my Father’s Kingdom’ (26:29).

Exactly what each of the disciples felt as they went out with Jesus to the Mount of Olives, singing a hymn, we shall never know.  Perhaps they thought that Jesus would do as the prophet Zechariah said, and stand on the Mount of Olives in majesty to claim His own (Zech 14:4)?  When Jesus spoke to the disciples, He certainly did not confirm this idea!  In a few simple words, Jesus told the disciples that after the night’s work, the disciples would be scattered (26:31).  He then redirected the disciples to a different quote from the same prophet we have just mentioned; Zechariah, ‘awake, O sword, against the shepherd ... strike the shepherd that the sheep may be scattered ...’ (Zech 13:7).  In the light of this prophecy, Jesus told the disciples to go back to Galilee, where they would find that He had gone ahead of them (26:32)!

In the setting, such words must have been incomprehensible, and it was Peter who took the lead, yet again, in challenging Jesus; he said that whatever happened, he would not stumble!  Jesus warned Peter that he could not stand above God’s plans, but Peter swore to stay with Jesus.  How remarkable that God’s plans could take account of such misunderstanding!  Jesus would go and do what He had to do, and Peter would have to learn again to trust what Jesus said.

Going Deeper

The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues:

• The details of the Passover meal
• The sharing of the bread
• The sharing of the wine
• Jesus’ instructions to the disciples, and to Peter

Matthew 26:26-35 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Going Deeper

(consult Dictionaries)

The details of the Passover meal

The message of a New Covenant of Salvation came within the eating of the Passover meal by Jesus and His disciples, which may well have included the twelve and other close friends, including women, who would form the nucleus of God’s new community, the Church. 

Many commentaries depend for their interpretation of this famous meal upon the assumption that we know what was done at a Passover festival meal in the days of Jesus.  The ancient Jewish texts used for this were, in fact, written many years later than the time of Jesus, also, many years after the destruction of the Temple in 70AD.  This is when the Israelites were forced to re-work their liturgies and festival practices because they could no longer happen at a central Temple, or indeed at Jerusalem.  It is therefore unsafe to assume too much about Jesus’ Passover meal by basing it upon these later texts.  This is extremely important.  For example, it is well known amongst Christians today that structure of a Passover ‘seder’ (meal) consists of a liturgical re-telling of the story of the escape from Egypt  in which four cups of wine are drunk, and a piece of bread known as the ‘afikomen’ is broken, before a good meal of lamb.  This structure, however, is all much later than the first century, so we simply do not know which of the four ‘cups’ (traditionally identified with; sanctification, the ‘plagues’, blessing, and praise) was blessed by Jesus as ‘His blood’ (v27,28), or whether these definitions were even in use in Jesus’ day. 

Many Christians have been blessed by taking part in a Jewish Passover meal, and this is a good thing.  But I do suggest that despite the well intentioned sentiments of such occasions, the only texts a Christian can be sure of are from scripture itself.  Scripture does not provide us with anything more than a basic description of a Passover meal in the Old Testament (Ex 12), and texts such as we have here in Matthew, which point us to the Good News of God’s New Covenant.

The sharing of the Bread

Jesus said and did two things that would have been totally different from a Passover meal, and Matthew 26:16-19 is built around these two things, mentioning little else of what was eaten or what was said.  The first of these comes in the blessing of the bread, done during the meal and not at the beginning (‘while they were eating …’ 26:26).  Jesus broke the bread and said ‘take, eat, this is my body’ (26:26).

This was Jesus’ extraordinary invitation to His beloved disciples.  Yet what did Jesus really ask them to do?  Sharing bread at a meal was one thing, but were they supposed to ‘eat’ Jesus in some way?  Some feel that the implications of this are all too much, and they suggest that Jesus only means these words symbolically.  They argue that for grammatical reasons, this must have been what Jesus said originally in Aramaic, His mother tongue.  Unfortunately, we have no way of proving such theories, and all we have is Matthew’s Greek text, of which the above is a very accurate translation (26:26).  It is best to read Matthew’s Gospel as a good representation of what was done in the early church of the mid first century AD, as recalled by the first disciples.  To say more is presumptuous on the facts.

However, we should not need to try to do the impossible in order to find an interpretation of this passage, and we must remember that the whole Passover meal was celebrated as an allegory; this means that it is a drama full of words and actions which explain the deep truths of God’s relationship with His people.  With this in mind, Jesus was asking His disciples to eat the bread and so share spiritually in His coming death.  He knew they would abandon Him at His time of need, but in this meal, He nevertheless invited them with extraordinary generosity to take part in His saving death by eating the broken bread of ‘His body’.  This was an invitation to do something that was more than symbolic, and neither was it covert cannibalism.  By eating the bread that was broken and shared, they took part spiritually in Jesus’ suffering and death in a way that because of sin, they could not do physically.

John, in his Gospel, report’s Jesus as calling the disciples to eat ‘my flesh’ (John 6:51f.) and I will explain my views when I write about this text.  I believe John presents a more strongly worded version of our text in Matthew, which, essentially, says the same thing.

The sharing of the Wine

Jesus went on to take a cup, one of a number of possible occasions in the Passover meal when wine was shared (today’s Passover has four, and this scripture is often linked with the third ‘cup of blessing’).  The offer for everyone to drink was normal, as was the reference to the ‘Covenant’.  Moses talked of the ‘blood of the Covenant’  (Ex 24:8ff) when He established a new Covenant with the people of God based upon the Law that he received from God on Mount Sinai; and that Covenant was sealed by a sacrifice offered in worship to God.  Although it sounds gruesome to us, the blood was sprinkled on the people as a sign that everyone shared in this covenant relationship with God (Ex 24:8).

But the Covenant Jesus was talking about was different, as He went on to explain.  The second set of new words in Jesus’ Passover says this; ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (26:28).  Jesus, the Messiah, the new Redeemer, was establishing a New Covenant based upon His forgiveness of our sins.  Remember that the word ‘Covenant’ is simply a way of describing the relationship between God and people, so the ‘New Covenant’ established by Jesus means a new relationship with God based not upon Law (as with Moses) but on the love of Jesus who forgives our sins.  Verse 28 is supremely ‘good news’!

It is important to remember that the blood of the Covenant is Jesus’ blood which, as in Isaiah 53 (v10ff) was ‘poured out’ for the forgiveness of sins, and Jesus’ blood would not be poured out unless He died (see also Hebrews 10:16-19; 11:15 and Romans 11:26,27), as Jesus continued to try and explain to the disciples (26:31-34).  Jesus, then and now, saves His people by dying for them; His death, like the lamb in the Passover meal, is the vital sacrificial ingredient that makes everything possible.

There is so much more to discover within these verses; but this, I believe, is the heart of it.  Why then, should this be a meal that we continue to celebrate as the ‘communion’ to this day?  One reason is to do with Jesus’ talk of not drinking the fruit of the vine until He was in the Kingdom (26:29).  If we think of the church as being the Kingdom of God on earth awaiting the final End Times, then by sharing the meal today, we fulfil Jesus wishes from within this text.  It is little wonder that the continued the celebration of this meal means so much to so many.

Jesus’ instructions to the disciples and to Peter

The rest of the verses in our passage (30-35) read like a prophecy of all that would happen from that point in time to the end of the Gospel.  After the memorable Passover meal, the disciples celebrated by singing together, probably using the final hymns of the Passover, the famous ‘Hallel’ (praise) psalms 115 to 118.  Jesus continued to emphasise that He would Himself be a stumbling block to the disciples, and prophesied this by referring to a little known passage of Zechariah (13:7) in which a shepherd is struck by the Lord and some of His flock die, but a third are saved (v31).  How easy it would be for us to say that the disciple’s abandonment of Jesus would be their own fault, but Jesus here claims that the fault lies with Him, He is the stumbling block.  This is an astonishing act of mercy and compassion by our Lord, and one that is little mentioned in most expositions of the Passion of Christ.

In verse 32, Jesus prophesied that He would ‘go ahead’ of the disciples; a prophecy of resurrection if ever there was one!  Jesus was now confident in declaring what would happen beyond His death; calling the disciples back to where their journey of discipleship had begun, in Galilee, to start the work of the New Covenant of God’s Kingdom on Earth, the Church.

The final scenario of this passage is the tragic conversation of Jesus with Peter.  His reply to Jesus smacks of what Calvin calls ‘the intoxication of human self confidence’, but although Peter had taken part in the Passover meal with Jesus and maybe even begun to understand something of what was going on, His understanding was still very partial, and His brash personality was still intact!  He declared to Jesus that He would not stumble.  Jesus told him very forcefully (‘Amen, I tell you …’ v34) that He would fail this test dramatically, a prophecy that would soon unfold.  Peter was still unable to accept Jesus’ word (v35), and thereby led the disciples into a further tragic denial of their own inadequacies.

Matthew 26:26-35 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Application

The words of Jesus at the ‘Last Supper’ are extraordinarily powerful.  They are best reflected upon by thinking about the many other passages of scripture with which they connect, for there are many (see John 15, 1 Cor 11:23f. and more).  They are also valuable when used in the liturgies of the church, for what else would Christians wish to hear other than the words of Jesus Himself?  Each of us will find out how they best speak to our souls; they point to the heart of the Gospel message, and to Jesus’ work of Salvation for all.

At the heart of Christian faith is the claim that Jesus is God and that He alone has done what is necessary for the salvation of the world through His death on the Cross and His resurrection from the dead.  This is the Church’s message, and however many times throughout history people have tried to suggest a different foundation of Christians faith, such tinkering is doomed to failure.  A great many people of considerable intellect have tried it!  However, if God’s people return to the heart of the Gospel they will find it expressed in the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, and this is remembered in the meal of the ‘Lord’s Supper’.  This is God’s provision for sinful humanity to receive the forgiveness of their sins, and so find a new relationship (Covenant) with Him. 

This, the very heart of the God’s work of Salvation, is to be found within our verses today with that strange combination of great clarity and deep mystery which so often marks special texts from the Word of God.  It is not possible for me to work through every theological point from this text, or give a full account of every passionately argued dispute that has accompanied these verses over centuries.  All I can do is attempt to clarify what I can, and offer to you the plain meaning of the text as I see it.  The Holy Spirit will undoubtedly speak to You in His own way as you study this passage.

Matthew 26:26-35 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Discipleship

Questions (for use in groups)

1. What does this passage of Scripture say to you about the Lord’s Supper’?  Has it explained something that was otherwise a mystery to you?  If so, share this.
2. Why is it important that bread and wine are used to celebrate the Lord’s ‘Last Supper’, or ‘Passover’?
3. In what ways does Jesus provide for the disciples’ weaknesses, so that they may meet Him again after His death?  How does He help us now?

Topics covered by this text

• The Lord’s Supper
• The breaking of bread
• The ‘New Wine’ of God’s Kingdom
• Faithfulness in the face of pressure

Personal comments by author

Everything we do as followers of Jesus Christ is surely to be measured against the amazing generosity of God in providing His new Covenant through Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins.  How can we make forgiveness the heart of our discipleship?  I have frequently realised that unless I can forgive others myself, my ministry is utterly compromised.  It does not depend on whether anyone else repents or responds to my forgiveness.  It is a matter of my spiritual approach and attitude to others.  I have to ask myself, does it match up to the sacrificial generosity of Christ?

Ideas for exploring discipleship

• Attend a communion service and dwell on the words of Jesus spoken here in Matthew’s Gospel.  Let the power of these words direct your mind and spirit as you take part in the service, and let the Holy Spirit explain it to your spirit.
• Pray for those who find it hard to receive the bread and the wine of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper.  Some people feel they are not worthy of this great forgiveness of Christ, and stand back from receiving God’s grace.  Pray for them.

Final Prayer

Lift us out of the ordinary, Lord God, and show us the mysteries of heaven, even at a distance, or ‘as in a mirror’.  Draw us near to You in the mysteries of faith whenever we receive them in bread and wine, and give us the gift of new life through the birth of Jesus Christ.  Thank You Lord God  AMEN

Bible study for Matthew 26:36-46

Matthew 26:36-46 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Review

(consult Dictionaries)

There is something profoundly holy about this passage of scripture, as it describes Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.  For a few more hours before His death and crucifixion, Jesus was a free man, and in these extraordinary moments, the record of Matthew enables us to see Jesus’ humanity and divinity side by side in a turmoil of agony.  Jesus the man struggled with the sorrow of death (26:37-39, 42), and Jesus the divine Son of Man was able to remain in control, instructing the disciples and chiding them (26:36,40,41,44-46).  Jesus the man wanted to share these few defining moments of His ministry with His friends, the inner circle of the disciples, and Jesus the divine Son of Man needed to be with His Father in prayer, ultimately submitting to His will.

Remarkably, here in Gethsemane, we seem to see a side of Jesus we have not seen before.  The very fact that Jesus questions what is happening to Him is extraordinary, for in the rest of the Gospel, He has always been in control of events.  Where He previously spoke forcefully and openly about the meaning of His death (16:21,24f. etc.), He now sounds hesitant before the Father; wondering whether it can possibly be God’s will for Him to die (26:39,42).  Yet however poignant the moment, it soon passes and Jesus’ divinity is shown once again in His continued command of the situation even up to the end.  This is shown both in His ability to accept the will of the Father (26:42), and also in His guidance of the disciples, who were clearly unable to handle the situation. 

Almost every feature of this story has been poured over in great detail; for example, the vulnerability of Jesus, the inability of the disciples to handle the situation, Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples, the words of the prayers said by Jesus, and the threefold pattern of events.  Surely its truths are to be found not so much in its details but in the overall theme and pattern of what happened.  In these few moments, Jesus came to the point of accepting God’s will.  Jesus had spoken about coming to Jerusalem to be killed on many occasions, and He clearly believed that the dead would be raised (10:8), but it is one thing to speak about these things, and another to give them full ascent and accept them as God’s will.  The incident also tells us that Jesus was no puppet Messiah.  He did not follow the Lord’s will as if walking on a cloud of untroubled perfection.  Sin was not in Him, but He certainly knew what it was to be troubled in soul and spirit, and He knew what it meant to seek the truth, find it, and accept it, however difficult.  For all of this, we thank God.

Whilst the extraordinary nature of this episode in Jesus’ life has long been accepted in the church, some have now questioned whether it really happened.  It has been suggested that the disciples could not have recalled something that happened whilst they were asleep, but gives no other explanation of this report in Matthew.  The answer to this must surely be that the evangelists report Jesus spending time with the disciples after the resurrection, teaching them about everything that had happened (e.g. Luke 24:13ff, 44) and it is not unreasonable to suppose that they might have poured over these traumatic moments before Jesus’ death.  It is also quite possible that only brief episodes of the hours spent in the garden are reported because they are exactly what the tired disciples recalled from the few moment when they were barely awake.  However this passage has come to us, this glimpse of Jesus’ prayers is sufficient for us to grasp the significance of what happened, we need no more.

In addition to revealing Jesus’ agony in His final hours, this passage prepares us for the weakness and failure of the disciples.  Despite Jesus’ express need of them in these critical moments, they are unable to support Him.  As we will see in coming studies, when the betrayal finally happens, they melt away in abject failure.

Going Deeper

The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues:

• The meaning of Gethsemane and the place of this incident within Scripture
• The three prayers of Jesus
• The tiredness of the disciples

Matthew 26:36-46 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Going Deeper

(consult Dictionaries)

The meaning of Gethsemane and the place of this incident in Scripture

The name ‘Gethsemane’ means, in Hebrew ‘oil press’.  It was a facility essential to the production of olive oil, situated naturally, near the Mount of Olives.  It does appear this was a rendezvous used by Jesus and the disciples in the few days in which He lived near Jerusalem in Bethany, regularly going to the Temple to teach and contend with the authorities.  Clearly, Judas was aware of it as such when he later appeared on the scene to betray Jesus (26:47).  Jesus, however, was obviously aware that this was all about to happen.  He could have chosen to go somewhere else, but for Him, there was no avoiding the purposes and will of His Father.  He had taught the disciples frequently that he was going to die, and therefore to walk away from all that was happening would have been utterly inconceivable.

Jesus told the main group of the disciples to wait to one side whilst he took his three closest disciples with Him to pray; Peter, James and John, the same trio who had been up the mountain with Jesus to see him transfigured in the presence of Moses and Elijah, and of God Himself (17:1ff).   These same three had spoken of their willingness to share Jesus’ ultimate destiny (20:22, 26:35), and Jesus may have brought them as a challenge to fulfil their words.  Some might question how Jesus could forgive those who failed Him in His darkest hour of deepest need?  Yet it remains a fact that Jesus did just that (John 21:15ff), offering forgiveness after the resurrection, as one victorious over death and sin.

It is possible that Matthew may have wished us to see a connection between this incident and the story of Abraham taking his son Isaac for sacrifice (Genesis 22).  There is evidence that in Jesus’ day there was considerable rabbinic interest in the story, the ‘Akedah Isaac’ (transliterated from Hebrew).  In that story, Abraham told his servants to stay at a distance (22:3) and then went up the mountain with Isaac in order to sacrifice him.  Abraham’s faith was tested to the limit as God finally provided a ram to sacrifice instead of his son Isaac, the child of God’s promise.  It may be that Matthew wanted us to see this connection in order to gain a greater understanding of God’s provision of salvation within the drama of the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It is certainly worth re-reading the Abraham story from Genesis in order to better understand this spiritually powerful event.

The three prayers of Jesus

As Jesus came to pray, He spoke to the disciples ‘I am overcome with sorrow …’ (v38).  These are words which are very similar to Psalm 42:4,5 and 45:5; both psalms reflecting the anguish and suffering of a righteous man who nevertheless knew that the Lord would vindicate Him.  These psalms were well known, and their use showed that Jesus was holding on to the resurrection hope of salvation and deliverance so often implicit in these and many other psalms which express sorrow or lament.

Then something remarkable occurred.  So often in Jesus’ ministry, people had fallen down on their knees in front of Him in an attitude of worship; the Bible has a special word for this, which is ‘proskuneo’.  Now, it is used of Jesus, as in dramatic worship and obeisance before His Father, Jesus fell down in worship (‘proskuneo’), not on His knees, but upon ‘his face’, which meant that He lay flat on the ground, prostrate.  Too many of us have been influenced by the Victorian pictures of Jesus kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane and wringing His hands in prayer as a light from heaven illuminates the sweat on His brow as like ‘drops of blood’ (Luke 22:44).  No, here in Matthew’s Gospel, He is laid out in abject submission to the Father.  It was in this position he prayed His famous prayer.

Jesus prayed not one prayer but three.  The first of these came in verse 39, in which Jesus appeared to show His more human nature, asking God if there was possibly another way in which His will might be achieved other than the ‘cup’ of suffering and death which He faced.  The word ‘cup’ was usually used in the Old Testament to refer to something bad, a ‘cup of wrath’, for example (as in Psalm 11:6; 75:8; Isaiah 51:17 etc.) often reflected the judgement of God.  The ‘cup’ also reminds us of the ‘last supper’, just celebrated, and in which the expected ‘cup’ of the judgement of God is wonderfully and powerfully transformed by Jesus into the cup of ‘the covenant … for the forgiveness of sins’!  All of these powerful motifs represented the weight of what Jesus bore for us as He lay in anguish before His Father in the Garden.

The second prayer in verse 42 demonstrated significant change ’if this cannot happen unless I drink the cup, then may your will be done’.  I have translated this verse in this way to highlight the change in Jesus’ heart to accept the will of God.  It is not fatalism, but the courage to face the hardest test, the ability to stand in the face of the fiercest enemy, and confidence in Almighty God that He is in charge despite everything. 

The third time Jesus prayed, Matthew reported Jesus as saying the same prayer as before.  Having anguished over everything and then accepted His Father’s will, Jesus did not turn back.  In a strange way, the prayer Jesus uttered closely reflected Jesus’ own teaching in the well known ‘Lord’s prayer’; ‘Your will be done …’ (6:10).  At this most crucial of times, Jesus put into practice what He Himself preached.

The tired disciples

In the chapters of Matthew between the description of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the story of the ‘Last Supper’, Jesus had taught about the coming in glory of the Messiah (Himself) at the end of all time, when God alone would bring all things to their conclusion.  The main message to the disciples was ‘watch’ (24:36,42 etc), the same Greek word that meant ‘keep awake’ or ‘stay alert’.  Therefore, the same command Jesus gave to the disciples about being prepared for the coming of the End Times was also given to them as He prayed in this passage (verses 38 and 40).  It is a command which is made to us as well! 

I suspect that Jesus knew the disciples were failing Him, and He knew He was gradually being left on His own, which was the only way His Father’s will could be done for the salvation of all humanity.  However, out of faithfulness to the disciples, He did not give up on them, and in a way, neither did the disciples whilst Jesus prayed.  They did fall asleep, but they stayed with Him and did not go away.  There may have been disappointment in Jesus’ words to the disciples as He chided them for falling asleep, but I doubt if there was a sense of irritation or anger even when He said ‘why, could you not stay awake with me one hour?’ (v40); the words are words of deep sadness.

Then, at the close of Jesus’ last few moments of freedom, He rose to face the situation, being prayerfully prepared and now standing firm in the spiritual strength for which His prayers had prepared Him.  It was now that the disciples’ sleep found them out, for without the vigilance of prayer, they were unprepared for what would happen next (which we shall read  tomorrow).

Matthew 26:36-46 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Application

Jesus remained ready to do the Father’s will as the tension of His final hours increased.  It is hardly possible for any of us to enter into Jesus’ experience at that time.  We glimpse some of the emotions he must have felt as a man, and we can empathise with His feelings of deep sadness, even His desire that perhaps there might be another way.  But the spiritual strength Jesus showed was a result of His divinity and closeness to the Father.  Many people in this world have done heroic things and indeed died for others in extraordinary ways.  However, no man or woman has ever faced complete worldly and spiritual rejection in the same way that Jesus did, whilst knowing that He was doing the Father’s will.

Jesus’ supreme task was to die without sin, not even the sin of bitterness at those who killed Him.  His death would therefore rob the powers of death of their ultimate reward, for He could not be separated from the Father, even at death.  Through His death and resurrection, Jesus would forge a pathway from this fallen world back to God, its Creator, irrespective of the power of death to thwart God’s will.  As a consequence, those who have faith in Jesus would, from that time onwards, be able to claim the same and escape the clutches of death and the horror of being separated from the Creator.  Remember, He was prepared to do it all for you, for me, and for all humanity; because he loves us, no less.  If you have not heard that, you have not heard the Gospel.

There is of course, no way that we can copy what Jesus did, or ‘apply’ what happened in Gethsemane to our own lives.  We can of course submit to God’s will, but we can never face the full force of evil’s powers as Jesus did and stand firm.  All we can do is wonder at what Jesus did for us and give glory to God for this.  Sometimes we think that the application of scripture must always be some task or physical response to all we have learned and read.  However, this passage teaches us that the best response we can give to what we have been taught is to give Him praise and honour in whatever way we feel is right and fitting.

Matthew 26:36-46 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Discipleship

Questions (for use in groups)

1. Have you been led to bow down, perhaps even ‘prostrate’ before God, lying on the ground?  What has this meant to you?
2. Does the father offer Jesus any answer to Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, or does Jesus have to endure His own equivalent of ‘unanswered prayer? 
3. What does the story of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane teach you about the purposes of God and the work of Jesus?

Topics covered by this text

• Submission to the will of God
• Jesus’ work of salvation for all humanity
• The importance of prayer

Personal comments by author

It is not easy to respond to this reading today, and we may feel that there is little we can take from it.  However, our Lord clearly values the faithful who wait on Him and do who what He has commanded; this is what He asked of the disciples, and He asks it of us now.  In the Garden, Jesus asked His disciples to persist in the midst of extreme circumstances and never give up doing what is right.  Jesus asked the disciples to ‘stay awake’, but He calls us to do other things, and we need to be willing to get on with this and not go to sleep on the job.

Ideas for exploring discipleship

• What is the hardest thing for you as a Christian?  Only you can make this call, but it is worth making it and being clear.  We cannot afford to hide the hardest calls; rather we need to openly accept that our hardest challenges are most likely to be our most fruitful work; this is a spiritual as well as a practical truth.
• Fast and pray for those who find it hard to keep up the pace of life and feel left out of what the church is doing.  Pray that all God’s people will be understanding of each other as we respond to the call of the Gospel.

Final Prayer

Through love, Lord Jesus, You have given us the greatest of gifts, the redemption of our souls.  From Your birth at Bethlehem to Your death on Calvary, Your life was lived for us so that we might receive this gift.  How can we ever thank You, except by giving our lives for Your glory and for Your service.  We give You all the glory and honour, Lord Jesus: AMEN

Bible study for Matthew 26:47-56

Matthew 26:47-56 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Review

(consult Dictionaries)

This passage records the terrible events of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas.  Matthew records the story in a simple and almost brutally plain manner, but this allows us the space to think about what happened and feel the horror of the world’s betrayal of its Saviour.  This passage deserves to be read several times before it is studied, simply because we need to read it deeply and find the many layers of feelings and tragedy within it.  This is a story full of mystery and intrigue, and the more we read, the more we will find within this extraordinary ‘Word of God’.

After all the stories of Jesus’ ministry and the intrigue of His path to Jerusalem, we have finally come to the long concluding story of the Gospel.  Here, Judas identifies Jesus to the armed guards, and this enables them to drag Jesus off to the High Priest and the Sanhedrin for a formal trial.  Although Matthew does not record it, Judas had left the table of the last supper (see John 13:27) in order to arrange the betrayal, and he came to the Garden with what Matthew describes as a ‘large crowd with swords and clubs’ (26:47).  It is most likely that the number of them was sufficient to deal with the twelve disciples who were, of course, hopelessly unprepared both physically and spiritually.  The arresting group probably contained a mixture of Temple Guards loyal to the High Priest and official guardians of the Temple (John 18:3,12), together with some other supporters of the chief priests and elders; it was the Temple Guards who would have had swords (26:47).

Judas greeted Jesus with the pre-arranged sign of the kiss (26:49), but his greeting was far from normal.  As we have seen in recent studies, Jesus was called ‘Lord’ by the disciples, but Judas Himself called Jesus ‘Master’ (26:25), a title of lesser status than ‘Lord’, or ‘Messiah’.  This shows how disillusioned Judas was at Jesus, for whatever reason.  However, this infamous kiss was no sign of convenience, for a kiss on the cheek was only done in public on formal occasions, which this was not.  Also, kissing was used as a public sign of reconciliation between two parties after a dispute, and in addition, proper decorum meant that a disciple should only kiss a rabbi when invited to do so.  For these reasons, we may suppose that Judas’ kiss was no neutral signal, it was an insult.  Moreover, he accepted Jesus as a teacher but not as the Messiah, as countless thousands have done for centuries, and thence misunderstood both Jesus and His mission.

Much of the rest of the story illustrates Jesus’ non-violent acceptance of what was happening.  He had dealt with His own feelings about all this when speaking to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He had found His peace with His calling.  In that strength, He calmed the situation that developed when someone cut off the ear of the slave of the High Priest (26:51).  Jesus was also acutely aware for the need for Him to resist the temptations of Satan at this critical point in His ministry; He was unwilling to call down ‘legions of angels’ (26:53) to protect Him from the mob.  They had come to do their work and take Him into custody, and Jesus accepted this.

The story Matthew tells describes how Jesus painfully endured all that was happening, not with stoicism, but by choice, obediently walking the path His Father had laid before Him.  His life of ministry was now complete, and He did not need to control events around Him anymore.  From this point onwards to His death Jesus was physically constrained, yet in a way that fulfilled His own prophetic teaching of non-violence (5:21,38f.), and He exercised a powerful, frequently inactive and sometimes silent control over all that was going on.  His purpose continued to be to do the will of His Father, as it had throughout His ministry, and as He had just accepted in prayer, whilst in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Going Deeper

The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues:

• The betrayal of Christ by Judas
• The use of the sword and the issue of non-violence
• The fulfilment of Scripture

Matthew 26:47-56 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Going Deeper

(consult Dictionaries)

The betrayal of Christ by Judas

What Judas said and did must have reflected his core beliefs, rather than indicate a temporary lapse of understanding.  He insulted Jesus directly (see above), which means that it is wrong to accept the commonly held view that Judas was really a believer in Jesus as Messiah, but who mistakenly tried to force Him to ‘show His hand’ by hastening the final showdown with the authorities.  No, it is almost certain that Judas’ words showed that he had not accepted Him as Messiah.

Jesus knew what was going on too, and stood firm, replying to the greeting of betrayal with the words ‘Friend, do what you are here to do’ (26:50).  The Greek of this sentence is hard to translate, and you may find this quite different in some versions of the Bible, indeed, one possible version is ‘Friend, why are you here?’  I have given the translation above because I believe Jesus already knew what Judas was doing from what had happened at the Last Supper, and He wished to move on from the tense and difficult situation.  Even the word ‘Friend’ is strained, as we can tell from its use by Jesus in two parables (20:13 and 22:12) where it is occurs when relationships either have or are just about to break down irrevocably.

In the midst of all this, Jesus’ voice always commanded authority; notice how the guards did not come to arrest Jesus after Judas’ kiss, but after He had invited them, which indicates his willingness to come quietly and without fuss (26:50).  Indeed, from the moment that Jesus speaks, He comes across as being passive yet in control of the situation.  He dealt calmly with all that happened and allowed Himself to be taken away despite the furore developing around Him.  This attitude meant that no one else was injured or hurt as a consequence of His arrest.  He did not want people to try to become martyrs for His cause before His work had been completed!

The use of the sword and the issue of non-violence

We already know that some of the Temple guards had brought swords, but it is very surprising that ‘one of those with Jesus’ (26:51) had a sword and was willing to use it.  John identified this person as Simon Peter (see John 18:10).  Perhaps He had acquired the sword and held it secretly, wanting to defend the Lord to fulfil His promise to die with Him (26:35); but we are not this by Matthew, so this can only remain presumption on our part.  On the night, the result of Peter’s petulance was that a slave of the High Priest had his ear cut off (John names him Malthus, see John 18:10).  Again, the other Gospels record Jesus’ sympathy and subsequent healing of the slave (Luke 22:51), but Matthew does not, focussing exclusively on Jesus’ own authoritative command to cease the violence.  This is highlighted as Jesus commands ‘withdraw your sword’ (26:52).

Scripture may well have influenced Matthew when he strove to interpret the story for his readers.  Jesus’ words ‘all who draw the sword will perish by the sword’ (26:52) remind us of the scriptural blessing of Noah by God; ‘whoever sheds someone’s blood will have their blood shed by someone else’ (Genesis 9:6), for example.  In addition, the prophets say that those who resist God will die by the sword (e.g. see Amos 9:10).  However, a more powerful scripture for Matthew than this was the image of the lamb led to the slaughter in Isaiah 53, for this text lies behind so much of his Gospel.  Isaiah prophesied in his later prophecies that God’s Messiah would be a servant who was non-violent and the victim of violence, and the picture of the sheathed sword has become an icon of non-violence throughout the generations.  In Scripture it is reinforced by the text from Revelation (13:10) ‘if you kill with the sword, then by the sword you must be killed.’

Jesus was clearly unhappy with the violence and use of swords.  He went on to declare that twelve legions of angels were at His beck and call, but He would not succumb to Satan’s temptation (see 4:6), and call them to His personal defence.  He would live out the non-violence and non-resistance he had taught at the beginning of His ministry in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘do not resist an evil doer’ (5:38-39) and ‘love your enemies’ (5:43-44).

We can clearly see that in taking this stand, Jesus was Himself more in charge of the situation than were the soldiers.  His being taken captive was something He allowed to happen so that the Father’s will was done; he had made this choice in prayer, only a few moments earlier.  The agony in the Garden had prepared Jesus for this moment, the initial shocking point at which hands were laid on Him to lead Him to His death.

The fulfilment of scripture.

When Jesus declared ‘but how then would scripture be fulfilled which say it must happen in this way’ (26:54), there is little doubt that He was identifying with the prophecy found in Isaiah 53 about the ‘suffering servant’; ‘by a perversion of justice he was taken away’ (Is 53:8) ‘yet it was the will of the Lord …’ (Is 53:10).  These scriptures help us to understand what happened to Jesus and why it happened, but of themselves, they are not enough.

When Matthew recorded Jesus life, he believed that His teaching was a prophetic interpretation of the whole Law of God.  The scribes and Pharisees had ruled the people of God for centuries by placing the first five books of the Bible (the ‘Law’) above all other scripture, and they based their whole religious system upon this way of approaching Scripture.  Jesus would not accept this; rather, He elevated the importance of the prophets, and made it clear that God had raised them up to reinterpret His Law in a new way.  Their work was to interpret the Law for a new era when the Messiah would come and bring God’s rule on earth.  This point is made not just by Isaiah, for example, but by other prophets (Jer 31:31f., Zech 7:12f.), and if we read the parables (e.g. the parable of the tenants Matt 21:33ff), we will find that this is the central point made by Jesus Himself.   

As the arrest of Jesus draws to its close, Jesus challenged the group that had come out to take Him.  Why had they come out with swords and clubs?  He was freely available.  Perhaps He was chastising them and challenging them to be open.  The agents of deceit and subterfuge were exposed for what they were by their captive, Jesus, who made Himself freely available to all, even those who sought His life.

This was the moment that the disciples fled the scene (26:56).  I suspect that they did this because they knew there was nothing they could now do to change the situation, and they were frightened.  Jesus was being taken without resistance, but they were unprepared, having been unable to pray about it with Jesus in the hours beforehand, because of tiredness.  If they were as dangerous to the authorities as was Jesus, they would surely have been taken as well.  However, their ‘little faith’ (Matt 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8; 17:20) was exposed by the whole incident, and they were therefore able to flee unimpeded.  They deserted Jesus, unable at that time to stand the critical test of His calling, compromising the benefits of all they had done to ‘give up all’ (4:18-22) for Jesus.

Matthew 26:47-56 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Application

This whole of this story is overlaid with sadness; we can see within it the sadness of Judas himself and the confused reasons for his betrayal.  We can also see the sadness of Jesus as He was greeted by Judas, as He put a stop to the fighting, and as He saw the response of the disciples.  Lastly we can feel the sadness of the disciples as they ran away, unable to cope with the situation unfolding before their eyes. 

Yet what happened was, in truth, as much a fulfilment of scripture as any other part of Jesus’ life.  Jesus had taught that the way to read God’s word was to interpret it according to the prophets, and they had all spoken of God’s path of salvation through suffering.  Jeremiah’s prophecies arose from his personal suffering, and he ultimately prophesied the renewal of God’s people by the Spirit (Jer 31:31-34).  Ezekiel prophesied the renewal of God’s people in worship out of the suffering of exile (Ez 37 onwards).  The great prophet Isaiah spoke of God’s redemption and salvation of His people through the work of the ‘suffering servant’ (Is 52:13ff).  Yet all these prophets said that there was hope for God’s people beyond suffering, and this always suggests that there is hope for life beyond death.  So our sadness is tinged with an un-dared for hope, built upon God’s word and our knowledge of what did in fact happen to Jesus, after His betrayal and subsequent death.

The religious authorities had finally managed to get Jesus where they wanted by evil means; and they were the people who had earlier accused Jesus of being in league with the Devil (12:24)!  As they led Jesus off toward His trial and death, they thought they were doing what was right before God.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  God was indeed in control of what was happening and was in control even of the actions of these religiously ignorant people.  In church tradition, the ‘Passion’ of Jesus is normally defined as starting at the very point when Jesus was handed over to the authorities.  So Jesus’ ‘Passion’ had started.  Ahead of Him lay His life’s end and the Cross.

As for us and our own response to what happened to Jesus, our own faith seems to fall somewhat short before the awful majesty of what happened to Jesus in His last hours.  That is as it should be.  Nothing we can or will ever do ‘matches up’ to what Jesus did for us in those moments.  However, there is something important in our faith about the idea of being prepared to face even death itself.  Christian martyrs have taken this choice throughout the ages, and they are an example to us.  I do not believe that God asks people to accept death as a necessary consequence of faith, as Jesus clearly had to do.  However, all of us face the prospect of death, and we must all remain aware that from time to time, those who stand for Jesus will be killed and martyred just as He was.

Matthew 26:47-56 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Discipleship

Questions (for use in groups)

1. In your group, discuss why you believe Judas did what He did.  Do you feel that there are other possibilities not mentioned in the study?
2. To what extent is it true that ‘all who draw the sword will die by the sword’?  Can you give any relevant examples?
3. What does this passage teach  you about the meaning of Jesus’ life and work?

Topics covered by this text

• The betrayal of Christ
• Violence and non-violence
• Jesus, the willing victim

Personal comments by author

It is almost impossible to try and imagine what this event must have been like.  As I think about it, I look at a print of a painting on the wall of my study.  It is the ‘betrayal of Christ’ by the extraordinary and prodigious young painter Caravaggio.  He did not pretend to try and paint people of Jesus’ day at the scene.  He painted people of his own day, and himself standing over the scene.  Jesus stands as if shocked, with Judas pressing forward to kiss Jesus.  A soldiers whose face is not seen grabs Jesus, and a disciple to the side runs away from Christ.  Then, standing at the back and peering over the scene stands Caravaggio himself, holding a lantern.  In a powerful way the painting says ‘I was there’, and invites the viewer to think the same, with all the emotions of that awful moment in the history of the world.

Ideas for exploring discipleship

• Spend a half hour in silence and reflect on what Jesus did for us when he was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Let the Holy Spirit move in your heart to make you ready for anything that God may require of you.
• How can you best be ready to face death?  It may be that you need to think about what this will mean and pray for the Lord to help you face the questions posed by what happens to you when you die.  You may well find that spending time with this question will help you value your life far more.

Final Prayer

Heavenly Father, we feel weak and inadequate before Your glorious power and might.  As we read about the supreme sacrifice You made on our behalf, we ask You to make this event real for us, that we may not just understand it, but accept it personally.  Then, may we receive again from You the gift of live You died to give, and complete both Your joy, and ours: AMEN

Bible study for Matthew 26:57-68

Matthew 26:57-68 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Review

(consult Dictionaries)

The story of Jesus’ capture and trial is upsetting and painful.  By any measure, the standards of justice applied to Jesus were shameful, and they expose the duplicity and deceit of those who wanted to get rid of Him.  We are right to feel upset by what we read, but we should never allow this to spill over into anger at those involved, the leaders of the Jews or the individuals who made accusation against Him, for example.  All Jesus’ disciples are called to stand with Him even in this moment of His life; he was resistant to all the evils thrown at him, just in reply to all and honest in word and deed.  Our role is not to point the finger of blame at those who eventually slaughtered Jesus; it is to bear witness to the fact that Almighty God used this awful event to do His ultimate will.

From the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed (26:36-46) and was then betrayed (26:47-56), Jesus was taken to the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest, where the first part of his trial was held.  The story of what happened late that night is very strange, and full of unexplained peculiarities.  The overall result of what happened was clear, however.  Caiaphas charged Jesus with ‘blasphemy’ despite the lack of judicial process and the hopeless inadequacy of the witnesses brought against Him. 

The first peculiarity of the story is found in the first verse, where it says that ‘the scribes and the elders had gathered’ (26:57).  Matthew was referring to the group of people commonly called the ruling ‘Sanhedrin’, a body of people charged with maintaining the integrity of Jewish identity and religious practice during the time of Roman rule.  It had a membership of 71 religious leaders, scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees (called ‘elders’), and it had to meet with a quorum of two thirds in order to do official business.  The fact that this number had been gathered at this strange evening hour gives us the feeling that Jesus’ arrest and capture was indeed an organised plot against Jesus.

There is some difference between the Gospel writers about what happened and when (see Luke 22:66; John 18:12ff), so it is difficult to know exactly what was going on.  These proceedings seem to have taken place at night, but legal guidelines from a second century Mishnah say that no trial should take place at night, but this is not certain.  We are entitled to ask, therefore, whether the trial was legal or not.    

As we read it, the first part of Jesus’ trial certainly sounds likes a kangaroo court rather than a proper legal process; but it may not have been intended as a formal ‘trial’ as such at all.  It may have been planned as preliminary legal proceedings to try and pin down a charge and find witnesses so that the matter could be decided upon and taken to the governor (27:1,2).  The Jews wanted Jesus killed but had to get the Roman authorities to do this for them.  In the circumstances, the witnesses were incompetent and Jesus’ initial silence made things difficult.  When Jesus finally answered Caiaphas, He spoke so well and so strongly (26:64), that Caiaphas was unable to say more.  Caiaphas then took the only course open to him; he decided for himself that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy, and invited the Sanhedrin to inflict on Jesus the insult of abuse (26:66,67).

Meanwhile, Peter was standing outside Caiaphas’ house doing his best to follow proceedings by overhearing the gossip of the military personnel surrounding the house.  He wanted to prove Jesus wrong by staying with Him ‘all the way’, and he gained entry to the servants’ and guards’ quarters (26:58).  Matthew’s mention of him is brief, but it enables us to keep him in mind, for after the ‘trial’ at Caiaphas’ house, Peter becomes the focus of the story again (26:69-75).  Remember, this whole passage hinges on whether Jesus is the Messiah or not and Caiaphas’ response to this claim; ironically, Peter was the only person at that time to have openly declared that Jesus was indeed the Messiah (16:16).

Going Deeper

The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues:

• The search for false testimony against Jesus
• The coming of the Messiah and the destruction of the Temple
• Jesus answers the charges set against Him
• The verdict

Matthew 26:57-68 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Going Deeper

(consult Dictionaries)

The search for false testimony against Jesus

The Sanhedrin knew what they wanted before proceedings began (26:59).  They wanted any trumped up false charge they could lay their hands on which would warrant the death penalty.  Remember, the Roman authorities were happy for the Israelites to practice their religion provided peace was sustained, and any threat to the security of the religious system such as speaking against the Temple could be presented by the Sanhedrin to the Roman governor as rebellion against the authority of Rome.

It is comical that they could not find the false witnesses they wanted (26:60).  It was a basic legal requirement that they obtain two witnesses who agreed their accusation (Num 35:30; Duet. 17:6; 19:15), before a sentence of death could be passed.  Eventually two people came forward not with false witness, but with what was probably quite correct testimony, concerning a version of what Jesus had said about the Temple. 

No Gospel writer reports Jesus as saying these words exactly, ‘I can destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it in three days’ (26:61), but it is no wonder that some people saw this in His words and deeds.  Matthew reported Jesus as prophesying the destruction of the Temple several times (12:6; 21:12-13; 23:38; 24:2) and had Himself desecrated the Temple (Matt 21:12f.).  The nearest direct connection we have to the accusation before Caiaphas is in John 2, where, after Jesus had cleared the Temple, John reported that Jesus had an argument with the authorities about ‘destroying the Temple and building it up in three days’ (2:19,21).  The accusation about destroying the Temple had a strange ring of both truth about it, and yet it was probably trumped up, using words of Jesus in a convenient way to make an accusation.  Even so , the threat of destroying the Temple was far from what the authorities wanted.  Jesus was reported as saying only that he was able to destroy the Temple, not that He would; ‘I can destroy the Temple …’; not ‘I will destroy the Temple …’, even so, it was enough for Caiaphas.

The coming of the Messiah and the destruction of the Temple

There is one other implication of these words that it would be easy to forget.  In John’s Gospel (see ref. above) the destruction of the Temple was likened to Jesus laying down His own life, and the rebuilding in three days was likened to His resurrection and establishment of the church (also implied in Matt 24:1,2).  This may not have been what the Sanhedrin heard from these words, but we who read them later make the connection, and can see in this accusation a prophecy that would be fulfilled in the next few days.

It is possible, however, that the authorities did understand a connection between the coming Messiah and the destruction and rebuilding of the Temple.  There was much speculation about this, because Zechariah 6:12 and Ezekiel 40ff both talked of the building of a new Temple when the Messiah came, and the magnificent, recently built Temple of Herod was not regarded as the work of the Messiah!  This is possibly why Caiaphas challenged Jesus directly, and cut through the debate with a direct question ‘what is it that they testify against you’ (26:62).  In other words, was this statement about destroying the Temple and building another one tantamount to a claim to be the Messiah?  He now put this directly to Jesus.

Jesus answers the charges set against Him

Jesus remained silent for a time, fulfilling Isaiah 53:7 ‘yet He did not open his mouth’.  However, it was only a temporary silence.  Caiaphas rounded on Jesus with the aggressive demand that He speak, placing Him under oath ‘before the Living God’ (26:63).  He demanded ‘tell us if you are the ‘Messiah, the Son of God’ (26:63).  We, who have read this story know that Peter, currently outside with the guards had affirmed Jesus as the ‘Messiah, the Son of the Living God’ (16:16), and know that this great statement of faith has now been twisted by Caiaphas into an accusation which demanded the death penalty.  It is the work of evil to twist truth into lies, and this is one of the clearest examples of this to be found in scripture.

Jesus’ reply was the same that he gave Judas at the last supper; ‘you have said so’ (26:64 see also 26:25), which was a way of telling His accuser on each occasion to look at the meaning of what he had just said.  However, Jesus then spoke out with astonishing clarity, His statement being probably the most powerful of His ministry as recorded by Matthew; ‘From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.’ (26:64)

In this remarkable phrase, Jesus lifted the whole idea of the Messiah out of the realm of religious politics into which it had been dragged by His accusers, and talked about it as the fulfilment of God’s awesome and eternal purposes.  The first part of what He said ‘seated at the right hand side of power’ comes from Psalm 110:1,2, which is a well known Messianic text referring to David’s deference to the Messiah, as ‘Lord’.  The second half is all about the fulfilment of the vision of Daniel (7:13) ‘I saw one like a Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’, a picture that has already occurred in Matthew’s Gospel (10:23; 16:27-28; 24:30).  It may well be that in this very moment, Jesus had a vision of His own glory after His death!  Some think that the prophecy in Daniel is about the transfiguration, however, Matthew strongly suggests here that it is a vision of Jesus’ coming again in glory; ‘when the Son of Man comes in all His glory with His angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory’ (Matt 25:30, and also 19:28).

With this, Jesus gave Caiaphas even more ammunition than he needed.  The attempt to find witnesses was largely futile after Jesus said this; using words that would have made the hair stand up on the back of the necks of the Sanhedrin members present; not with excitement as perhaps it should have done, but with fury.

The verdict

The High Priest was regarded as the guardian of the Law of Moses, and it was forbidden for him to tear his clothes even under the harshest of conditions or provocation (Lev 21:10) even though it was a common expression of anger and frustration in those days.  Therefore, when Matthew reports Caiaphas as ripping his clothes in frustration at Jesus (26:65), it adds irony to the whole situation. Caiaphas shouted ‘blasphemy’ at Jesus (26:65) when it was he who was the one who was blaspheming against Jesus, the Son of God, and also blaspheming against the Law by tearing his clothes!

In truth, Caiaphas’ fury was not simply because Jesus had claimed to be the Messiah; there were many such claims made around the time of Jesus.  What caused Caiaphas to call the verdict of blasphemy himself without even consulting with the Sanhedrin (26:65) was Jesus’ equating of Himself with God, using well known Old Testament images of power and glory.  In Jesus’ day, the name of God, the famous four lettered name of God revealed to Moses as ‘JHWH’, could not be spoken or pronounced, because it was thought to impugn God’s honour.  This is how touchy the Jews were about the fear of blasphemy.  Jesus had crossed the line of what was acceptable, and they were not even going to check out his life and ministry against scripture themselves to see if His claims were true, before resorting to their accusation.

The penalty for blasphemy according to Leviticus 24:1ff, was death by stoning, but the Sanhedrin knew that if they picked up stones immediately, their position of power with the Romans would be compromised, so they sought to make this the basis of their appeal to the governor the next morning (27:1ff).  The immediate alternative to picking up stones was to insult Jesus to His face, hitting Him and spitting on Him.  Mark 14:65 indicates that Jesus was blindfolded, making more of the insult; ‘prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who hit you?’ (26:68)  When faced with the reality of such appalling behaviour, it seems heartless to say that this was a fulfilment of Isaiah 53:6 (and also 50:4-9), yet for us it is important, for we can see yet again that Isaiah accurately foresaw the conditions of humiliation that the Messiah would endure for our sakes, as the suffering servant of God.  By His actions, Jesus also fulfilled His own teaching ‘do not resist an evildoer …’ (5:39) and maintained to the end His complete integrity.

Matthew 26:57-68 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Application

The awful nature of what happened to Jesus is a shock to us today.  We depend for our security on complicated legal systems under which such an accusation would be inadmissible, and proceedings such as this would seem primitive.  But using our imaginations, we have to take ourselves back to a time when justice was meted out at the discretion of privileged individuals who were either self selected or selected by birth.  Laws existed for the general good of all, but it was not usually possible for them to be enforced.  In this setting, the workings of the Sanhedrin were usually a model of good practice, but in the case of Jesus, they were just inadequate to deal with the trial of the ‘Son of God’.

It is within such times that Jesus lived and ultimately faced death, and we will not find the truth by looking at the justice of the matter.  Jesus faced death because His words and actions had fermented opposition from the day he began to teach in Galilee, stirring up the wrath of the Pharisees because He did not conform to their expectations of religion and the law.  Then, even if we understand this, no-one else in history either can, or has, or will do the same as Jesus, and this is why we say He is unique.

The events that were unfolding were and are unique in history, and we must read them and handle them as such.  I emphasise this because we must not treat this story as mere literature or story to be discussed and analysed.  Of course, the more we examine these verses the more we will find, but at heart, the whole narrative begs us to respond not just to what we read here, but to the whole Gospel.  Matthew wants us to know that Jesus is the Messiah, moreover that He did not force this truth upon people, He gave it to them in person and invited them to Him for who He was.

The art of the evangelist is just like this.  It is not to tell people that Jesus is the Christ as if this is a fact that self evidently requires people’s response.  History shows that people often walk away from such aggressive proclamation as this.  Jesus, however, demonstrated the love of God in real life, sufficient to appeal to people to believe that God loves them.  Personally, I think that this is why Jesus stood silent before Caiaphas, wanting him to perceive that before him stood no threat, but only love.  While Caiaphas could not abide this and condemned Jesus, it is perhaps still best if we stand before the world with the evidence of the love of God.  People will then condemn themselves or respond to the God to whom we testify, and we will have been faithful to the testimony of our Lord.

Matthew 26:57-68 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Discipleship

Questions (for use in groups)

1. What does this story tell us about Jesus, and the nature of His ordeal for our salvation? 
2. Discuss the legal processes to which Jesus was subjected in this story.  Do similar things happen in the world today, and if so, where?
3. Imagine yourself in the position of the different characters in this Scripture.  What might each one have felt, and why?

Topics covered by this text

• Opposition to Jesus
• The trial of Jesus and accusations against Him
• The true nature of blasphemy
• Jesus’ response to the accusation that He is the Messiah

Personal comments by author

Every time I read this passage I find myself mentally ‘taking cover’ with Peter in the courtyard; wanting to know what is happening, but somewhat scared of all that is going on.  The scenario is so appalling, I find it hard to imagine.  Yet as a disciple of Jesus Christ living in the real world of our own day, there are many things going on, unfortunately, of equal injustice and horror.  Jesus Christ cannot be put on trial again, but He is there with everyone who faces extreme injustice, and all of us who cower like Peter in the courtyard must come out and face reality.

Ideas for exploring discipleship

• Take the opportunity to think back over your own life and consider those occasions when you have been like Peter, an observer to what God is doing in the world rather than a participant in it.  What can you do today to make sure that you do not find yourself hiding from what the Lord calls you to do?
• Pray for God’s people today.  Pray that the Church (generally) will stand back from acting like a religious institution with its own interests, and pursuing them in such a way as prevents God’s work being done instead of enabling it.

Final Prayer

Lord God Almighty, when I am scared and do not know what to do, take hold of my timid soul and lead me out by the bright light of Your guidance.  Take away from me the luxury of self pity and face me with the reality of my duties and obligations, so that I might do what is right and serve you and others, whatever the circumstances.  Give me a heart that always willing to yield to Your hand.  AMEN

Bible study for Matthew 26:69-75

Matthew 26:69-75 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Review

(consult Dictionaries)

This is the last story about Peter in Matthew’s Gospel, and it is a deeply painful passage, which describes how Peter finally let his Lord down by denying Him three times (26:75).  Still, Jesus had told Peter that he would deny Him in exactly this way, earlier that same day, after the supper they shared together and before Jesus went out to the Garden of Gethsemane.  When Jesus said this, Peter had stood tall and said he was willing to die for his Lord (26:32), but the memory of this makes the story all the more painful.  We can read this story and feel sad that Peter was unable to sustain his discipleship at this crucial moment, but in the back of our minds, we all know that we would hardly have fared better.  Of course, we know that Peter was forgiven by Jesus after the resurrection (John 20:22, 21:15f.), and because of this, we tend to read the story as an example of the saving love of God found in Jesus Christ.  Few would think that this great story is found in Scripture for any other purpose.

There is more for us to discover, however, for as a carefully read of our passage shows, there are a number of intriguing similarities between this passage and the previous verses about the initial interrogation of Jesus.  Jesus had stood firm after His capture, but here, Peter collapsed; Jesus faced His accusers, and Peter walked away; and under pressure, Jesus confessed who He was in compelling terms (26:64); and in this story, under different pressure, Peter caved in and denied His Lord (26:70-74).  In His earlier teaching, Jesus had said ‘everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven, but whoever denies me before others, I will also deny before my Father in heaven’ (10:32,33).  Jesus led the way by acknowledging His Father before Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin and the whole world; but here in this story, Peter cursed his Lord (26:74).

Peter’s ultimate failure is full of pathos, and yet it would be wrong to focus on Peter alone, for all of the disciples had agreed with him that they would stay with Jesus unto death (26:35).  The others had all long since gone, and just as Peter had represented them for good or bad in the past, he also represented them at this point of their collective failure, following and pursuing Jesus as far as he could, but only so far.

I am not sure we are intended to judge Peter too harshly, however, because he still represents people now, just as he represented the disciples.  His failure was profoundly human and tragic, and what happened contains lessons from which we can learn.  Perhaps the most powerful verse of the whole story comes at the end, describing Peter’s reaction to the realisation of his failure.  Matthew tells us that he wept.  Now, this weeping was almost certainly the beginning of Peter’s repentance, as true weeping can often be.  Jesus had always call people to true repentance (Matt 4:17), so if this was the first true and heartfelt repentance that Peter expressed before God, as it may have been, it was entirely necessary for the Lord’s eventual compassionate forgiveness of Peter.  Unless we interpret these events in this way, it makes little sense for our Lord to express total confidence in all the disciples, including Peter, when after He had been raised, He commissioned them to evangelise the world (Matt 28:16ff).

This passage contains important truths about Jesus’ salvation of humanity.  It reminds us that it is impossible for us to keep the world’s evil pressures at bay without the presence and mercy of Christ, for His power and presence sustains us and brings us through such trials.  The pathetic picture of Peter’s weeping is very famous, and so it should be.  The great Peter, the one on whom the church would be built, was brought as low as it was possible to go, in order to be lifted high again after the resurrection due to his repentance and the redeeming work of the Saviour.  Peter’s story is a true Gospel story.

Going Deeper

The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues:

• The accusations against Peter and his response
• Charge 1, the approach of the servant girl
• Charge 2, the approach of the second servant girl
• Charge 3, the challenge of those nearby
• The crowing of the cock

Matthew 26:69-75 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Going Deeper

(consult Dictionaries)

The accusations and Peter’s responses

Peter was there with Jesus when He was teaching in the Temple drawing crowds, and had been present in the Garden of Gethsemane when the Temple guards and others came to arrest Him.  It is even possible that it was He who created a scene in the Garden by drawing His sword and suffering a harsh rebuke form the Lord (26:51, 52).

Peter was described as ‘entering the courtyard’ just before Jesus was taken before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.  He had not simply fled, but doubled back to try and make good the promise that he had made not to fail Jesus in his hour of need (26:33-35).  Ironically, as Jesus made his great ‘Statement of Faith’ before Caiaphas (26:64) and endured the insults and abuse it provoked, Peter was enduring the indignity of the collapse of his morale and faith under pressure from some servants.

Charge 1

It began with the approach of a servant girl, someone of whom Peter would not normally be afraid.  Yet he was completely caught off guard by her words, accusing him of being with Jesus, ‘the Galilean’ (26:69).  It is impossible to know where the girl had seen Peter in the previous few days or hours, but he wanted to maintain anonymity in order to try to stay near to Jesus.  Unfortunately, Peter had not learned the spiritual truth that you cannot do this, and it is impossible to follow Jesus anonymously.  The accusation of the girl ‘You too were with Jesus’ (26:69) exposed Peter completely and threatened to ‘blow his cover’.

Peter’s reply was addressed to all who might have heard or overheard the servant girl’s challenge; ‘I don’t know what you are talking about’.  He was not going to let suspicions grow about him in that setting, because anyone identified as being with Jesus risked being taken captive.  In his blindness, and overcome with the fear of others, Peter reacted with instant denial, disassociating himself from his Master.  Strangely, although we all know it was wrong for Peter to deny knowing Jesus, we can all empathise with his situation, and few of us would dare say that we could have done any better.

Charge 2

Peter now moved away from those gathered in the courtyard, towards the gate.  He already had in mind to get out, perhaps to seek a better vantage point for observation.  As he did so, another servant girl made an even stronger and more public accusation that Peter had been with Jesus; this time identifying Jesus as a ‘Nazorean’.  One can well imagine that the second girl was a friend of the first, challenging Peter more firmly after seeing her friend’s accusation rebuffed; ‘this man was with Jesus!’ she said.  Peter swore, and proceeded to dig a deeper hole for himself.  The accusations would not go away!

When scripture says that Peter swore an ‘oath’ (26:72), it did not mean bad language.  Typically, in those days, an oath meant calling on a pagan god, for example ‘may the gods do to me, and more, if …’, and it was a terrible lapse into Peter’s coarse past as a fisherman.  Jesus, however, had taught that although the Old Testament said ‘You shall not swear falsely’, a disciple should ‘not swear at all …’ (5:33).  By swearing, Peter wandered further away from his Lord, compounding his denial by calling Jesus ‘the man’ (26:72).  It was a long way from his great affirmation of Jesus as the Messiah (16:16).

Charge 3

Finally, some men came to the rescue of the girls who Peter had put down.  They could hear the Galilean accent, which is unknown to us today, but was apparently very distinct, and an object of humour to Judeans of the Jerusalem region.  They came up to Peter, standing in front of him and posing a direct personal threat.  Two male witnesses were needed for a formal accusation to made against someone, and the whole scene became very tense.

Peter’s response was to curse and swear again, repeating ‘I do not know the man’ (26:74).  However, although we use the word ‘curse’ entirely generally today, in those days cursing was always done against someone or something.  Peter was either cursing himself, which was unlikely; or he was cursing the men in front of him, something which would have made an inflammatory situation worse; or he was cursing Jesus.  The terrible truth was that by cursing his Lord, Peter kept the men from taking hold of him, and at the very moment he thought he had saved himself by cursing Jesus, the ‘cock crowed’ (26:74).

The crowing of the cock

This dramatic moment in which Peter recognised his failure remains one of the most poignant moments in the whole Gospels.  One denial had not been enough to save his skin, but as Peter escaped the courtyard at his third denial, his remembrance of Jesus’ words broke him (26:34), and he wept.  Some people have sought to find an explanation of the cock crow, such as whether this was a Roman system of time keeping in the night, or the announcement of morning, or even the apparently random annoyance of evil spirits.  None of this is helpful or conclusive.  For Matthew, this is a fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy.  It was the sign that drew to an end the story of Peter’s personal attempt to follow his Lord in his own strength, an attempt that ended in abject failure.

In verse 75, Matthew’s story draws us into the depths of despondency Peter must have felt as he now made his way out of danger and away from the courtyard, weeping bitterly.  His heart had wanted to do what was right and his words and actions had led him in the opposite direction.  Just as Caiaphas emotively rent his clothes at Jesus’ claims to divinity (26:65), Peter’s heart was broken and rent asunder in anguish.  While Jesus stood His ground in the presence of His accusers, Peter ran away; and as the scribes and elders were hitting Jesus, challenging Him to prophesy, His last prophecy to Peter was fulfilled in the courtyard outside.

Matthew 26:69-75 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Application

In the first part of this study I indicated how Jesus could forgive Peter once he shed tears of sorrow and repentance, enabling him to receive the Great Commission at the end of the Gospel (28:18-20).  We can also look back at his great words and deeds of faith with admiration, such as his walking on water (temporarily! - 14:28ff) and proclaiming Jesus as the ‘Christ’ (16:16).  We can see in Peter an example of faith to be followed.

However, that is not the lesson we need to learn from this story.  There are clear messages of warning within this text which need to be heard by God’s people today, because Peter’s behaviour, out of the best of intensions, illustrates key features of how godly people can go desperately wrong when they turn away from open confession of Jesus as Lord.  The first lesson comes from Peter’s first denial, and it is that fear of others and staying anonymous as a Christian is not an option for those who would truly follow Jesus Christ.  The second lesson comes from Peter’s second denial, and is that if we live in fear of others it leads to unworthy behaviour (oaths, 26:72) and misrepresentation of Christ (Peter called Jesus, ‘the man’; 26:72).  The third lesson comes from Peter’s third denial, and is that the path of self interested behaviour leads to apostasy, the denial of God’s name and God’s truth (26:74).

It is true to say that just as with Peter, there is always a road back to the Lord by means of repentance, but it is a repentance born of the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the willing and broken believer.  If we persist in denial, then we do not allow the Holy Spirit to work.  Those who choose to keep their faith private, or who deny the divinity of Christ because it does not fit with their view of society, or who say they are Christians and actively practice other religions, for example, neither wish the Holy Spirit to work in them or wish to repent.  It requires a miracle of grace, just as the cock crowed for Peter, for someone to recognise where they have gone wrong, and be willing to change.

I end, however, on a positive note with a quote from Calvin; ‘Peter’s fall … brilliantly mirrors our own infirmity.  His repentance in turn is a memorable demonstration for us of God’s goodness and mercy.  The story of one man contains teaching of general, and indeed prime benefit for the whole church; it teaches those who stand to take care and be cautious; it encourages the fallen to trust in pardon.’

Matthew 26:69-75 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Discipleship

Questions (for use in groups)

1. Was Peter running away from his responsibilities right from the start, or did he start with the right intention and fall away?
2. Discuss Peter’s denials of Jesus.  What are the general characteristics of Peter’s sin, and how bad were they?
3. Write down a list of feelings that Peter probably had as he left the courtyard of the High Priest’s house, weeping.  What would you have felt like?

Topics covered by this text

• The denial of Christ
• Sin, failure, and the hope of forgiveness through repentance
• The pressure of temptation from the world

Personal comments by author

The path of discipleship is the path of faith, not the path of denial.  Throughout my life within the Western church, it has been fashionable amongst many I have known to promote doubt as a form of reasonable questioning.  There is no point in asking questions, however, if there is no hope of finding answers, and the Christian disciple is fundamentally someone who has found answers; they have found the answer to the meaning of life in Jesus Christ whatever logic may be inadvertently missing or further questions remain.  Moreover, as with Peter, a disciple is one who has had to travel a path of repentance and forgiveness before faith can take root.

Ideas for exploring discipleship

• Look back on your own life and try to recall those moments when you have been caught out doing something you should not.  Remember how this felt.  Prayerfully ask yourself whether there are things you are hiding from the Lord and search your heart concerning what to do about this.
• Do you find it easy to talk to people about Jesus, and are you content to be identified as one of Jesus’ disciples?  Discuss your feelings about t his with a friend.

Final Prayer

Stay with us, Lord Jesus, we pray, and at those moments when we are most vulnerable, help us to remain firm in faith.  With Your help, may we take our stand against all that is wrong and evil in our world, and testify to Your saving and redeeming love.  We praise You, Lord Jesus Christ: AMEN

Bible study for Matthew 27:1-10

Matthew 27:1-10 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Review

(consult Dictionaries)

This tragic reading describes the fate of Judas, and before this, what happened to Jesus in the early morning after He had been arrested and brought before Caiaphas.  The events of the evening before had not been orderly, and may not have been conducted properly, for if they had, then there would have been no need for further discussions about what to do with Jesus (27:1).  Caiaphas had decided that Jesus’ response to his questioning amounted to blasphemy, but everyone knew that Pilate, the Roman governor would not be interested in this.  The chief priests and the elders ‘discussed with each other how to have Jesus killed’ for one reason alone; they still needed to get a good reason to persuade Pilate to kill Jesus.  As we will see, their chosen route was to present Jesus as a danger to Roman security, and with this decided, they ‘bound’ Jesus and led Him to Pilate as a criminal (27:2).

The story then continues by telling what happened to Judas.  We would like to know more about Judas’’ real motives for betraying Jesus, but the only thing Matthew says is that he was ‘filled with regret’ (27:3).  For this reason, Judas took back to the Temple the money he had been paid, and when those who had given it refused to take it back, he threw it down.  It was the last thing he did before hanging himself (27:5).  Matthew then tells us what was done with the money, and he explains this with a quote from the Old Testament (27:9,10).  Most of this sounds relatively trivial to us today, but Matthew was clearly concerned to explain it all as the fulfilment of Scripture, and we will look further at what this means, later on in the study.

There are a number of interesting feature to this story however, and one of them concerns the way Matthew has ordered his account of what happened.  It seems that Matthew placed this episode here in order to contrast it with what happened to Peter after his failure (26:69-75).  In this way, it enables us to begin to see Peter’s story in a positive light.  After his failure and denial of Jesus, Peter began a process of rehabilitation through tears of remorse.  Judas, however, after his failure and betrayal of Jesus, was full of regrets at what he had done (27:3) and attempted to absolve himself by returning the money he had taken for treachery.  After failing to do this he could not live with himself and took his life (27:5).  The contrast is clear; Peter will eventually come through his failure to salvation, but Judas tragically condemns himself before God.

We can only find this story about Judas here in Matthew; Mark and Luke do not say anything about the fate of Judas, and neither does John.  We may well then be puzzled to find that in Acts, Luke tells a quite different story about how Judas died (Acts 1:15-20).  Luke says that Judas died by falling over in a field he has bought for himself with his ‘blood money’!  This is quite different from what we have read here, but there are two clear links between the stories.  Firstly, each story records the death of Judas, and secondly, each story tells us about the land called a ‘Field of Blood’, and we will discover that this designation is connected to a number of Old Testament prophecies.

If we look at the way Matthew has told his narrative here, then we can get a better perspective on what we have read.  Very simply, Judas handed Jesus over to the Jewish authorities, who handed Him over to Pilate, who handed Jesus over to the soldiers to be killed.  Then, within this epic story are two important sub-plots; firstly that of Peter who fulfilled Jesus’ prophecy that he would deny Him (see 26:34), and secondly that of Judas who fulfilled Jesus’ prophecy that he would betray Him (see 26:24).  Up to this point in Jesus’ Passion, Matthew’s story has switched between these ‘plots’; but from now on, the story will deal with Jesus alone.

Going Deeper

The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues:

• The handing over of Peter to Pilate (27:1,2)
• Judas changes his mind, and commits suicide (27:3,4,5)
• The purchase f the potter’s field (27:6,7,8)
• The prophecy of Jeremiah (27:9,10)

Matthew 27:1-10 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Going Deeper

(consult Dictionaries)

The handing over of Jesus to Pilate (27:1,2)

In the opening verses (1&2), the chief priests and elders needed to discuss tactics concerning how to deal with Jesus now He had been ‘captured’.  Caiaphas had made a judgement that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy the night before (26:65), and no-one dissented from that decision.  All they had to do was to decide how to get the Roman authorities to proceed with the death penalty.  If the chief priests could have killed Jesus there and then, they would, but it was part of their agreement with their Roman overlords that they would not take the law into their own hands.  Pilate, the Roman Governor, was known to be a man who was impatient with Jewish religious demands and prejudices, so the chief priests had to be careful.  If Jesus was presented to him as someone who had simply broken their religious codes, they knew he would not be interested, so they had to be very careful. 

Pilate is the last of the major characters of Matthew’s Gospel to be introduced.  He was the fifth governor (strictly, the ‘praefectus’ in Latin) over Judea and Jerusalem, and he lived most of the year in Caesarea Maritima, and came to Jerusalem at major festivals in order to make sure, personally, that law and order was kept.  He was a cruel man, and other documents of the day make it obvious that he had a vicious character and was unafraid to mete out the death penalty if he caught the slightest whiff of trouble.  For example, Luke records in his Gospel an incident when Jesus talked about the cruelty of Pilate; He told of a time when Pilate cruelly ‘mixed the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices’ (Luke 13:1f.).  We do not know exactly what this means or why it was done, but it sounds unbearably cruel.

Judas changed his mind – and committed suicide (27:3,4,5)

The theme in Matthew’s Gospel now switches to Judas, and the tragic story of his suicide.  It is interesting that he acted as if he knew that Jesus was going to die as a result of his actions., because he talked of betraying ‘innocent blood’ (27:4), and later on, the whole story revolves around the ‘blood money’ Judas received for the betrayal, this term meaning money that was responsible for someone’s death.  Jesus, however, had yet to appear before Pilate and was certainly not yet dead!

We must therefore assume that Judas knew what the consequences of his actions would be, and he was full of regret because ‘innocent blood’ would be shed (27:3).  Perhaps he was aware of Deuteronomy 27:25 which says ‘cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood’.  He therefore approached the chief priests to give the money back (27:4) and attempt to undo the things he had set in motion.  The proper thing for a priest to do in these circumstances would be to perform appropriate sacrifices and rituals for dealing with this sin, and according to Mosaic Law for guilt offerings, re-consecrate the money; after all, it had come from the Temple in the first place!  However, the chief priests were as guilty in the matter of Jesus’ betrayal as Judas, and they would not accept the money, returning it to Judas saying ‘what is that to us? That’s your problem’ (27:4).  They did not see their own sin at all.

Judas responded by furiously throwing the money back into the Temple (27:5).  The particular word for ‘temple’ used here meant the inner temple where the priests performed their rituals.  Judas would have had to throw it over a wall or through an open gate to do this.  There is even a hint of this on the Old Testament, where the prophet Zechariah refers to a rejected shepherd throwing money back into the temple (Zech 11:13).  However, Judas was now in a desperate state, and he went out and hanged himself.

Some have considered this to be an honourable act, but that seems hardly likely.  The other story of Judas’ death in Acts 1:18 is a grisly tale, and although it describes a different death, it certainly does not indicate any ‘honour’.  Suicide was considered as highly dishonourable amongst Jews, and the only other person recorded by scripture as hanging himself was Ahithophel, the disgraced advisor to David (2 Samuel 17:23).  He had committed suicide after betraying David and abusing his position, advising Absolom (David’s son) after he deposed his father (2 Sam 15ff).  Now, the same fate came to the one who betrayed the ‘Son of David’.

The purchase of the potter’s field (27:6,7,8)

Unwilling to re-consecrate the ‘blood money’ from Judas, the chief priests decided on buying ‘the potter’s field’ as a cemetery for Gentiles (27:7).  In Hebrew ‘Akeldama’ means ‘field of blood’, and refers to a field located across the Hinnom valley opposite Jerusalem, which was a historic source of pottery clay.  In order to make sense of the story at this point, there are two Old Testament prophecies that should be born in mind.

The first is one of Jeremiah’s most famous prophesies and concerns a potter and pots.  Jeremiah 18 is a famous prophecy describing God as a potter shaping Israel as a potter shapes pots.  On the surface, it is a wonderful and meaningful picture of God taking care of His people.  However in chapter 19, Jeremiah is called to pronounce judgement on the Israelite nation by going to the Hinnom valley to the ‘gate of potsherds’ to demonstrate God’s judgement by smashing the pots made the previous day, and mentioned in the previous chapter!  The ‘potter’s field’ was therefore a symbol of God’s judgement.

The second prophecy is from Zechariah 11, which was a well known Messianic prophecy in Jesus’ day.  In it, Zechariah acted out the deeds of a shepherd bringing judgement on Israel; ‘And the Lord said to me, "Throw it to the potter" - the handsome price at which they priced me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord to the potter’ (27:13).  It certainly seems as if Matthew was aware of both these prophecies as he sought to explain what Judas had done.

The prophecy of Jeremiah (27:9,10)

Strangely, these verses contain a quote from Zechariah 11:13, which sums up the whole story of what happened to Judas very well.  However, Matthew attributes them to Jeremiah not to Zechariah!  Unfortunately, although the theme of judgement and a ‘potter’s field’ is found in Jeremiah, there is certainly no reference to 30 pieces of silver in Jeremiah!  However, if we read Jeremiah 18 and 19, we will find that Jeremiah was inspired by the scene at the potter’s house to prophesy about the need for God to demolish the old ‘pot’ of Israel, represented by its religious leaders and their kings, in order to begin again a new work with His people.  In Zechariah 11, we find a Messianic prophecy about the true Shepherd of Israel who broke the Old Covenant between God and Israel.

What is going on here?  It can be difficult for us to come to terms with the fact that New Testament writers frequently quote the Old in a loose manner, certainly not literally.  However the writers of the New Testament, inspired by God, often quoted the Old Testament in order to highlight themes and this is what appears to be happening here.  The two prophecies of Jeremiah and Zechariah may well have become fused in people’s minds, including Matthew’s.  There are a number of examples of this process in other parts of Scripture, for example, Mark 1:2 is composed of the themes from Malachi 3:1 and Is 40:3 and yet it is attributed to Isaiah.  Also, Romans 9:27 derives from themes found in Hosea 2:1 and Isaiah 10:22, and Paul attributed this to Isaiah alone.

As we look at the text today, there is no doubt that Matthew used both these prophetic themes to explain Judas’ actions and his death.  When put together, they speak of God’s judgement of the man who betrayed Jesus, the true ‘shepherd’ of Israel (see Zechariah).  Then, using Jeremiah’s prophetic images of the potter’s field, they speak of the judgement of God on those religious leaders of Israel who had become ‘false shepherds’.  By this, Matthew meant the religious authorities who had bribed Judas, they were as culpable as the man they paid to betray Jesus.  They both failed to appreciate that Jesus was the Messiah.

Some of this is a little difficult for us today because we think of the ‘potter’ image from Jeremiah 18 as a somewhat more of a cosy picture of how God does His will through us (as in the words of the song: ‘I am the potter, and You are the clay …’).  These sentiments are understandable, but the prophecies of Jeremiah are really about judgement, as anyone who reads both Jeremiah 18 and 19 for themselves will discover!

Matthew 27:1-10 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Application

We can find little sympathy for Judas or justification of his actions within this passage of Scripture today.  To do so now would be to fly in the face of the story as told by Matthew, and we have no other means of knowing about what he did and why he did it.  In the end, there was a degree of inevitability about everything that happened, and this is why Matthew was keen to present it as the fulfilment of Scripture about the coming of the Messiah.  Both Judas and the Jewish leaders acted according to their own convictions and choices, but they followed a path of evil prophesied by others beforehand.  People like Jeremiah and Zechariah had seen how God’s work would be opposed and when the time came, their prophesies were proved right.  It is worth noting the incredibly grand scale of the prophecies quoted by Matthew and their interpretation.  This is the purpose of true prophecy, for God wants us to see how the things that happen to us fit into His greater plans.  Generally speaking, it should be born in mind that those who claim to be prophets and speak only of small parts of God’s work in this world, may well not have seen the full vision.

Over the centuries, some Christians have blamed not just Judas, but the Jews in general, for Jesus’ death.  This is to twist what we have read today.  Scripture presents some as directly responsible for His death, and through them, the culpability of everyone else.  Preachers have for centuries told Christian congregations that Christ died because of ‘their’ sins (not the Jews), so it is wrong to preach this evangelical message on the one hand, and then to blame Jews in general.  What happened was the result of evil’s grip on the Jewish leaders, Judas and the Roman authorities at that time, and it both represents and focuses all evil; Paul explains this well when he writes ‘All have sinned …’ (Romans 3:10ff).

It is far better to say that the death of Jesus was a mixture of the purpose and will of God for the salvation of the whole world, and the choices of real people to do evil at that specific time.  The Jewish authorities of Jesus’ day rejected Jesus, Judas betrayed Him, and the Romans killed him; and by their choices they became individually caught up in the eternal purposes of God.  It is worth noting that while all this was happening, Peter was caught up by the same sin and evil, but he chose the way of repentance, and he became caught up in the purposes of God in a new and different way.  Thank God that after Jesus died and rose again, He showed us that the way of repentance chosen by Peter brought new life, and that we are now able to live in the light of that Gospel.  Judas was condemned by his conscience, but in the mercy of the risen Christ, this need never happen to anyone today.

Matthew 27:1-10 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Discipleship

Questions (for use in groups)

1. Do you feel that Judas deserves a more sympathetic hearing than this study has given?  What are your reasons?
2. Read through the prophecy of Zechariah 11, and check that you understand it and how it relates to this text.
3. Read through Jeremiah 18 and 19, and check that you understand it and how it relates to this text.

Topics covered by this text

• The handing of Jesus over to the Romans
• The consequences to Judas of his betrayal
• The fulfilment of Scripture for the coming of the Messiah and His Kingdom

Personal comments by author

The choices we make largely determine what happens later in our lives, and most of us know what it is like to make choices which lead to tragedy, but we pray that none would be as tragic as that of Judas.  Whatever sympathy we may wish to afford him, he chose a course of action that ended in the tragedy of the death of both Jesus and Himself, and he knew he had failed God.  It is a dramatic story, but it does warn us that it is possible to completely misunderstand Jesus and go the wrong way.  The way to avoid this is to have the humility of Peter and repent of our wrongdoing and our bad choices rather than try to hide them.

Ideas for exploring discipleship

• Reflect on the differences between the story of Judas and the story of Peter.  How can these stories help you find spiritual direction?
• Pray for all those who are struggling to find an answer to their questions about Jesus, and feel that they do not understand Him.  If you know any such person, make them a subject of your prayers.

Final Prayer

Almighty Lord and God, I place the strains and stresses of this day into Your hands.  I confess that I am often unsure about whether I have done Your will in the course of my day.  Nevertheless, I commit my work, my recreation, my words and my intentions, into Your hands for the further the work of Your Kingdom.  I also ask You to give me a glimpse of how the things I have done fit into Your greater and eternal plans.  AMEN

Bible study for Matthew 27:11-19

Matthew 27:11-19 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Review

(consult Dictionaries)

In this reading, we hear about the tragic events that led to Jesus crucifixion by Roman soldiers.  Having been arrested by the Jews and condemned by them on a trumped up charge of blasphemy, Jesus was hauled in front of the only man in all Israel capable of enacting the death penalty, the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate (describe by Matthew as the ‘governor’ – 27:11).  This passage also sets the tragic scene for the climactic events of Jesus’ trial and sentence to death by public acclamation, which we will read tomorrow (27:20-26).  In general, our reading shows us that Jesus had no more of a trial in front of Pilate than He had in front of Caiaphas; it was an interrogation rather than a trial, as befits the authority of rulers who wielded absolute personal power over life and death.

There are many similarities between Jesus’ appearance before Pilate and His previous arraignment before Caiaphas.  Jesus answered ‘you have said so’ (26:63,64) to Caiaphas’ question ‘are you the Messiah?’ and He said something similar (‘so you say’) to Pilate when asked ‘are you the King of the Jews’ (27:11).  In each case, Jesus was not vague because he would not accept these titles, but He spoke cautiously because of what it meant for these two to use them.  Caiaphas was the high priest of God, and yet he spoke about the Messiah with disrespect; Pilate was a Roman governor, and he was politically devious as he spoke about the ‘King of the Jews’, for he would truck no talk of power other than his own.  In both appearances, Jesus remained silent before all charges, leaving everyone angry and confused; Caiaphas, the chief priests, and now Pilate (27:12-14).

Jesus appears to have remained silent after his brief reply to Pilate (27:12f.), and instead of being frustrated, Pilate sought to regain control of the situation.  It is doubtful that he would have wanted to do what the religious leaders wanted of him, yet he was no fool, and anyone who presented a threat to the authority of Rome, on whatever grounds, would normally be shown no mercy.

Yet something about Jesus had intrigued Pilate, for there seems no other reason for him to do what he did next.  He turned the matter over for a decision of the people (27:15f.), using the excuse of the governor’s benevolent right to release a Jewish prisoner at the festival of the Passover!  Any number of theories could be advanced as to why Pilate did not just condemn Jesus on the spot.  He could have perceived something about Jesus that made him fearful of the ‘gods’ (as Pilate would have thought of them), he could have been playing with the Jewish leaders and the crowds, or he could have been frustrated by the incident and wanted to leave.  All we know from this passage is that amongst the many possible motives his actions, Pilate wanted to expose the jealousy of the Jewish leaders (27:18).  But this can hardly have been the sum total of Pilates’ thoughts on the matter, and Matthew adds that his wife sent him a message suggesting that he should be cautious (27:19).

Altogether, this dramatic moment in history is complicated by a myriad of unexplained and uncertain human motives.  It is certainly unwise to try and suggest that Pilate did what he did for one simple reason alone.  Matthew’s story carefully shows us that Pilate, a man feared by all Jews of the day, began his few moments of glory on the world stage in full control of events.  By the time he left the stage he had lost all  semblance of authority.  Tomorrow, we will read about his attempt to ‘wash his hands’ (27:24ff) of all responsibility for Jesus’ death.

The story we have read today shows the authorities as fundamentally corrupt and conniving, and by comparison, Jesus remained upright and true, in word and deed.  At the time, there was no-one to stand by Jesus to defend Him or fight for justice; and it is our privilege to read about what happened and realise that he did this for us, and He did it by Himself.

Going Deeper

The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues:

• Jesus before Pilate for the accusation (27:11)
• Further accusations (27:12-14)
• Jesus (Barabbas) and Jesus (the Son of God) (27:15,16)
• The presenting of a deadly choice (27:17,18)
• The intervention of Pilate’s wife (27:19)

Matthew 27:11-19 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Going Deeper

(consult Dictionaries)

Jesus before Pilate for the accusation (27:11)

At last, Jesus stood before Pilate.  It isn’t certain where this ‘trial’ took place, but it was most likely held outside the official governor’s residence, with Pilate seated on an official judicial bench (see 27:19).  We are not told how Pilate was briefed, but the first question he asked was probably a result of the chief priests’ and elders’ charge of Jesus claiming to be ‘King of Israel’.  Pilate changed this to the more vulgar Gentile expression ‘King of the Jews’.

The chief priests attempted to politicise the charge against Jesus by describing the Messiah as a ‘King’, simply in order to get the death penalty imposed by Pilate.  The idea of a ’King’ brought with it a potential political threat to the Roman Empire, and Pilate’s first concern would be to decide whether the Kingly authority apparently claimed by Jesus was a serious challenge to the authority of the Empire and the Emperor.

As Pilate questioned Jesus, he probably wanted to know quite simply whether he was another insurrectionist, or whether the chief priests were bringing him a case based on their own religious intrigues.  In the first instance he would pass the death penalty without further thought, yet if he suspected the second, the case should really be dismissed.  He put the charge to Jesus in his own way, and very directly ‘are you the King of the Jews?’  He received the vague but positive answer ‘so you say’ from Jesus.  This reply must have intrigued Pilate, who wanted to know more.

Further accusations (27:12-14)

At this point, one can almost imagine the accusations coming thick and fast from the chief priests and elders gathered nearby, needing to make more of their own case which, from first indications, was not going their way.  They probably voiced the accusations previously mentioned by the ‘false witnesses’ before Caiaphas (26:60); ‘he said … I am able to destroy the Temple of God and to build it in two days’ (26:61).  This was all received by Jesus with silence, and Pilate would have observed Jesus’ contempt of this, making him more interested in Jesus than in the accusations made about Him.

Pilate then asked Jesus not about the accusations themselves, but, curiously, about the number of charges brought against him.  He wanted to hear more from Jesus, as it was against the principles of Roman justice for him to condemn someone to death, which he knew he was being asked to do, without giving them a proper chance to defend themselves.

Pilate was amazed that Jesus gave no answers either to the charges or to him, and it is possible that this unsettled Pilate.  He would have been either annoyed at Jesus’ affront, or puzzled by the man who could handle such circumstances with dignity and moral courage.  As later readers of this story, we can see in Jesus’ silence a fulfilment of Isaiah 53:7 ‘He did not open His mouth’, a passage that was key to Matthew’s presentation of Jesus’ Passion.  It is also worth the earlier verses of Isaiah 52:15 ‘so he shall startle many nations; Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which they had not been told they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.’  Most of this famous text appears to relate very closely to Pilate’s reactions, and also the intrigue of the charges being thrown at Him by the chief priests, who were being less than honest about their accusations!

Jesus (Barabbas) and Jesus (Son of God) (27:15,16)

There is some debate as to whether it was indeed a custom for the Roman governor of Jerusalem and Judea to offer a selective amnesty to a popularly chosen prisoner, as is indicated by verse 15.  There is not enough information for us to resolve this, but one thing is very clear, Pilate could not offer an amnesty for someone who had already been tried and condemned.  Only the Roman Emperor could offer such a pardon; Pilate could only offer for amnesty those who were un-convicted and awaiting trial, such as Jesus, and also Barabbas.

The mention of Barabbas in Matthew’s Gospel is not straightforward.  Amongst the earliest copies of Matthew’s Gospel, some have the name ‘Barabbas’, and others have ‘Jesus Barabbas’, which may surprise you.  We know that some influential early Christians ran a campaign to remove the name ‘Jesus’ from before ‘Barabbas’ in scripture (notably, Origen, 185-254 AD), so it is more likely that the name ‘Jesus Barabbas’ was indeed original, and this is not surprising as the name ‘Jesus’ was as popular during Jesus’ life as the name ‘John’ is today.  If this was indeed the case, then it is not difficult to imagine the confusion that reigned when the matter was put to the crowd; but we shall read of this tomorrow.

Even the name Barabbas is surprising.  The name breaks down in Aramaic to form the word ‘Bar-Abbas’ meaning ‘son of the Father’.  The story in Matthew’s Gospel now becomes an intrigue between ‘Jesus, the son of the father’ (Barabbas), and ‘Jesus, the Son of God’ (called the ‘Messiah’)!  Nothing more is said by Matthew about Barabbas, except that he was ‘notorious’, which probably meant that he was hated by the authorities and yet enjoyed considerable popular support!  Luke describes him as a murderer (23:19) and Mark as an insurrectionist (15:7).

Presenting a deadly choice (27:17,18)

It may well be that the crowds had gathered outside Pilate’s residence for the (apparently) annual magnanimous action on the part of their unloved ruler, and Pilate gave them a choice between Jesus Barabbas and Jesus ‘called the Messiah’ (27:17).  It is interesting to try and work out what was really going on in Pilate’s mind.  Many people interpret what he did as a means of trying to let Jesus off the hook, because he felt that the chief priests were jealous of Him (27:18).  If that was the case, it was pure ineptitude on Pilate’s part, as no Jewish crowd would accept a candidate for freedom put to them by the Roman governor, as Jesus was!

Alternatively, it is possible that verse 18 describes Pilate’s actions due to the chief priests’ jealousy not of Jesus, but of Pilate himself, because he had the power to condemn to death and they did not.  Therefore, by putting the matter back in the hands of the crowds, Pilate was playing games with the Jewish authorities, something which they would not appreciate, and probably even regard as an insult.

The other possibility, which I prefer, is that Pilate wanted the crowd to make the decision about Jesus because he did not feel he could pronounce on the matter, as Jesus refused to defend himself and speak.  There is probably more we do not know about this than we do!

The intervention of Pilate’s wife

In the midst of this crisis, as the crowd was being manipulated and Jesus’ future was about to be decided, Pilate’s wife, traditionally named ‘Procla’, sent a message of caution to her husband.  She had been upset about what was happening because of a dream.  This is very interesting, because Matthew had presented God as speaking through dreams at the beginning of his Gospel (1:20; 2:12 etc.)!  Are we to see in this incident the same tragic theme of God sending messages by supernatural means?

It was well known that many wives of Roman officials stationed in Israel often became interested in Jewish affairs.  There is no direct evidence in Matthew that Pilate’s wife was affected in this way, but it is highly likely.  Whatever the truth, Procla told her husband of her dream as if to warn him away from condemning Jesus.  Christian tradition of later years certainly lists her as a God-fearer whose actions attempted to thwart the plans of Jesus’ evil accusers.  Romans were very taken, however, with the meaning of dreams, and a warning such as this from Pilate’s wife would not be lightly ignored by her husband, as we shall find out in the next study.

Matthew 27:11-19 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Application

There is something deeply impressive about Jesus’ ability to be focussed upon God’s purposes in the midst of the most enormous pressure.  All the things He had said and done lay in the past; they were the subject of the many allegations to which He did not respond, and Jesus was fixed on fulfilling His Father’s will rather than trying to defend Himself.  What was important now was ‘who’ he was; and this is why he answered both Pilate’s and Caiaphas’ question about his identity; ‘are you the King of the Jews?’, ‘are you the Messiah?’  without responding to any other questions.  God’s purpose for Him was to complete His supremely difficult task of facing all evil and death in order to bring about the salvation of humanity, and He would do this as both ‘King’ and ‘Messiah’.

One  thing we can take from this part of the story of the Passion is Jesus’ amazing example standing before the self interested Pilate.  It is easy to observe and admire Jesus’ focus on the purposes of God, but it is profoundly difficult for us to do the same.  We might not face the same life and death situation faced by Jesus, but we too often run away from opposition and from the responsibility to stand firm in God’s will.  Jesus said to His followers, ‘take up your cross and follow me’ (Matt 16:24), and this is surely the most profound and most difficult of challenges.  We can only do this if we yield to our Lord and live like Him and in His strength.  There is no other way to live the Christian life.

It is impossible to follow Christ without following Him on the pathway to the Cross, and part of t his means that we must stand as He did before those who oppose us and remain firm in faith.  Even more, we must sacrifice our lives if we want to be followers of Jesus, just as Jesus sacrificed His life so that we may follow Him.  Of course, this all sounds extreme, and some prefer their faith to be far more amenable.  However, the reason why God’s people celebrate the season of Easter is to remember the supreme sacrifice Jesus made so that we might be set free from our sins and have access to the Father as His own.  Of course, Jesus’ death is shrouded in mystery, but it is the key to our faith, and however mysterious a passage of scripture such as this sounds, we must be willing to let it speak to us about where we must walk if indeed we want to follow our Lord.

Matthew 27:11-19 (get text)   Study links:  / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /

Discipleship

Questions (for use in groups)

1. Discuss the silence of Jesus.  What does his silence mean, and why does He reply only occasionally?
2. Did Pilate make a mistake, or a deliberate mistake in offering the crowd the choice of Jesus or Barabbas?
3. What effect do you think that Jesus had on Pilate, and what effect did his wife make on what he felt about the situation he faced?

Topics covered by this text

• The pathway to the Cross
• Standing before ‘authorities’
• The example of Jesus before the world

Personal comments by author

Every disciple of Jesus stands in awe of the story of the Saviour standing upright and facing the accusations and political manoeuvring going on all around Him.  He remained focussed upon His calling and His Godly purpose in the midst of the most extreme of circumstances.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, we may gain strength to do the same.  There is no great merit in observing what Jesus has done for us and not preparing ourselves to follow in our master’s footsteps, even though we do not know what trials we will face.  Let us be prepared, and ready to follow His example!

Ideas for exploring discipleship

• You will often have faced difficult choices.  How do you go about making up your mind?  Do you make choices at random when it is hard to decide, or do you agonise over them?  Offer this to the Lord in prayer and see whether you need to change.
• Pray for people in positions of power over other people’s lives, perhaps not over life and death, but certainly over their jobs, for example.

Final Prayer

Holy Spirit, come and fill my life again with Your power and love and self control.  Power to follow through every aspect of my call; love to do this with compassion, care and purpose; and self control to make sure that I do not take credit for what You are doing.  Come, Holy Spirit, come!