Betrayed and Beaten
Betrayed and Beaten
Matthew 26:47-56
If you can, try to put yourself in the place of the disciples and imagine how they felt as the events of our Scripture unfold around them. Or, should I say, as events unravel around them. They have pinned their hopes on Jesus – on the fact that he was their Messiah.
We have diluted the meaning of “messiah” so that we hardly know what it actually meant for them. When we refer to the Messiah, we think of the simplest definition: the anointed one. And the scriptures that point to Jesus from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and the others, we call “Messianic”. Jesus is the Messiah. By the way, the Greek for “messiah” is Cristovς (Christos) or Christ. We can say either, Jesus the Christ or Jesus the Messiah – one is Greek, the other Hebrew, they mean the same thing. But when we say “Messiah”, we are referring to Jesus. The word means a lot more than that, and for the disciples the connotations of the word were immense. Let’s put this in perspective.
God instructed Moses to anoint Aaron to be the first High Priest. Aaron was the “anointed one,” the one selected by God to stand between God and Israel, to be the mediation of God’s word to them, and to be the intercessor for them to God. He was the only one allowed into the Most Holy Place, and it was under his direction alone that sacrifices were made. Successive high priests were likewise anointed in an elaborate ritual. It is not, as some want to suggest, equivalent to the ordination of a pastor, but more like the accession of the pope.
Then, when the people demanded a king, so they could be just like the surrounding nations, God sent Samuel to select and anoint a king. The first king chosen was Saul, who failed to uphold the holiness of God and disobeyed the explicit instructions. Seeing that Saul had failed, God sent Samuel to anoint David, the youngest son of Jesse. The Bible brings us to this through the story of Ruth and Boaz. We know that David sinned, but we also know that he was ready to repent. He was the “sweet singer of Israel,” and the first righteous king. We don’t have time to give a biography of David. Suffice it to say that the anointing was, first of all, a choosing. It was an elevating, lifting the anointed one over his countrymen. It signified the presence of the Holy Spirit on that person.
1 Samuel 16:13 says that when David was anointed from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. And, even though David was anointed to succeed Saul, he considered the anointing of Saul sacred, so that even when Saul was within his grasp, even when David could have killed his enemy, he refused to touch the Lord’s anointed one (1 Sam 24:6, 10; 26:9, 11, 23). The man who killed Saul was put to death by David because he dared to violate the anointed one of God (2 Sam 1:14-16). But then, with Saul dead, the Israelites publicly anointed David to be their king. The “anointed one,” then was singular – either the High Priest or the King.
We spoke recently about the messianic fever that gripped Jerusalem at that Passover. The Jews, oppressed by the Roman occupation, and with a history of exile and subjection by other powers, from Assyria to Babylon, to Persia, to Greece, to the Seleucids, and then by Rome, wanted, more than anything else, to have a messiah arise, drive out the oppressors, stand as king over Israel and usher in a new golden age of freedom and prosperity. They wanted a soldier-king like David to rise up and set them free. That messianic fever had given rise to the Zealot party, who believed that only by force could the Romans be driven out and the Messiah’s kingdom be established. They were ready to fight. So, all that to say this: that they considered Jesus to be their Messiah meant the future of Israel. It meant the Romans driven out. It meant a new Davidic kingdom. It meant freedom. It meant prosperity. It might mean war, but it would be a war of independence with God’s angels fighting on their side. It was everything they hoped for, and to follow a messiah was to pin your life and your hope on that person. He was IT!”
To follow Jesus was like the last line of the Declaration of Independence: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Everything was on the line if Jesus was the Messiah. He was their Emancipation Proclamation.
So, now we come to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus has prayed the great prayer of submission to the Father’s will. His face is set. He turns to face the approaching enemy. While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. Remember Matthew 26:14-16, where Judas plotted with the chief priests for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them. Now is his chance, and he comes with a crowd armed with swords and clubs. We’ve prettied it up by suggesting that there were soldiers sent to arrest Jesus. No, it was a mob of ruffians and hooligans. The chief priests had recruited a gang of street thugs to arrest Jesus.
I imagine that Judas tried to be nonchalant, as if nothing had changed between Jesus and him. The pre-arranged signal was a kiss, which, by the way, was not an unusual thing. Friends often greeted one another with a quick peck on the cheek. Even today, in parts of the world, it is customary for friends to greet one another this way. And, “Greetings, Rabbi,” as if this was a normal approach to his teacher. But something inside Judas had changed. We’ll come back to Judas in a few weeks. Because the story here is not about Judas. Jesus tells him, and those with him, to get on with it – “Do what you came for.”
Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his hear. John adds detail here, telling us that it was Peter who swing the sword and that the servant’s name was Malchus (Jn 18:10). Luke relates that Jesus touched the man’s ear and healed him (Lk 22:51). Jesus rebuked the attacker, telling him to put his sword away. Jesus was not resisting. “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” (Jn 18:11). His kingdom would not be ushered in with violence, even though violence was required to make the sacrifice for sin.
I told you earlier that Jesus was in full control. No one was going to take his life – he was giving his life freely. And here’s more proof of that. When Peter tried to defend Jesus from the thugs, Jesus reminded him of his power. “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” The song says, “He could have called ten thousand angels.” The armies of heaven were at his command.
St. Michael summoned armies as hammers rang upon a cross
And watched in heavy anguish as the Son paid sin’s dread cost.
The angel started forward, “My Lord, I must protest!”
The Father reached and stopped him, his arm ‘crost Michael’s chest.
“My child, just stop a moment, and trust that I know best.
Just watch.” 1
Jesus could have avoided the cross. But, no, he couldn’t. Because this was the way of salvation set in motion in the Garden, when God promised Eve the seed of a woman that would crush the Serpent’s head. And this was what the Psalmist foresaw in Psalm 22. And this is what Isaiah promised in Isaiah 53. He could have called heaven’s mighty army to defeat the Romans, “but how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?” Jesus could have defeated the Romans, but he chose to atone for your sin and mine. Jesus could have conquered the Romans, but he chose to conquer death. He chose your salvation and your future over his own life.
The Florida Boys sang a song with these words: “Though His eyes were on the crowd that day, He looked ahead in time, 'Cause when He was on the cross I was on His mind.”2 Jesus had an easy way out, but he chose the hard way. He chose the way of salvation. Because that’s what God had planned.
I need to remind us once again of Matthew’s purpose in writing the gospel. This is not just the story of Jesus. We noted at the very beginning that Matthew’s purpose was two-fold. He was presenting Jesus as inaugurating the kingdom of heaven on earth. The inaugural sermon was what we call the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus points out how the kingdom of heaven is different from the kingdoms of the world. Jesus’ parables are mostly kingdom parables. Jesus begins each one, “The kingdom of heaven is like ...” The kingdom of heaven operates this way. This is a characteristic of kingdom citizens.
Matthew’s second purpose, evident from the very beginning, is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies. Matthew 1:22 – All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet ... The story of the Magi, kings from the east, fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 60:3 - Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Herod’s murder of the innocents fulfills Jeremiah 31:15, and Matthew uses the flight to Egypt to fulfill Hosea 11:1 - Out of Egypt I called my son. He shall be called a Nazarene fulfills Isaiah 11:1, where we learned that nazer is the word for Branch. John the Baptist fulfills Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1. And we could go on. At every step in the story, Jesus is fulfilling important prophecies that point to his identity as the promised Messiah. Matthew uses the fulfillment of the prophecies as a calling card, as a birth certificate, as a way of authenticating Jesus as Messiah. The fulfillment of prophecy is proof of identity.
So, twice in our text, Matthew has Jesus refer to the fulfillment of prophecy. As he rebukes Peter and tells him to put away his sword, Jesus asks, “But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” And then, speaking to the crowd of thugs, he tells them, “This has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” As a disciple who dearly loved his Master, Matthew must have been deeply grieved, and perhaps deeply angry, as events played out and as Jesus was arrested. But in time, he came to see that it all happened just as God had planned. Even to the very last, Jesus was fulfilling prophecy. And we will see more of it as we go along.
Jesus knew the answer, but he asked an important question: Why now? Why in this secret place? He had taught openly, every day in the temple courts for the past week. They could have arrested him at any time. He was not hiding from them. The answer of course, was that they were afraid. They were afraid of the people who considered Jesus a prophet. They were afraid of causing a riot and bringing the wrath of Rome down upon them. It was fear the drove them. The real answer to the “why now?” was that it had to happen a certain way in order to fulfill the prophecies.
So they took Jesus into custody and led him away. We will follow him in the weeks ahead.
We are hard on Judas for betraying Jesus, and hard on Peter for denying Jesus. But they all bear the same blame. They all ran away. They scattered like frightened rabbits. Matthew writes, and I imagine his own shame as he wrote it, Then all the disciples deserted him and fled. So great was their terror, Mark adds, that one of them, unnamed, was wearing just his linen garment, a sort of nightshirt. When they seized him, Mark notes, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind (Mk 14:51-52). It was just as Jesus had said back in verse 31 – “This very night you will all fall away on account of me.” Peter declared his willingness to die with Jesus; the others did the same, professing that they would never disown him. But when the mob arrived, they all fled. They all abandoned him.
Here, perhaps, is where the lesson lands for us: We claim to follow Christ. We claim the name “Christian.” If someone were to ask us if we are Christians, we would all likely say yes. But what if someone criticizes Christians - do you speak up? What if someone uses the name of Jesus as a curse - do you speak up? When someone wants to know the good news of Christ - do you speak up? Do we confess Christ without shame or embarrassment? Are you embarrassed to be known as a Christian? What will you do in your Gethsemane? Will you run? Or will you cling to him?
1 David W. Edwards, Just Watch, © 2025, all rights reserved.
2 Ronnie Hinson & Ronald Michael Payne, When He Was On The Cross, lyrics © Wind In Willow Publishing Company