Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew 26:50b-56)
Then all the disciples left him and fled.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
In Genesis 49, just as the patriarch Jacob is about to die, he gathers all his children together to give each of them a blessing.
About the two brothers Simeon and Levi he says:
“Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their wilfulness they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.”
This passage is a particular reference to that time when their sister Dinah was captured and humiliated by Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite. This young woman Dinah was defiled and disgraced, and Simeon and Levi wanted to defend her. So the sons of Jacob pretended to make an agreement with Shechem that he and all his men be circumcised according to God’s law, and then he could have her as his wife. So Shechem did what they said, but then Simeon and Levi, we read, “took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and went away. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister. They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys, and whatever was in the field.”
So Jacob says: “Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords… Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel!”
Later on, in the book of Exodus, we read about someone else who is born into this hot-headed family. “Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she was that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank.” This child is none other than Moses. Moses was from family, the tribe of Levi, this fierce family, this angry family. And as soon as Moses had grown up the first thing we read about him is this: “One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.”
So Moses fled to Midian. We read in Acts chapter 7, that Moses stayed there 40 years before the Lord appeared to him in the burning bush and sent him back to lead the people Israel out of Egypt.
Isn’t it amazing, how despite this violence, despite this hot-headedness, God still uses Moses, and calls him for a great purpose? God even calls the entire tribe of Levi to be the priests in the tabernacle and later in the temple.
In the same way, we see an eruption of violence in our reading tonight: “And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.”
In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, this particular disciple isn’t named, but in John, we are told that it was Peter who did this.
In so many different parts of the bible, we see people with all different types of character. And in both Moses and Peter, we see a certain anger that flares up here and there: Moses kills the Egyptian man, he smashes the first tablets of the 10 commandments. Peter also here lashes out against the servant of the high priest and cuts of his ear.
It is probably likely that Peter was trying to do a lot more damage than he actually managed to do.
But all throughout the gospels, we see a certain character in the person of Peter. He is described so vividly by the evangelists, that sometimes it almost feels as though we have met him personally. Many people say that Peter is one of their favourite people in the New Testament.
There’s always something about Peter that’s a little bit over the top. All of us know people like this: they’re never lukewarm, they’re only either hot or cold, they’ve either got their switch turned up on high or it’s off.
And so, when Jesus walks on the water, we see Peter say to him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” We see great faith in Peter, but also when he falls, the fall is great. One moment, Jesus says to Peter, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church”, and the next moment, only a few verses later when Peter rebukes Jesus for prophesying about his death, Jesus says to him, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me.”
And so, here, at the time of Jesus suffering, we see Peter dedicate himself to Jesus in such a bold and daring way. He says: “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away!” “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.”
And like all brave men, Peter is a man who doesn’t forget his words quickly, and is not about to let Jesus down.
So when he sees the soldiers come up and seize Jesus, Peter is ready to lead the charge, and pulls out his sword. Maybe he thought he was doing a great act of faith. All of the gospels tell us that the group that came with Judas was no little group: this was a great crowd. We don’t know exactly how many people were there, but it is enough for us to know that the disciples were well and truly outnumbered.
And so Peter taking the lead, draws out his sword and cuts of a man’s ear – and not just any man’s ear, but the high priest’s servant. In the gospel of John, we are even told his name: Malchus. And in the gospel of Luke, we are even told that Jesus touched his ear and healed him.
We know that Peter would have known the Old Testament very well, with passages about scrawny little David defeating the tall muscle-man of a hulk Goliath, and Gideon’s defeat of Midian with just 300 men. Peter probably thought he was part of the next glorious victory in the history of God’s people. If David and Gideon could win their victories, so could Peter. So let’s go! With Jesus on our side, we can easily defeat these people.
Jesus has other ideas. He says: Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?
Here’s the problem. Who has commanded Peter to attack? No-one. In fact, the fifth commandment says, “You shall not murder.”
Peter isn’t a soldier. It isn’t his vocation and calling to use the sword. His calling is simply to preach the gospel. There are certain people in our society who are called to use weapons, like soldiers who have to defend our country in war. But not individual citizens. Later on in his first letter, St Peter would write: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” St Paul writes in Romans 13: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”
You can see that God appoint people in our society who are permitted to use bodily violence: soldiers, police, and such like. But Peter is not permitted as a private citizen to use his sword, except perhaps for gutting fish.
People who are against religion often criticise it for starting wars. Some religions might start wars, but Christianity cannot be used as pretext for war, as is seen by the words of Jesus in our reading tonight. He says: “Put your sword back into its place. For those who take the sword will perish by the sword.” If you use the sword, it will be your fault when you are punished for it.
But wars do not exist between religions. Wars are carried out between nations. There have been many nations which have been primarily of one religion, but that does not mean that Christianity starts wars. Hitler didn’t invade Poland because of religion, the Japanese didn’t invade Pearl Harbour because of religion, the Hutus didn’t kill the Tutsis because of religion, Korea wasn’t about religion, Vietnam wasn’t about religion, neither was the Faulklands war, neither did the conflicts in recent years in Iraq, Kuwait, Pakistan and Afghanistan about religion. And if anyone wants to assert that any of these wars were started on religious pretexts, they are drawing pretty long bows. I have often heard people say about WWII that both sides thought that God was on their side. But Christianity is always compromised when people talk like this – it weakens the Gospel, and turns it into some sort of lucky charm. In 1 Samuel the Israelites tried to do this when they wrongly took the Ark of the Covenant into battle – and they lost the war.
Ask the people of Papua New Guinea (and other countries) what changed when Christianity came to their shores: they stopped fighting. Remember when Jesus was born, the angel said: “Peace on earth.” If Jesus Christ is taken out of nations, there will be much more war than there has ever been before. And when the atrocities of World War I and World War II are no longer in the living memories of the people of Europe, Japan, America and Australia, then there will probably be even more wars and even worse ones. But they won’t be about religion: they will happen between nations and they will take place between nations alone.
In the meantime, Jesus says to the citizens of his kingdom: Put your sword back into its place. There’s no room for your private vendettas, your petty revenge, and there is certainly no room for revolution. If Christians want to change things, it can only be done by prayer and through the preaching of the gospel. Those are the weapons that God has given to you: the word of God is the sword of the Holy Spirit – use that.
And so, Jesus here shows that he too is going to put himself under the governing authorities, even if they are doing the wrong thing, even if they are corrupt. He submits to this yoke and bears it, because it is sent by God and it is God’s will that Jesus bear the sin of the world.
And so Jesus shows to his disciples that he goes to his death willingly. He says: “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?”
Jesus holds back his own disciples from fighting, but he also holds back all the powers of heaven, the heavenly armies from fighting too. The angels are restrained, held back. Every Sunday we call God “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts”. He is the Lord of Sabaoth, in Hebrew. He is in charge of armies, his armies of angels and archangels. And he is also holy – wonderful, glorious, and dangerous. And it is a dangerous thing here that we see happen, when God doesn’t send his angels to fight on Jesus Christ’s behalf.
Jesus has every right to call on them, but he doesn’t. He is arrested willingly. We saw in our text last week that at the word “I am” the soldiers fell to the ground. But he still submits to their corruption, he bears all of this for our sake, because he wants us to be forgiven: he wants Peter to be forgiven and all his of disciples, and all Christians throughout history.
But then, Jesus points out the hypocrisy of the crowd. He says: “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.”
The conspiracy against Jesus doesn’t happen in public. It happens in the middle of the night, behind closed doors, in secret places. Those who listen to Jesus, and hear him out, cannot fault him. Psalm 2 says: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain against the Lord and his anointed?” Here we see the result of this raging and this plotting.
To slander and arrest the God who made you can only ever be done with a bad conscience. It isn’t the sort of thing that can be done in broad daylight. It is always done in darkness, behind closed doors.
Jesus is completely innocent. There is no charge brought against him that is worthy of his crucifixion. And if Jesus were to be arrested in broad daylight, it would have been obvious to everyone that he had said and done nothing wrong. So they come in the middle of the night with swords and clubs.
And so, with the disciples disarmed, and the crowd ready to arrest Jesus, we read: Then all the disciples left him and fled.
All the disciples. Not a single one was left. Jesus was alone now, and he would go to die for the sins of the whole world by himself.
In the Gospel of Mark, we read about an extra detail. It says: “And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.”
This passage shows us a couple of things. Part of the reason why the disciples ran away is because the soldiers probably had no intention of listening to Jesus’ words to let the disciples go free. They probably intended to arrest all of the disciples of Jesus with him. We read about this young man that they seized him.
Now why is this particular event mentioned? Some say that this young man may in actual fact be the evangelist Mark himself, who wrote this in his gospel to tell all the readers that he was there, as a kind of signature.
But no-one except Jesus was willing to be taken captive, and no-one except Jesus was capable of dying for the sins of the world.
In the meantime, examine yourself. Who do you think you are? Well, if you think you are Jesus, repent, because then you are a false prophet. So if you are not Jesus, then you are a person for whom Jesus is going to die. You are either running away from him or you are taking him captive and making every attempt to get rid of him. Either you are pushing him down or running away. This is what it means to be a sinner. You can’t have any other option. If you don’t want to be a sinner, and a sinner of such a kind as we find in our reading tonight, then you are not with Jesus. Because Jesus wants to be a sinner. Jesus isn’t a sinner, but he takes on our sin and feels it. He carries our griefs and bears our sorrow. St Paul says: He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus wants to be a sinner – and he willing goes to be punished with all God’s might as a sinner.
So run to him, stand under his cross and let his blood drop down upon you, let his prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane be your strength, and be a sinner with him. He has died for those who run away from him, and he has died for those who go out to arrest him with swords and clubs.
In his suffering, in his death, in his burial, Jesus is made into a sinner – in our baptism, we are made into a true saint, because we are covered with his blood, and we are forgiven by him.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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