Betrayed, Arrested, and Abandoned

Mark 14:43-52
Gary Wassermann | Sunday, August 15, 2021
Copyright © 2021, Gary Wassermann

Betrayed, arrested, and abandoned—these were the first three waves of suffering that Jesus endured as the time for him to be handed over to be killed had finally come.  These events happened in the early hours of Friday morning.  This begins a sequence of events that will move very quickly. From here, he will be led off. He will be brought before the Sanhedrin for a sham trial. He will be brought from there to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back to Pilate.  He will be flogged, he will be mocked, and he will be rejected by the crowd in favor of Barabbas.  Jesus will be crucified, and by 3 p.m. on that same day, he will be dead.  He will then be buried by Joseph of Arimathea before the sun goes down on Friday.

These three actions—betrayed, arrested, and abandoned—will be my three headings.  The subject of each of these actions was different.  Judas betrayed, the crowd arrested, and the disciples abandoned Jesus. And so under each of these headings we will consider those who were guilty of that deed.

Betrayed

In the state of Colorado there are still standing today stone structures that cliff-dwelling Pueblo Indians built and lived in until the late 1200s.  They are a monument to the ingenuity of the people who lived at that time.  But to me they are also a sad reminder of the generations upon generations upon generations of people who lived on this continent and never heard the name of Jesus Christ, people who never had the Bible.  I thank God for the people who came here from Europe.  As much as there was mixture in the motives of the crowd who came, there were some with a real missionary interest who brought the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ to the people who lived here.  This day we live in a land where everyone knows the name of Jesus and has access to the Bible.

But there is a greater horror than that of these past generations.  It is the horror of those who know Jesus and turn against him.  The greatest offender of that evil in history is Judas Iscariot.  Let us look at this wicked man, whom Jesus identified as “my betrayer.” There are three points I want to make about Judas that arise from this passage.

1. “Those who have been given a trust must prove faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2).

Our passage this morning introduces Judas as “one of the Twelve.”  Earlier, Mark 14:10 says, “Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them.”  In Mark 14:20, just a short time later, when Jesus says one of them will betray him, he says, “It is one of the Twelve.”  This emphasizes the trust that Judas had been given and hence the terrible character of his crime.

As one of the Twelve, Judas had been entrusted with much.  He had been entrusted with what would have enabled him to be preeminently godly.  He had been entrusted with personal knowledge of Jesus.  He knew that Jesus was a man of integrity who practiced what he preached.

This personal knowledge of Jesus also gave Judas a living, breathing example of what Jesus taught.  We often find simple teaching a mystery as to how to live it out until we see someone whose example we can follow.  And as for teaching, Judas had been entrusted with the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus explained all his teaching in private.

Judas was also entrusted with what could have equipped him for a powerful and authoritative ministry.  Judas was entrusted with honor in the eyes of the public.  The public associated the disciples with Jesus, and often the disciples were the first ones that people came in contact with.  For example, a man brought his severely afflicted son to the disciples to be healed when Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration in Mark 9.  And in John 12, when some Greeks wanted to see Jesus, they approached Philip, one of the Twelve.  Judas was likewise granted authority with the rest of the Twelve to go out and proclaim the kingdom of God.  He had the experience of sharing in the ministry of healing the sick and casting out demons in Jesus’ name.

Judas was given the trust that was needed for open fellowship with Jesus and the Twelve.  Fellowship is a real means of grace.  The prophet Elijah struggled because he thought he felt like he was the only one who was serving the Lord.  There is no doubt that Judas had greeted Jesus with a kiss many times before this evil night.  Even within the circle of the Twelve, Judas was given a position of confidence and trust, as he had charge of the money.

But Judas brazenly violated every trust given to him.  None of these things—not his privileges nor his honor nor his experience nor his inclusion—was a sort of merit badge given to him for his credit, for his use.  None of them was given on the condition only of his salvation.  None of them could substitute for obedient faith in the Son of God.  None of them guaranteed that he was bearing the fruit of the Spirit.

Narrow is the door and narrow is the road the leads to eternal life.  None of us will enter Christ’s eternal kingdom except by the road of repentance and faith.  We have all received great privileges, some greater than others.  We have all been well taught.  We have seen great examples of godliness.  We have enjoyed the fellowship of the saints here.  None of these things guarantee eternal salvation.  Present obedience to Jesus Christ is what each one of us needs.

2. Do not be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (Heb. 3:13).

A great sin, a severe sin, a heinous sin, generally does not come out of the blue.  People become ensnared in sin progressively over time.  First, it is a small sin that bothers the conscience initially. But after a time, that sin no longer provokes a feeling of guilt and shame.  It begins to feel normal.  Then a bigger sin is tried, and so it goes.  James 1:15 speaks about this progressive development: “After [a man’s own evil] desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Likewise, Jesus taught in Matthew12:43–45 that when an evil spirit comes out of a man and does not find rest, it returns with seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they live in the man.

So Judas also did not commit this heinous sin out of the blue. He grew harder and harder over time. But he did not have to depart to a far country to do it.  Judas loved money.  John 12:6 tells us, “He was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.”  And as he grew hardened, later, at the Last Supper, he defiantly and hypocritically said to Jesus, “Surely not I.” All of these led up to this final betrayal.

But what I am saying is that the text introduces him as “one of the Twelve.” All of this hardening occurred while he was in that circle of the Twelve.  He did not have to depart from their fellowship and join in the company of sinners to be hardened by associating with them for a time in order to be completely controlled by Satan and perform this most heinous sin.

The sins that Judas committed were either secret sins that his fellow disciples did not know about, or perhaps they were socially acceptable sins.  Perhaps some or all of the rest of the disciples were aware of Judas’ stealing from the money bag, but perhaps that sort of thing was common enough that it just did not seem like a big deal. After all, John the Baptist had told the tax collectors not to take more than they were required, and he told the soldiers not to extort people.  So perhaps this was simply an acceptable thing to do.

Either way, this betrayal demonstrates just how hardening secret sins and socially acceptable sins can be.  These are sins you could commit without leaving the church.  If such sins led Judas all the way to being filled with Satan himself, then there is no boundary that such sins cannot take you across.  Sin is deceitful.  It often looks small, and it almost always looks escapable.  Don’t fall for the devil’s lies.  Turn from sin.  Say “No” to the evil desires that rise up within you.  Be always watchful and prayerful.

3. Do not hide your sin. “Like a coating of glaze over earthenware are fervent lips with an evil heart.” (Prov. 26:23)

When Judas arrived with the mob behind him, he used a kiss as the signal to the enemies.  The crass evil of using something so close and so familiar for such a malicious purpose is beyond description.  This is the depravity of the sinfulness of the human heart.

But aside from that, the only reason for Judas to use a kiss as the signal is so that he could hide what he was doing.  If that were not the goal, he could simply have walked up, pointed out Jesus and said, “This is the man. Arrest him,” and it would have been easy and done.

But the question is: Hide it from whom?  From the crowds who would rise up to defend Jesus?  There were no crowds.  Jesus was practically alone except for his small band of mostly unarmed disciples and perhaps one or two who had awakened from the noise of the mob.

Then from whom?  From Jesus?  From Jesus who had just said, “Here comes my betrayer”?  Jesus knew all men, and he knew what was in man (John 2:24-25).  He had said in John 6:70, “One of you is a devil,” and in John 13:10, “Not every one of you [is clean].”  Jesus knew Judas better than Judas knew himself.  John 6:64 says, “Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.”  You cannot hide your purpose, your intentions, or any deeds from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Hebrews 4:13 says, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Was Judas trying to his intentions from the rest of the Twelve?  Was he hoping to stay on good terms with them when Jesus was taken away?  Judas certainly had fooled them up to this point, but it seems almost silly for him to try to maintain the ruse as he walks up at the head of the armed mob that arrested Jesus.  But even if he could, what good would it be?  If against all odds he managed to blend back in with the Twelve, what good would it be for him to associate with these men for a short time before he stood before the throne of the God he had betrayed and was condemned to eternal torment?  Your standing among men is of no value if you are under the wrath of God.

Was Judas trying to hide what he was doing from himself?  Did it somehow assuage his conscience to use what appeared to be an act of brotherly love?  That would be truly perverse, but such things are not foreign to the sinful mind.  The fact is that Judas was not his own judge.  The living God is his judge and everyone else’s judge.  Don’t play games with things that seem to make your sin to be a lesser sin.  Sin is sin.  If your thought, word, or deed is not upright in the sight of God according to his word, it is sin, period.

Arrested

Now we come to the crowd that came to arrest Jesus.  This was a large crowd.  The high priest’s personal servant, Malchus, was near the front.  There were officials from the chief priests and Pharisees, probably Levites who functioned as temple police and probably armed with clubs.  Along with them was a detachment of Roman soldiers.  The term used here designates a group of as many as 600 Roman soldiers, who would have been armed with swords.  Even if it was not fully 600 soldiers, it was a large number.  One person estimated this crowd could have been a thousand people, or it could have been something close to that. As a point of reference Sacramento has about 675–700 sworn police officers.  That includes the high-ranking chiefs all the way down the ranks. It includes the bomb squad, the SWAT team, and all the other divisions.  Imagine all the officers, every sworn officer of the entire Sacramento police department, showing up to make this arrest. It is almost comically excessive.

Picture them on the one side, and on the other, Jesus and his small number of disciples.  Jesus had no defense and no protection.  He was unarmed, and the disciples certainly were not ready for battle.  He was almost alone.  Jesus was not in fight mode, and he was not in flight mode.  The armed crowd that came to arrest him did not have the initiative or even the element of surprise.  Jesus went out to them.  As I said, this is almost a comical picture of excessive force.

So why such a big mob?  Why such force? First, it was because they misunderstood the Lord’s character.  They expected, perhaps, that he would be a sort of desperado as we see in Old West movies, the kind of criminal who makes a lifestyle of robbing stagecoaches or defenseless homesteaders. He knows that if he is ever caught, he’ll surely be put to death. So when a posse comes to apprehend him, he gathers his band together in order to make their last stand. And even if he knows that he has no way out, he intends to take as many of them down with him as possible.

It would be hard to find a greater contrast to Jesus.  To say that he was without guile and without malice would be a gross understatement.  He was the one who went about doing good.  He healed all sorts of people, and that without financial gain.  He never stirred up people to violence. He did not hide his purposes as he taught publicly.  In dealing with people, a bruised reed he would not break and a smoldering wick he would not put out.  But such is the perversion of sinful men that they consider those who are evil to be good and those who are good to be evil.

Second, this mob misunderstood his kingdom.  The chief priests obstinately clung to the idea that Jesus’ kingdom was a worldly kingdom to be defended and propagated by worldly means.  They expected him to rally his followers to take up arms and fight back in a pitched battle.  They did not understand what Jesus told Pilate a short time later in John 18:36: “My kingdom is not of this world.  If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews.  But now my kingdom is from another place.”  That is still the case today.  The kingdom of God is not advanced by jihad or by physical force in any other form.

The third reason the crowd was so big was that they had failed to bring him in in the past.  In Luke 4, when Jesus had announced his mission in the synagogue of Nazareth, the people drove him to the edge of the hill in order to throw him down the cliff, but he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. (GMW) Later, during one of the feasts in Jerusalem, the people there understood that the authorities were trying to kill Jesus but saw that they weren’t arresting him.  John 7:30 says, “They tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come.”  The chief priests and Pharisees then sent temple guards to arrest him, but the guards returned emptyhanded.  They said, “No one ever spoke the way this man does.”  That experience probably explains why the chief priests now requested Roman soldiers to join them for this arrest.  They needed a large crowd to reinforce one another and cover every sort of contingency and bring in this man who had eluded them for so long.

But this trouble in apprehending and arresting Jesus points to a basic truth.  If Jesus were a mere man, and if his mission were of human origin, then the size and power of this mob was irrationally excessive.  But if he were God, as indeed he was, and if his mission were from God, then this mob, however big it was, was a puny nothing, totally inadequate to apprehend him.

Recall the history of God’s men who could not be arrested.  King Saul tried to arrest David, and when Saul and his men were not diverted by a Philistine attack, the men he sent were overwhelmed by the Spirit of the Lord and they prophesied.  A second group of men were stopped the same way, and finally Saul himself went, and he too was overcome with the Holy Spirit, removed his royal robes, and prophesied.  When King Ahaziah sent fifty men to arrest Elijah, the prophet called down fire from heaven that consumed them.  The same thing happened a second time to a second group of fifty. And the third group of fifty only was able to bring Elijah back because the captain humbled himself and Elijah went with him willingly. When the king of Aram sent a strong force with horses and chariots to arrest the prophet Elisha, God sent an angelic force with horses and chariots of fire to protect him.  The Arameans were blinded, captured, and sent away.  Now, to be sure, at times God freely chose not to protect his servants.  Jeremiah was arrested.  The apostles were arrested.

But now one greater than David and Elijah and Elisha was here.  No force on earth could overpower him.  He had only to speak the words, “I am,” the most profound statement of God’s self-identification, and John 18:6 tells us that the crowd drew back and fell to the ground.  And as if his inherent power were not enough, he had all the resources of heaven at his disposal. After Peter struck a man with his sword, Jesus stopped him and said, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:53).

Who was this crowd before him?  For that matter, what are all the combined forces of hell and all the combined forces of men against the Sovereign, Almighty Lord? They are as nothing.

Why, then, did they succeed?  Only because Jesus allowed them to.  His arrest was necessary for the work he had come to do.  And “only because God allows it” is the only reason anyone ever gets away with sin.

But that did not excuse what they did.  Jesus addressed them as if to hold up a mirror for them to see what they were doing.  They knew he wasn’t committing a crime.  They knew he wasn’t leading a violent rebellion.  Why, then, were they treating him like he was?  They didn’t arrest him while he was accessible during the day.  Why, then, did they search him out at night?  Who were the criminals here?

Learn something from this armed, but severely mistaken crowd.  Do you treat Jesus as an enemy?  Do you treat him as one to be avoided or suppressed?  Why?  He did not come to steal or kill or destroy.  In all his actions and in all his teachings, he never promoted evil.  He never harmed or misled the humble.  He came to give us life and that abundantly.  Probably some people in that crowd reflected on what Jesus said, and later repented and acknowledged that Jesus was righteous.  You can do that too.  The door of repentance is open.  Look at who Jesus is and respond to him accordingly.

Abandoned

The third wave of suffering that crashed over Jesus was his abandonment.  There is a limit to how much other people can do for us in our times of trouble and sorrow.  Proverbs 14:10 says, “Each heart knows its own bitterness.”  But what sort of help can people offer?  Well, sometimes people can provide practical help.  Sometimes they can express sympathy or bring a word of encouragement.  And so even if what others can do is limited, even if the sympathy they can express is like a single drop, yet how thankful we are to receive it.  A mere drop of sympathy has proved inexpressibly and immeasurably soothing, sweetening many a trial and lightening the pressure of many a burden.  But Jesus did not receive even one drop.

Why was there no one to stand with him?  All of the disciples had earlier said that they would never fall away, and Peter was especially emphatic about it.  He declared he would even die with Jesus.  Probably if Jesus had resisted the crowd and fought back, then perhaps Peter and even the rest of the disciples would have stood with him.  Perhaps Peter would have stood with him and fought alongside him to protect him even to the death. John 18:10 tells us that it was Peter who struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.  But it was not just Peter.  Luke 22:49 says that the disciples said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?”  Probably all of them were thinking the same thing, but Peter was one of only two of them who actually had a sword with him at the time.  Jesus had to stop this. This was not the kind of help he needed.

But if they were ready to fight with him, why at his trial did none of them stand with him?  When he was being slandered and falsely accused, why did no one show up to speak a word on his behalf?  If they were not to defend Jesus, why did no one have a word to strengthen him?

The answer is that the disciples did not understand the cup that the Father had given Jesus to drink.  They did not understand Jesus’ mission. They did not understand that he had to bear the sin of the world on the cross, and there to die to make atonement for sinners.

One of the most basic desires we have is to be understood.  We want someone to be able to understand what we are going through and what our perspective is.  Jay Adams wrote about the need for husbands to understand their wives and the experiences their wives go through. No doubt wives want to be understood, and so does everyone else.

But Jesus was not understood. At the time Jesus called the disciples to pray, they slept.  As a result, they were graceless.  They had in mind the things of men rather than the things of God, and they had no idea about God’s purposes when that crowd arrived.  Don’t be like them.  Don’t be prayerless, empty of the word of God, and empty of grace.  You will not be fit for doing anything good, just as the disciples were unfit for doing anything good.  As Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

If the disciples had prayed, if they had received grace from God, they certainly would not have caused trouble by striking wildly.  Perhaps they could have said a word to Jesus about the faithfulness of God. Or they could have reminded Jesus about what he himself had said earlier, that at the end of the path of obedience to the Father was a promise that Jesus would be raised again on the third day.

But Jesus was betrayed and arrested, and no one understood him.  His disciples had convulsed, and when they realized that nothing that was about to happen made any sense to them, and when they saw the crowd, they all deserted him and fled.

Mark alone records the account of the unidentified young man.  Many have supposed that this young man was Mark himself, and that may be the case. But no one has any evidence to go on other than the same Bible that we all have.  It seems that this young man was sleeping, perhaps wearing a normal undergarment. And the noise of the crowd probably caused him to startle awake, so he took up whatever was closest at hand, wrapped it around him, and he probably saw that they were forcibly leading Jesus away bound, and he began to follow out of concern for Jesus.  A young man straight out of bed posed no threat, but someone laid hold of him, and he too fled.  Jesus was utterly alone as pertains to friends or supporters.

We must not quickly pass by the depth of suffering that Christ went through in accomplishing our redemption.  Psalm 69:20 speaks prophetically of his suffering.  It says, “Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.”  To be abandoned was a heavy grief for Jesus Christ, the man of sorrows.

But praise be to Jesus Christ, who bore this burden for us, though he bore it alone.  Now, I don’t want to introduce any confusion of terms here.  The great Reformation doctrine of solo Christo, or “Christ alone,” means that Christ’s blood and righteousness alone satisfy divine justice.  But so fall short did man fall from the glory of God that not only was no one qualified to satisfy divine justice, no one also sought out or helped along the One who was. No one walked with him as he bore that wrath.

But this had been Jesus’ heaven-given mission from the beginning. Isaiah 59:15–16 says, “The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice.  He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him.”  This was Christ’s mission.

In Isaiah 63, we see him through the eyes of prophecy coming out the other side of that mission.  In Isaiah 63:1 we read that there is someone coming whose garments are stained red.  He is striding forward.  He is glorious and impressive to behold.  The prophet asks, “Who is this?” and the answer comes, “It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.”  The prophet asks, “Why are your garments [stained] red, like those of one treading the winepress?”  In verse 3 he answers, “I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me.”

He went alone.  In Gethsemane he said, “Stay here and watch with me, while I go over there and pray.” And when from that scene of his conflict and anguish he returned, sobbing and bloody, to receive help in his grief by their compassion—but look! They slept.  He was alone.  At his arrest, they all deserted him.  He was alone.  So alone he went to his trial, alone he went to the cross, and utterly alone he died, drinking to the last drop the cup his Father had given him.  And in so doing he triumphed over his enemies.  He trampled them underfoot. He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over the serpent, crushing his head. Christ is victorious!

And all of this he did not do for himself alone, but in order to justify many.  He did not remain alone.  He saw his offspring.  He became the firstborn of many brothers.

Trust in him.  If he walked that path alone, he is all-sufficient for all your confidence. He is mighty to save.  He who bore this burden alone in his weakness is mighty in his glory to receive sinners.

And if your trust is in him, cheer up.  He promised never to leave you.  Obey his commands and remain in his love.  People may let you down.  Psalm 27:10 says, “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.”  At best, they simply may not be available at the time of your need.  But Christ will be.  The apostle Paul testified that when no one else stood with him, the Lord stood at his side and gave him strength (2 Tim. 4:17).  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He will not forsake us in life, he will not forsake us in death, and he will not forsake us in eternity. Amen.