Jesus has taught his disciples everything he can right now.
They are going to learn so many more things after he dies and rises again, but on this side of the cross and on this side of the resurrection, he has taught them everything that he can teach them for now.
In John’s Gospel, in John 16, he says:
“I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now.”
—John 16:12, WEB
That is the point that they are at now.
He has taught them everything he can for now, and that means that it is time for Jesus to go die.
It is time for Jesus to go give his life.
And so that is exactly what he is going to do.
The Religious Leaders Plot to Kill Jesus
All throughout all of this, we’ve seen hints of it throughout Matthew’s Gospel, but the entrenched religious leaders in Israel have been plotting to kill Jesus, to get rid of Jesus, to get him out of their way.
We have talked extensively throughout our time in Matthew’s Gospel about the fact that the fundamental problem that the religious leaders had was not that they didn’t understand Jesus.
The problem that they had was not that they just had a misunderstanding with Jesus or a difference of opinion with Jesus.
The problem that the religious leaders had is that they could absolutely see the signs.
They could see all the ways that Jesus fulfills every single one of the prophecies that the Old Testament gave us about the coming Savior and Messiah.
They could clearly see that Jesus was the divine King that rules over all of creation.
They could clearly see that Jesus is the truer and better and greater prophet of the Lord.
They could clearly see that Jesus is the divine lawgiver who gave the Law of Moses.
They can clearly see that Jesus is that Savior, that suffering servant that Isaiah talks about, that is born of a virgin and comes from the tribe of Judah and comes from the line of David, and so on and so forth.
They can clearly see that Jesus is the Savior and King and God that we have been waiting for for all of history.
And yet they don’t like what they see, because Jesus is not what they were looking for.
We’ve talked about this again and again and again, but these entrenched religious leaders, they wanted something very specific out of the Messiah.
They wanted a conquering king.
They wanted a conqueror who would conquer the Roman Empire, take over the Roman Empire, who would seize control over the Roman Empire after destroying its armies and destroying its rulers and so on and so forth.
And they wanted to replace the Roman Empire with the Israelite Empire.
They wanted to rule over all of the territories that Rome had taken over.
They didn’t just want to be free.
They didn’t just want liberation.
They didn’t just want to be released from their captivity.
They wanted to be the ones taking everybody else captive.
They wanted to go from being at the bottom of the barrel to being the top dog.
They didn’t just want to stop being conquered.
They wanted to be the conqueror.
And so they wanted a revolutionary king.
They wanted an insurrectionist king who would raise up an army of Israelites, conquer Rome, and then go conquer all the rest of the world so that there would be a worldwide empire with all the other peoples of the world being subjects to Israel, slaves to Israel.
So these entrenched religious leaders had a worldly definition of power, and their worldly definition of power fundamentally distorted their understanding of God and of his Word and of the coming Messiah.
So when they see this man Jesus, who fulfills absolutely every one of the prophecies about this coming Messiah, but who viciously rejects their wicked imperial desire to conquer the rest of the world and force them into subjection to Israel, they were furious.
They became scared.
So they said, “We have to kill this man so that someone else can come and be the Messiah.”
They said, “We have to kill this man so that he doesn’t gain control of Israel and lead the Israelites away from everything we’ve been trying to build.”
Jesus was a threat to their power and their prestige, and he was a threat to their worldly desires, their empire fantasy.
The Charge Against Jesus
So they come up with a perfect plan.
This is genuinely—it’s evil, but it is unbelievably impressive.
This is a beautiful plan, just from a scheming perspective.
They go to the Roman government, and they tell the Roman government that Jesus is a revolutionary insurrectionist who is claiming to be the true King of Israel and is going to raise up an army to fight against Rome.
Take a second and think about just the poetry in that, the irony in that.
The Pharisees and Sadducees want the Messiah to be a revolutionary.
They hate Jesus because he’s not a revolutionary.
And so they kill Jesus by telling Rome that he is a revolutionary.
They plot to kill Jesus by telling Rome that he is an insurrectionist, that he is going to raise up an army to try to topple the Roman government.
They tell Rome that he is what they wanted him to be because they know that Rome is desperate to crush anyone who has revolutionary aspirations, insurrectionist aspirations.
So they go to Pilate specifically, and they say, “Pilate, Jesus claims to be the King of the Jews.”
Now, he would know exactly what they’re talking about when they say “King of the Jews.”
All throughout the early period there, during the time when Israel was captive to Rome, again and again and again terrorist groups would form, and they would do terrorism.
They would do insurrections.
They would try to stir up revolutions.
They would try to raise up armies to conquer Rome, to fight against Rome, to topple Rome.
And every single time, there would be a guy who claims to be the King of the Jews.
So if you claimed to be the King of the Jews, the way that people would interpret that was, “I am a conquering king who’s going to raise up an army and destroy Rome.”
That is the way that Pilate would have heard that and interpreted that.
So they know exactly what they’re telling him.
That is why Pilate is so confused when he comes to Jesus and says, “So, hey, are you King of the Jews?”
And Jesus is like, “You know, my kingdom is actually not of this world,” right?
That is John chapter 19.
We’ll get to that in a few months.
But Jesus says, “This is not a worldly kingdom. I am not here to conquer. I am not here to raise up an army. I am not here to set up a worldly political system. I am not here to create a Christian nation. That’s not me that’s trying to do that. That’s the Pharisees. That’s the Sadducees. That’s those guys. They’re the ones who are trying to create a theocracy. They’re the ones who are trying to create a kind of religious state. It’s not me. My kingdom is not a worldly kingdom. My kingdom is not of this world. I am not the kind of king that they were looking for, and I am not the kind of king that you are afraid of.”
That’s why Pilate is so confused.
He keeps saying, “Are you the King of the Jews or not?”
They go to Pilate, and they tell him, “This man is claiming to be the King of the Jews. He is trying to stir up a revolution. He’s trying to stir up an insurrection. He is trying to raise an army to topple Rome.”
And they know that Pilate has to kill him.
Pilate Has His Back Against the Wall
Pilate is a governor.
As governor, Pilate is responsible for keeping order.
Specifically, he’s responsible for keeping order over the occupied subjects of Rome, people like the Jews, people like Israelites who were conquered by Rome and are now not citizens of Rome, but rather they are subjects of Rome.
They’re an occupied people group.
It’s very, very much like in the 1800s and the 1700s, the way that so many of the native tribes were viciously conquered by the United States government, and they were not considered citizens of the U.S.
They were considered subjects of the U.S., and the American government kept its boot on their neck in really cruel and vicious ways.
The Trail of Tears, so many other frankly genocidal moves that were taken by the U.S. government.
That is the situation that the Israelites were in.
And so there were constant uprisings.
There were constant revolutions, constant insurrections, because they wanted to throw off the boot, the chains, the yoke of Rome.
Pilate’s job is to stop those insurrections from happening, to stop those revolutions from happening.
Pilate will be executed if there is a revolution.
If there is an insurrection, Pilate will be killed by the Roman government for failing so spectacularly at his job.
But Pilate will be rewarded by the Roman government for every single would-be revolutionary group, insurrectionist group, every terrorist leader that he puts to death.
He is rewarded for it by the Roman government.
So they go to Pilate and they say, “Hey, we’ve got a revolutionary, insurrectionist, terrorist leader for you who claims to be King of the Jews and wants to raise up an army against you. So would you like to leave him, or would you like to kill him?”
What do you think Pilate is going to choose?
Pilate has his back against the wall.
He has to kill Jesus, or else he will be in more trouble than he’s ever been in in his entire life.
So Pilate reluctantly agrees to kill this man, Jesus.
And so the great irony in all of this is that a revolutionary is exactly what the religious leaders wanted.
They hate Jesus because he isn’t a revolutionary.
He isn’t an insurrectionist.
He isn’t going to raise up an army and conquer Rome.
That is the reason they hate him.
That is the core problem that they have with him.
But they are falsely claiming that he is and turning him in to the Roman government that they hate so that the government will kill him, so that someone else will come along who does want to conquer and they can follow him as Messiah instead.
Judas Wanted a Different Kind of Messiah
But here’s the crazy thing.
It is not just the Pharisees and Sadducees and entrenched religious leaders who have a problem with the message of Jesus.
It is also his own disciples.
Judas does what he does probably because Jesus refused to raise an army and topple Rome.
In order to understand why Judas betrays Jesus, we have to understand that his name is Judas, and that’s a very specific name.
Okay, there are no kids today named Adolf.
You know why?
It’s because the name Adolf just belongs to Hitler now.
Nobody has a toothbrush mustache anymore, right?
Because the toothbrush mustache just belongs to Hitler now.
In the same way, very few people name their kids Stalin because the name Stalin just belongs to Joseph Stalin now, and so on and so forth, right?
Immediately, we would associate those names with these extremely recognizable historical figures, and we don’t want to.
The name Judas was associated with Judas Maccabeus.
He was a famous Jewish revolutionary insurrectionist leader who raised up an army to fight against the Babylonian, the Persian government that was subjugating the Jews during their time of captivity.
And so if you named your child Judas, it meant that you were a family that admired this revolutionary leader, Judas Maccabeus.
It meant that you were a family that looked up to this insurrectionist leader, Judas Maccabeus.
Judas’s parents were revolutionaries.
Judas’s parents were insurrectionists.
Judas’s parents were political extremists who fantasized and dreamed about a conquering king coming and overthrowing Rome.
Judas was raised by people who were so serious about that that they named their child Judas.
So what do you think Judas was hoping to get out of following Jesus?
He was hoping that Jesus is going to be a conquering king who starts a revolution, raises up an army, and overthrows Rome.
How do you think Judas felt when Jesus persistently refused to do that?
At a certain point, he would have said, “I’m wasting my time here. This is not the one.”
Or maybe he thought, “If I go turn Jesus into the authorities, it will force him to defend himself, and that will kick-start the war where he overthrows Rome.”
It’s probably one of those two things.
We don’t know which one it is.
But for whatever reason, Judas is so disillusioned that Jesus refuses to be a conquering king who raises up an army and overthrows Rome and starts the revolution that he goes and he betrays him.
Peter Draws His Sword
But there’s a funny thing, because it’s not just Judas.
Because at exactly the same time, Peter is also clearly very disillusioned and angry that Jesus refuses to be a conquering king who starts a revolution and raises up an army and overthrows Rome.
Because at exactly the same time, again and again and again, every time Jesus talks about being arrested and taken away and killed, Peter says, “No, I will never let that happen.”
And then when the police come to arrest Jesus, what does Peter do?
He pulls out his sword and he attacks.
He literally cuts a dude’s ear off.
Why does he pull out his sword?
One, he’s defending Jesus, obviously.
But there’s clearly more than that going on.
I think the implication is that Peter thinks, “This is it. It’s time to fight back. The authorities are coming after Jesus. Now he’s going to defend himself. This is it. This is the day. The war is going to begin now. The revolution is going to begin now. Today is the day that we have been waiting for. Now is the time.”
So he pulls out his sword, and he gets ready to fight.
And he thinks Jesus is going to fight with him.
He thinks Jesus is going to fight alongside him.
He thinks Jesus is going to call out all these people who’ve been following him, the hundreds, even the thousands of people whose lives he has touched, the thousands of people who have put their faith in him.
He is going to call them out of the woodwork.
They are going to take up their swords, and they are going to go and fight.
And even though they’re outnumbered by Rome, the Lord is going to come and aid them and is going to overthrow this wicked government that has been putting their boot on their necks for all this time.
And now Rome will be destroyed.
Rome will be overthrown.
And Israel will be the new empire over all the Earth.
I think that is what Peter thinks is about to happen.
And I think that’s what Judas thinks is about to happen.
But then Jesus does the most shocking thing he possibly could.
He says, “Put your freaking sword away, Peter.”
He says, “We don’t live by the sword. My kingdom is not coming through force. My kingdom is not coming through coercion.”
He says:
“For all those who take the sword will die by the sword.”
—Matthew 26:52, WEB
He says, “I could call 10,000 angels to come and fight for me right now, but I didn’t come here to conquer, Peter. You have to listen to me. I came here to die.”
And so he goes.
He allows himself to be arrested.
Peter and Judas: Two Sides of the Same Coin
And Peter is so distraught.
He is so devastated.
He is so disillusioned.
He is so dumbfounded and so gut-punched by all of this that he flees.
He runs and he hides.
And he denies that he even knows Jesus.
For a time, Peter turns his back on Jesus.
People keep saying, “Hey, you’re one of his disciples, aren’t you?”
And he keeps saying, “No, I’m not.”
And finally he says, “Listen, I am not with him. I am not his follower. I am not his disciple. I am not one of his people.”
And he says, “May a curse be upon me if I am not telling the truth.”
He’s literally saying, “May I go to hell if I am not telling you the truth. I am not a Christian.”
This is as hard of a break as you can make from following Jesus.
Peter literally abandoned Jesus here in every sense of the word.
And so it’s really important that we not misunderstand what’s happening here.
Peter and Judas are the same.
Peter and Judas are two sides of exactly the same coin.
Both Peter and Judas want Jesus to be a conqueror.
Both of them are devastated when he refuses to be.
Both of them betray and abandon Jesus.
Both of them deserve to be cursed.
But only one of them gets what they deserve.
Judas is not uniquely bad and evil.
Judas is exactly like Peter.
And frankly, Judas is exactly like the rest of the disciples.
Frankly, Judas is exactly like you and me, constantly being pulled away by our worldly desires, constantly being drawn away by our sinful nature.
You and I are exactly like Judas.
Our hope is not in the fact that we are better people and better Christians than Judas.
Our hope is in the profound grace of God that has been poured out onto us and that could have been poured out on Judas.
Why is Peter restored but Judas condemned?
It has nothing to do with Jesus.
It has everything to do with Judas.
Peter goes to Jesus, and he repents and is restored.
He runs to Jesus for restoration.
But Judas runs from Jesus, and he hides away from God, and he kills himself in shame.
He refuses to allow Jesus to restore him.
Imagine if Judas had lived.
Imagine if he had stayed.
Imagine if he had come back and Jesus had met Judas on the shore, on the beach, and Jesus had said, “I restore you, and go feed my sheep.”
That would have been the most beautiful picture of the Gospel ever in history.
Jesus can absolutely forgive his betrayer.
And that is gloriously good news for you and me.
Jesus Is Tempted in the Garden
But so Peter and Judas are tempted, and they fail the test.
They succumb to temptation.
Jesus is also tempted, but he passes the test.
Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane on the night that he’s going to be arrested and killed, and he is filled with fear.
Jesus is afraid in this moment.
Jesus is filled with dread in this moment.
Jesus doesn’t want to be crucified.
He chose this himself.
This was his idea.
He willingly came down from heaven so that he could give himself in our place, so that we could be redeemed and forgiven.
This is on purpose.
But that doesn’t make it any easier for him.
Jesus is scared.
He is filled with dread, and he is tempted to flee.
He is tempted to give up.
He is tempted to abort mission.
He is being tempted here.
But instead of giving in to that temptation, he submits to God’s will and calling.
And so this is very important.
Adam and Eve were tempted in a garden, and they gave in and rebelled against God, which broke the world.
Jesus is also tempted in a garden, but he rejects that temptation, and he submits to God’s will.
He obeys God’s will.
He gives himself to the Lord’s will.
And he undoes the fall.
When Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden, it condemned us.
But when Jesus obeys in the garden, it redeems us.
Jesus passed where Adam and Eve failed.
And because that is true, you and I can be redeemed and restored through the cross.
Jesus is tempted by the devil in the garden, but he says no where Adam and Eve said yes.
He submits where they rebelled.
He obeys where they committed cosmic mutiny.
And through that, we are saved.
Paul says in First Corinthians:
“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”
—1 Corinthians 15:22, WEB
And so Jesus willingly goes to the cross despite his fear and despite his dread and despite his terror and all the sufferings that are about to come to him.
His horror that he is about to bear all the suffering of the world, all the sin of the world.
He is horrified, and yet he does not give in to the temptation to flee.
He submits.
He obeys.
And by his obedience to the point of death, we are redeemed.
What Happened on the Cross?
He goes to the cross, and on the cross three things happen.
1. Our Sins Are Forgiven Fully and Freely and Forever
Jesus says, when he has all of his disciples gathered together in the upper room, when he is sharing his last meal with them:
“For this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins.”
—Matthew 26:28, WEB
He says:
“Take, eat; this is my body.”
—Matthew 26:26, WEB
On the cross, Jesus took your sin.
On the cross, Jesus was punished for your sin.
And at the same time, on the cross he gives you his righteousness, his obedience.
Jesus is punished for your sin, and you are rewarded for his righteousness.
Every single day of your life, God treats you like you are righteous the way that Jesus is righteous.
Every single day of your life, God treats you like you are holy the way that Jesus is holy, because on the cross he treated Jesus like he was wicked, like you are wicked, as if he were sinful, like you are sinful.
By the cross, every last one of your sins has been punished in full, condemned in full.
The whole wrath of God was poured out on Jesus in your place on the cross.
So there was no wrath left for you.
There is no punishment left for you.
There is no condemnation left for you.
God does not look at you like a sinner.
God looks at you like you are perfect.
And he treats you like you are perfect.
And so God’s anger is not hanging over you.
It is gone forever, and it is never coming back.
That’s number one.
2. On the Cross, You Are Reconciled to God
On the cross, the wall that stands between you and God is knocked over.
The barrier that your sin created between you and God was taken away forever.
There is nothing standing between you and God anymore.
You need to understand this.
You need to grasp this.
You need to remember this.
And you need to never believe any voice in your head that says anything different from this ever again.
Because the veil was torn in the temple.
There was a veil that separated what was called the Most Holy Place, or the Holiest of Holies, from the rest of the temple.
No one could go into the Holiest of Holies except the high priest once a year on the Day of Atonement.
It symbolized the way that God’s presence is barred from us because of our sin, our unholiness, our uncleanness.
But what happened the moment Jesus gave his last breath?
“Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom.”
—Matthew 27:51, WEB
That veil was torn.
Everything that stands between you and God has been completely taken away by the cross.
Everything.
And so listen, if your thought process is that you are too bad for God, then shut up.
If you think that you are too sinful for God, shut up.
If you think that you are too unholy for God, shut up.
If you think you are too messy for God, shut up.
If you think that you mess up way too much for God to truly love you, shut up.
You are wrong.
Your voice in your head is lying to you.
Your internal monologue is a liar.
All of the things that keep you apart from God have been completely done away with by the cross.
They are gone.
It is over.
It is finished.
You are welcome in God’s presence.
You are beloved by God.
You are invited into God’s inner circle, invited to his table.
He has welcomed you and invited you and gathered you into his presence.
And you will never be unwelcome in God’s presence again.
That’s number two.
3. On the Cross, We Became God’s People
Jesus says once again at that last meal that he has before he is crucified:
“But I tell you that I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on, until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”
—Matthew 26:29, WEB
You are now God’s drinking buddy.
You are now God’s esteemed guest.
You are now God’s closest friend.
You are now a part of God’s inner circle.
You are a member of God’s people.
You are a member of God’s covenant.
You are seated at God’s table every single day of your life and every single moment of your life.
God has made you into his children.
He’s made you into his kingdom.
He’s made you into his family, into his people, into his circle.
You are part of the inner circle of God.
You are not on the outside.
You are not outside the fence.
You are not on the fringes.
You are now in the chief seats.
You are literally God’s covenant people.
You are an heir of everything that belongs to God.
In every waking moment of your life, you are in the presence of God, whether you actively feel it and recognize it or not.
Take advantage of these privileges.
Take advantage of the fact that you are the people of God.
And every moment, he wants you in his presence.
Act like you’ve been forgiven, reconciled, and sat down at God’s table every day of your life.
Because all of these glorious privileges have been purchased for you through the cross.
The Defining Moment in Human History
This is the defining moment in human history.
This is the central moment in human history.
This is the day that all of human history is ultimately about.
It is the day that God himself came down from heaven and went to the cross in our place to redeem and restore us, to undo the fall, to fix everything we have broken.
This is what the entire story that God’s Word tells is about.
This is the pivotal moment of your life.
And it happened 2,000 years before you were born.
And because that is true, two insane things happen here.
Number one, there is a massive earthquake.
The Earth shakes.
The ground rattles.
Creation itself mourns the death of its Creator.
And at the same time, creation itself announces that something too glorious for words has come.
The Earth could not contain its grief and its joy that its Creator has sealed the deal, done the work, finished the job of redeeming humanity and restoring the world through the cross.
And at exactly the same time, a bunch of dead saints rose up out of their graves, went all over Jerusalem to proclaim what just happened on the cross.
A bunch of dead people, a bunch of dead relatives, showed up at your house and said, “God himself just redeemed you. God himself just died for you. God himself just took your sin onto his own shoulders so that you can be redeemed and restored fully and freely and forever.”
A bunch of ghosts started preaching the Gospel.
That is beautiful, and that is weird.
But that is the kind of beautiful and weird and glorious thing that happens because of God’s never-ending, unshakable, relentless mission to redeem humanity and restore the world.
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