WWUTT 2231 Jesus Betrayed and Arrested (Mark 14:43-52)

What is the greatest sin that was ever committed by man? Well, it would be the murder of the sinless Son of God. But even though His own disciples betrayed and left Him, He died for them and for us when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Judas Betrays Jesus in Mark 14

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we are up to Judas betraying Jesus into the hands of the officials, which is in Mark chapter 14. I'll begin reading here in verse 43. We'll go through verse 52 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. And immediately while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, came up, and with him was a crowd with swords and clubs, who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.

Now he who was betraying him had given them a signal, saying, Whomever I kiss, he is the one. Seize him, and lead him away under guard. And after coming, Judas, having immediately gone to him, said, Rabbi, and kissed him.

And they laid hands on him and seized him. But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus answered and said to them, Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me, as you would against a robber?

Every day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But this has taken place in order that the Scriptures would be fulfilled. And they all left him and fled. And a young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body, and they seized him.

But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked. Now that is an unusual addition to this account of Jesus being arrested. It's the only place in the four Gospels that mentions this young man running away naked.

We'll talk about who this is, what his identity might be here in just a moment. You probably noticed how this particular section breaks up. You have Judas approaching Jesus and addressing him in verses 43 to 45.

Then you have them laying hands on Jesus and seizing him with his response to them, verses 46 to 50. Or you could break it up this way, where it has 46 and 47 with the people seizing him and then the reaction of his disciples.

And then Jesus addressing them in 48 to 50, which would also include the disciples running away and fleeing. And then kind of as an addendum, you have this stuck on at the end, verses 51 to 52, this description of this young man who ran away naked.

When we come back up to verse 43, one of the things that I was going to mention about this, I said when we got to Jesus' arrest, I would talk about the seriousness of Judas' sin. Now, I'm going to mention this a little bit here.

I'll go into greater detail when we get to it in the Gospel of Luke, because it's really in Luke where we have the description of Satan entering into Judas. Of the four Gospels, that is the most descriptive, I think.

So Satan entered Judas, this is in Luke 22, and he went away and conferred with the chief priests and the officers about how he might betray Jesus to them. And they were glad and agreed to give him money.

So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him. Now, we had read previously when Jesus was anointed, it didn't say in Mark's Gospel anyway that it was specifically Judas who was angry about this woman who had come with this jar and had broken it open over Jesus and had anointed him with it.

It says that there was a disciple that got angry about that, but doesn't name who that was. Just the same, it doesn't name Mary either. But we know that was Mary because of what is said in the Gospel of John.

So in John, it mentions Judas and Mary. In Mark, it doesn't identify the disciple or who the woman is. So that you would basically see the contrast there. There was somebody who came as a servant to Jesus and anointed him.

The identity isn't necessary in that particular account, at least the way that Mark captures it. He contrasts that with somebody else who's standing over this scenario and saying, this is absurd. It is a waste of fine ointment.

It could have been sold so that the money could have been given to the poor. And the emphasis there, at least according to Mark, is on the two persons and their actions, less their identity and more what it was they were doing.

And then Jesus' words saying, what she has done will be remembered wherever the Gospel is shared. What she has done for me is a good thing. You will always have the poor, so go and help the poor whenever you like, but you will not always have me.

Now according to how John records this, John notes that Judas was carrying the money bag and he was a thief. He liked to take out of the money bag. So that was really his motivation there. He wanted the ointment to be sold for money that he would eventually take for himself.

That's really what that came down to. The execution of Jesus, his murder, his crucifixion is the worst sin that has ever been committed by man. There's only one good person who was ever wrongly accused and wrongly convicted, and that is Jesus Christ.

I mean, there are people that have been wrongly convicted all the time, but only one person was perfectly good. There was no sin in him whatsoever for which he could have been accused of anything, and that's Jesus.

He is the only good person who has ever lived. I believe it was R .C. Sproul who said, why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and he volunteered. Jesus is giving himself the perfect spotless lamb of God to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

He is himself in place of us, taking the wrath of God upon himself with his death on the cross, atoning for our sins, being the sacrifice in our place so that whoever believes in Jesus would not perish but have everlasting life.

Both the Jews and the Romans are guilty of putting Jesus to death. Peter makes that clear in the sermon at Pentecost in Acts chapter two. You, by the hands of lawless men, put the Son of God to death.

So they are still guilty, even though Jesus is the one who volunteered to be put to death, and this needed to be fulfilled so that we could have our sins forgiven and receive right standing with God by those who believe in Jesus.

It was necessary for us, and Jesus gave himself for us, but that doesn't absolve the people who put him to death. That was the greatest sin that had ever been committed. Now those who put him to death could certainly repent, believe in Jesus, and they would be saved.

Jesus even prays from the cross, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. They don't know what they're doing. So all who believed in Jesus could even be forgiven of this sin, the greatest sin, but it still stands as the greatest sin that was ever committed by mankind.

Putting the perfect, sinless Son of God to death, and if there was anybody in that whole drama that was guiltier than the rest, it was Judas. Judas, who had been with Jesus for three years of his earthly ministry, had heard his teaching, had heard his own proclamations, had probably even committed miracles in his name.

Remember when Jesus sent out the 12 apostles earlier in the gospel of Mark, that they would cast out demons and be able to heal the sick? We don't have any indication that the disciples were asking, hey, why isn't Judas able to do this?

Why can we do this, but he can't? He may have even been able to do that himself. Again, we know from Luke's gospel that Satan doesn't enter into him until it's right at the moment where it is time to turn Jesus over in fulfillment of the scriptures.

So Satan wasn't in him that whole time, even though in John 6, Jesus says, one of you is a devil, because his heart was not truly with Christ, is really what Jesus is indicating there, but Satan was not possessing Judas that entire time.

So at one point, Judas was even doing those things that he had commissioned the disciples to do, and was able to show and demonstrate that he was in the power of God. But this was a man whose heart was not truly with God.

And here he betrayed Jesus, the worst sin ever committed, to betray Jesus into the hands of those who had put him to death. I think I mentioned this earlier about Judas. We don't really know what his motivation was.

When a person is arrested and you put them on trial, you will have the crime that they committed, and there also must be a motivation that is established, right? What was their motive? Why did they do this?

And then you have all other evidence that's presented in the case. So what was Judas's motive? We don't really know. I've heard this theorized in various different ways. Judas was angry because he thought that Jesus was going to be the emancipator, and it turns out that he's not.

And so out of some act of vindictiveness, fine, I'm going to turn you over to those who want to kill you, because you're apparently not the guy that we all thought you were. That could have been one reason.

Another reason might be because, as Judas believed, hey, he's going to be the Messiah who's going to free us from the tyranny of Rome and of the Herods. But he's kind of slow in getting this done. Why does he keep stuttering his feet to accomplish this?

We're in Jerusalem. The people have proclaimed him as the coming Messiah. Of course, that was after Judas had already plotted. The triumphal entry was after Judas had plotted against Jesus to turn him over.

But it could be that Judas is thinking, what can I do to hurry up this process? I know. I'll turn him over to his enemies, and then he'll just break out and go, hey, surprise. I'm actually here to liberate you people, and we'll strike them all down, and we will finally accomplish this thing.

Maybe Judas thought he was doing the right thing for whatever intents or purposes. So we don't know exactly what his motivation was, but this was nonetheless a betrayal. No matter what his intent was, he betrays the Son of God.

And he comes to him and betrays him with a kiss on top of that. And this addresses rabbi in verse 45. Was this sarcastic, or was he being respectful? When he says rabbi, was he being sarcastic? Like teacher.

Yeah, some teacher you turned out to be. Was that his tone? Or was it out of friendship? Like again, he really thought he was doing the right thing here that would bring about what he thought had been prophesied in the Old Testament.

Let's get this thing done. Let's do it. Come on. Show yourself, Messiah. We're ready to go. And so he comes to him out of some element of cheer, thinking, I've done really what I was supposed to do. I've tried to hurry this thing along, so let's get it done.

Rabbi and kisses him. He's not trying to be malicious. It's still malice, but it's not deliberate malice. You know what I mean? So he's not trying to be hateful. Maybe he is showing a genuine affection of friendship.

He thinks that he's doing somebody a favor here. And we know from other accounts, Jesus saying to Judas, you would betray the Son of Man with a kiss. Now, as you might notice, the statement that we have in verse 44, Judas, who was betraying him, had given them a signal saying, whomever I kiss, he is the one.

Seize him and lead him away under guard. Why would Judas need to kiss him? Well, it's not like they were wandering around with Facebook in those days. I mean, you couldn't just pull up your phone and look for the guy's photo, nor were they even illustrating them on wanted posters and sticking them up around Jerusalem.

You know, it wasn't like that at all. There was not anything about Jesus that was specifically different than the rest of the disciples. And these are not the chief priests and the scribes that come to arrest Jesus.

Many of them had already seen Jesus, so they knew what he looked like. These were the guards. So maybe they are not as familiar with who he is. And there's a possibility that when Jesus is going to be arrested, one of those disciples, one of his disciples will step forward and try to defend him, to take his place.

Oh, yeah, I'm he. Take me. Of course, that would have been contrary to what the scriptures prophesied, but the disciples didn't know that. They were kind of dumb. They were a little dense about this. They were still expecting that Jesus was going to conquer everybody that was going to come up against them.

He was not going to give himself over to them. And so Judas has worked out a signal. The one I kiss is the man. That's how you'll know who it is that you're supposed to arrest. Jesus wasn't dressed all in white.

He didn't have a big purple sash on. He didn't he wasn't taller or had long flowing golden locks of hair, as you might see him sometimes portrayed. He was a Galilean and he looked as homely as any other Galilean.

Remember what we read in Isaiah 53. There was nothing about his form or majesty that we would behold him. In fact, he was like one from whom men would hide their face. So there wasn't anything about Jesus that that would draw people to him because of his appearance.

Somehow he looked like any other Galilean. So Judas works out this signal that the one I kiss is going to be the man. And so he says, Rabbi, he kisses him. They lay hands on him and sees him. Verse forty seven.

But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. That's a really interesting way to put that by Mark, because in Matthew, when we read about that.

Jesus rebuked Peter. We know it's Peter who cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest because Jesus said, don't you know that I could call legions of angels to my assistance and they would rescue me?

But how would the scriptures be fulfilled? But Jesus doesn't issue any kind of rebuke here like that of the disciple is just kind of a mention from Mark that there was a disciple who did this, but he doesn't elaborate on it further.

And there's no exchange between Jesus and the disciple in John's gospel. Jesus, of course, picks up the ear and heals the servant of the high priest. And so Jesus answered and said to them, have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as you would against a robber?

Every day I was with you in the temple teaching and you did not seize me. But this has taken place in order that the scriptures would be fulfilled. And really what Jesus is challenging them on here is, hey, you've come up with weapons.

You've never seen me with weapons. You've never seen me fight back physically at all. The way that I have challenged you guys has been in teaching. It hasn't been with, you know, mounting up a coup or some sort of revolt or rebellion.

So why are you coming with swords and clubs? And he tries to help people to see even his own disciples to see this is happening just like this to fulfill what is happening in the scriptures, what was foretold in the scriptures.

That's what's happening right before your very eyes. He turns it into a teaching moment so that even if they don't understand it in the moment later on, they will reflect back on it and see, oh, the prophets did talk about this.

And here we are doing exactly what the prophets foretold. And verse 50 says they all left him and fled. Now, that's certainly not the guard that comes to arrest Jesus. Who is that talking about? That's his disciples, of course, fulfilling what had been spoken of by the prophets and what Jesus had said to them previously in verse 27.

You will all fall away because it is written. I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. But Peter and the rest of the disciples, they were insistent they would not betray him.

They would go with him to death. And yet what do we see right here? They're all running away. Even understanding the words of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

And lastly, we have this young man mentioned here who runs away versus 51 and 52. The young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body, and they seized him. But he pulled free of that linen sheet and escaped naked.

And once again, this is the only place in the four gospels that anything like this is mentioned. So who is this talking about? I doubt it's one of the 12 or in this case, the 11, because Judas has already betrayed Jesus.

So you have the other 11 disciples. So who could this young man be? Why I don't think it's one of the 12 is because this statement is not set with verse 50. They all left him and fled. And there was a young man following him.

So this young man seems to be apart from the other 11. The other 11 are described in verse 50 is running away. This guy is set apart by himself. So who could this have been? Well, remember when we were doing the upper room discourse, I mentioned to you that there was more than just the 12 for the Lord's table.

Jesus was going to have just the 12 with him in the upper room where he institutes the Lord's Supper. He talks about it. I mean, we have the whole upper room discourse in the Gospel of John much longer than we have in the in the synoptic gospels.

And then you also have the betrayal of Judas, Jesus washing his disciples feet on and on that goes. Those are all things that happen in the upper room with the 12. But there were other disciples. We're going to get to the Gospel of Luke and read about the 72.

So there were other disciples who were following Jesus. There was just that inner group of the 12 that Jesus had chosen. And even from among them, there was a more intimate group of the three, Peter, James and John.

But in this particular case, you've got one of the other disciples who are not among the 12, a young man who was following him. There were probably other disciples in the garden other than just the 12 along with Jesus.

And so this young man is seized by the guard. Maybe he doesn't run away as quickly as the other disciples do. Maybe he's just kind of hanging out because he's wanting to see everything that's going to happen.

And when they grab him, he runs away, too. But he pulls free of the linen sheet that was around him. And when he runs away, he's running away naked. It's pretty embarrassing. It's an embarrassing detail.

And you may already know that the person who's being talked about here could be Mark. It could be the author of this Gospel, John Mark. And I won't rehash everything about Mark that we talked about when we did the introduction to the Gospel of Mark.

But we do know that he was something of a disciple of Peter's. And when this Gospel is written, Mark is essentially writing down the Gospel the way that Peter preached it. And so this may be kind of Mark's signature touch here, mentioning that he was along with the rest of the disciples here.

He was an eyewitness to this stuff himself. He's not just writing down those things that were said by somebody else as a third person. He's writing down what he really saw, what he witnessed himself. But he's certainly not a hero in this story because he was just as cowardly as the rest.

Ran away when the shepherd was struck like the other disciples did. And even more embarrassingly, didn't just run away, but he ran away naked, leaving Jesus alone, no one with him, no one to stand by him when he's about to be taken to trial and falsely accused and sentenced to death.

The Son of God suffered and died alone. There were people at the foot of the cross that were mourning over his death. But even what he suffered there on the cross, no one else could go through. Only Jesus could do that.

And he suffered alone. From this betrayal to the rest of the disciples scattering to even Peter's eventual denial. All of these things grieving the heart of the Son of God. And yet he goes to the cross and dies for them, for us anyway.

Romans 5, 8, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Now, my friends, we have the Holy Spirit of God. So let us not fall into the same sort of betrayal or denial again.

If anybody sins, there is forgiveness for that person. First John 1, 9. If we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But let us not fall into a pattern of thinking that we can deny God to save ourselves.

For Jesus said, whoever denies me before men, I will deny before my Father who is in heaven. We must stand firm and in the boldness of the Holy Spirit that is within our hearts. For the Christ who gave himself for us, that we would proclaim his gospel for only by faith in Jesus Christ.

Can a person be forgiven their sins and have everlasting life? Heavenly Father, we thank you for these continual reminders of the gospel and the love of Christ that he has shown for us in this great sacrifice.

And Lord, may we be willing to live as living sacrifices talked about in Romans 12, 1. This is our spiritual act of worship that we would live to Christ who died for us and give us boldness and strength in these days to do so.

For we must share the gospel with the world. It is only by faith in Jesus Christ that we can be saved and have everlasting life. So lead us in your truth. Sanctify us according to your truth. It is in Jesus name we pray.

Amen.