Full Transcript

For those of you who are just joining in, Share the Word is a nonprofit Great Commission project sharing the big ideas of the New Testament chapter by chapter. Today, in episode 239, Pastor Paul Nitz is focused on the Gospel of Matthew chapter 26. So, let’s get started. Matthew chapter 26. This is what must take place. As we come to chapter 26, we are suddenly brought into the immediate events leading up to the passion of the Christ.

On the surface, it’s like Jesus and his small band of followers are caught up in a strong current there’s no escape from. But there’s more to it than that. It’s like we’re watching a psychological thriller, and you know there is more going on than what they are showing you, and it’s what keeps you coming back to watch the next episode. The big idea I want to impress on you today is one that became more clear to me this time thinking through these events than I had ever considered before. And I’m convinced it had to be what was going on in Matthew’s mind from the vantage point of 25 or 30 years down the road as he looked back, as he saw these things in perspective. He thought back and wrote about these events that led up to the climax of the gospel story.

In chapter 26, there are several distinct scenes in its 74 verses, the longest chapter in Matthew’s gospel. Make sure you read this chapter to see the sense and the flow of the story as it pulls you forward. I’ll tell you a secret. I’ve often wished I could be a screenwriter for a movie company that really wanted to tell the stories of the Bible, and there’s no greater story than this one that plays out over the last few hours leading up to Jesus’ climactic death and resurrection. Yes, the producers did call me and offered me that screenwriter position on such a miniseries. I’d tell the story over three nights, and I’d break the scenes down this way, beginning with night one, scene one, but not during the festival.

As chapter 26 opens, we are on Thursday of Passion Week. We know this because Jesus told his disciples that the Passover was now only two days away, and that they had reached the time when it’s going to happen, when, in his words, the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified. The scene opens in a meeting room inside Jerusalem’s temple, where Caiaphas, the high priest of Israel that year, had gathered key members of the high council, the Sanhedrin, to come up with a workable solution to their Jesus problem. They’d already decided he had to go. He was far too much of a problem to them. But how to do it?

How to do it? That was the question. They couldn’t just have their police arrest him if he came back to the temple courtyard that day. They knew that would produce a riot because Jesus was very popular with common people, and they didn’t want to disrupt what was going on right then, which was the biggest festival of the year, the Passover. So anxious as they were, they felt they needed to wait a few more days, wait till the festival was over and things in Jerusalem quieted down. Scene two, A Beautiful Thing.

Flashback to several days earlier now, the Saturday evening prior to be exact. Jesus and the twelve were in the village of Bethany, a few miles from Jerusalem. The mood is calmer, the atmosphere warmer. That evening, Jesus and his disciples were being hosted for dinner in the home of Simon, a man who he had previously healed from leprosy. Other close friends from Bethany, like Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus, were also gathered with them there for dinner. The friendly conversation going on in the room that evening suddenly was interrupted by a crack, and all eyes turned to Mary, who was pouring out the contents of a perfume jar over Jesus’ head.

The scent of the perfume filled the room. It was a very rare and expensive oil called spikenard. What an odd thing to do. Watching this unusual turn of events, some of Jesus’ disciples protested among themselves that what Mary was doing was an extravagant waste. I’m not sure how loud they were saying this or whether they were only intending it for one another. Matthew says one of them spoke up, that was Judas, and Judas said, Why wasn’t this sold and so the money could be given to the poor?

But Jesus defended Mary. Why are you bothering this woman? he said. She’s done a beautiful thing for me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. Then he said to them, When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.

At which the mood in the room had to have changed. Among the Jews, anointing the head with special oil was associated with the consecration of kings and priests. That would have seemed to those at the dinner party a beautiful act, all right. But Jesus said, No, it’s for my burial. Very strange thing for a living man to say. Matthew notes, this is at verse 14, that it was because of this that Judas finally decided to betray Jesus to his enemies.

This. Yeah, he had no doubt been considering such a move for a while, but this apparently was the proverbial straw. He was the group’s treasurer, and that rare perfume, in his view, got wasted, and it could have been sold for a lot of money, some of which he could have easily pilfered from their treasury. But even more so, I think, hearing Jesus talking once again, as he had too many times lately about his own death, made it clear to Judas things were not turning out the way he’d hoped, not at all like he’d hoped when he latched onto Jesus, the rising star, a few years earlier. Since Jesus seemed so determined to die, Judas decided he might as well profit from that, and decided to see if Jesus’ powerful enemies would pay him to help them capture him, away from the crowds, of course.

Caiaphas was no doubt surprised when Judas approached him with this idea, but was only too happy to have his assistance. The third scene: You have said it yourself. This brings us back up to real time. That Thursday morning, the disciples wanted to know where they would eat the Passover meal. This was an important sacred observance for the Jews, commemorating the meal Moses had told the families of Israel, who were in bondage many centuries before, to eat the evening before they left Egypt. The disciples may have been expecting that they would celebrate this together with their host there in Bethany, where they had been staying, but Jesus gave them different directions.

They would celebrate the Passover meal together inside the walls of Jerusalem, and Jesus told them exactly where and how to set up arrangements. As it turns out, it was a location that became famous as the Upper Room. Jesus must have privately made such arrangements beforehand, as they were in Jerusalem each day the first half of that week. What no doubt surprised the disciples more was that they were going to eat the Passover together that evening, not the next evening, which would have been traditional, but there was a reason for that. A lot of things happened that evening in the upper room where they had gathered. John, in his Gospel, devotes several chapters to them, actually, but Matthew focuses on what happened during the Passover meal itself.

He writes, When evening came, Jesus was reclining at table with the twelve disciples. He remembers that as they were actually eating the ceremonial Passover meal, Jesus suddenly sort of blurted out, I’m telling you the truth, it’s one of you here who will betray me. Can you imagine that? This group has been with him three years now and through a lot together. One of them was really some kind of spy, some kind of traitor. They each began to deny that they would ever do such a thing.

Jesus reiterated that he was going to die. He said, As it is written of me, but that it would have been much better for his betrayer if he had never been born. This had to have produced shock and anxious conversation among all those in the room, during which Judas, who was right next to Jesus, leaned in to say, Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi? at which Jesus answered, You have said it yourself. Looking at all the Gospel accounts of this night, I think only John overheard that private conversation, so he was almost certainly Matthew’s source for this, and John heard Jesus then say to Judas, What you’re going to do, do it quickly. And a stunned Judas, realizing Jesus understood what he was up to, nevertheless left the gathering to finalize a plan for Jesus’ capture with the high priest.

It wasn’t until the betrayer was gone that Jesus instituted what we call the Lord’s Supper with his own, the true believers, and shared with them the intimate upper room discourse, which John relays at length in the fourth Gospel. Scene number four: I will never deny you. After they finished all this, before they left the upper room location, they sang a hymn together, Matthew remembers. Traditionally, the Jews sang Psalm 113 through 118, a section of the Psalter referred to as the Hallel that associated with the deliverance from Egypt. I wish I knew which of those psalms exactly Jesus sang that night with his disciples. Maybe it was Psalm 115, which says, Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name belongs glory because of your loving kindness and because of your truth.

O Israel, trust in the Lord; he is your helper and shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord; he is your helper and shield. All you who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord; he is our helper and shield. Nobody needed the reminder more than Jesus that night as they headed to Gethsemane to trust in the Lord. He is our helper and shield. Matthew indicates that it was on that familiar walk out of the city toward the Mount of Olives, where Gethsemane is located, that Jesus told them, You will all fall away from me tonight, for it’s written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. Then it was Peter who said to him, Even though all may fall away because of you, I will never. Jesus replied, Truly I say to you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Peter answered back, Even if I have to die, I will never, ever deny you. And all of us said the same thing, Matthew admits. If I’m writing the screenplay, I would flash forward right here only briefly to a scene of the disciples running into the darkness of the olive grove when Jesus is arrested, and then to Peter in the courtyard of the high priest later that night, denying to anyone who asked him that he even knew who Jesus was.

Scene number five: Whoever I kiss. When they reached Gethsemane, although quite late, Jesus asked his disciples if they would stay up and pray with him. He told Peter, James, and John in particular he was struggling and needed them to stay up and pray with him. Then he went a short distance away and prayed. He asked his Father in heaven if there was any other way forward other than what he knew was almost upon him now. It’s hard to imagine Jesus, the Son of God, on his face praying like this about, If there’s any other way, let this cup pass away from me.

But he was, and he was in anguish, and he prayed it three different times, asking, Is there any other way around this? But promising, if not, he was ready to go through with it. As for the disciples, none of them stayed awake and prayed with him. They all found a spot, bedded down, and they thought for the night and fell asleep. At that very time, Judas was leading a large band of temple police with some representatives of the religious leaders out of the city, believing Jesus would be in that park at that time because they had camped out before there when visiting Jerusalem. As they got closer, he told the officer in charge, Whoever I kiss, that will be the one.

Seize him. And when the armed torchlit posse invaded Gethsemane, Jesus actually came out to meet them. Judas approached him and kissed him on each cheek, the greeting of close friends, and Jesus told him, Do what you came to do. And the police seized Jesus. There was momentary confusion as the disciples were awakened by now, and Peter tried to intervene briefly, but Jesus stopped him. He said two fascinating things as they bound and shackled him.

He said to his disciples, Don’t you know that I could call right now for ten legions of angels? But it must happen this way. And the whole crowd there, he said, This is what must take place to fulfill the Scripture and the prophets. The final scene of the first night. I adjure you. Jesus was led away from there in the wee hours, not to some prison, but to the residence of Caiaphas, Israel’s high priest.

He had not wanted, remember, to arrest Jesus during the Passover, but when Judas showed up that night, came to him and said, I can deliver Jesus over to you now, Caiaphas could not pass up that opportunity. And now that they successfully had him in custody, he wanted to expedite Jesus’ demise as fast as possible. Although it was by now the middle of the night, the high priest called for his allies on the high council, and for false witnesses he knew would make accusations against Jesus, and something of an impromptu trial took place. The so-called witnesses to Jesus’ religious crimes were ineffectual, contradicting each other, until two men came forward who said they had heard Jesus claim that he could tear down the holy temple and rebuild it himself in only three days. Jesus was silent through all of this. But Caiaphas demanded that he answer this charge, which sounded like blasphemy.

Jesus remained silent. It was a ridiculous charge. The high priest, finally angry, frustrated, shouted, I adjure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God. Meaning, under oath now, before God, tell us the truth. Do you claim you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God? To that, Jesus replied, You yourself have said it.

And over their gasps in the room, and hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. The truth and nothing but the truth, Jesus said. I am the Messiah, the Son of God. I am the one spoken about in the vision of Daniel the prophet. I am the one he saw sitting at God’s right hand and the one who will return as Israel’s deliverer one day. Wow.

That was what they wanted to hear. That was what they wanted and needed to hear. Caiaphas tore his robe in feigned shock and dismay. You have all heard his blasphemy. Why should we need any more witnesses? He’s condemned himself.

What say all of you? And they all answered him, He is worthy of death. At the end of this final scene, we see Jesus standing shackled before these men, supposedly Israel’s holy men, but just fallen men who feared his popularity, who were jealous of and threatened by his following, who deeply resented him for exposing their greed and hypocrisy. And now, once they finally have the upper hand. They blindfold Jesus and proceed to punch and slap him, spit on him and taunt him, and pour out all their pent-up hatred on him. And he absorbed all their abuse.

That be the end of night one of my mini-series. So, question: What was happening throughout chapter 26 that struck me as so obvious this time as I thought it through? Something that Matthew and the other early Christians came to fully appreciate, I think, and marvel at, and something he wants everyone who ever reads his gospel to not miss the significance of. Answer: That all this was what had to take place. Had to. That Jesus was no hapless victim through any of it.

He was completely aware of what was going on, what was happening, because he was carefully and intentionally following God’s plan, a plan decided on by the Godhead long, long before this night ever came. That is clear and obvious from his statements recorded throughout this chapter, like, The time is near, and just two days the Son of Man will be delivered over and crucified, or, Leave her alone. She’s done this in view of my burial, or when he quoted prophetic scriptures like, The shepherd will be struck down and the sheep will scatter. Coincidentally or not, Matthew includes twelve such statements from Jesus just in this chapter, which means twelve such statements all made on that Thursday, the day of his arrest. Twelve.

I’m thinking one for each of his slow-to-believe disciples, and none any clearer than when he was finally in his enemy’s custody and he told those terrified men, Don’t you know I could call for ten legions of angels. But it must happen this way. This is what must take place to fulfill the Scripture and the prophets. Stay tuned for part two. This is Paul for Share the Word. I would certainly give Pastor Paul my vote to write that screenplay.

As a matter of fact, his ability to bring these chapters to life with so much insight make him a shoe-in for director in my book, because the director sees beyond the camera. I can’t wait to see what he brings with the Book of Revelation. As always, please help us share this podcast. It’s all free. Download it. Share it.

From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.