The moments of Jesus’ arrest in the garden reveal His divine power and compassionate character. When the soldiers came for Him, they drew back and fell to the ground at His declaration, “I am,” a powerful assertion of His being God. In the midst of this turmoil, He also performed His last healing miracle, restoring the ear of Malchus. These events lead appropriately in the presentation of Jesus in complete control, willingly going to the cross to fulfil the scriptures, secure the atonement for our sins, and offer us forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] I wonder whether anybody could tell us, see what you know about the life of Jesus. Do the Gospels comment on most of the years of his life? Do we get to know the full story of the life of Jesus Christ through the Gospels? What do you think? Someone might see some heads shaking and I heard a no. The reason being, of course, is that there’s about 17 years of Jesus’ development that we don’t know anything about. It’s always very interesting in scholarly circles to hear different people’s hypotheses as to what Jesus did. Did he go travelling one place or another? Mostly they don’t really have much evidence to prove anything but there are 17 missing years from when he was a boy going down to the temple and his parents missing him because he didn’t travel home with them

[00:00:54] to when Jesus, the Gospel, tells us of how he’s meeting up with disciples at the beginning and beginning to call them to become his disciples. So there are 17 years that we don’t know that much about him and it did occur to me we should expand what we do know from what the records have about Jesus. Let me ask another question. What was the last miracle that Jesus did? You can call out if you want to. We’re an unruly crew. Yes, putting the ear back on. That’s all right. I better ask you, what’s the name of the fellow who lost the ear? No, you don’t know. Who knows the name of the person whose ear got cut off? Malchus, M-A-L-C-H-U-S, Malchus, that’s correct. And that is in the Gospels. Actually, I think it’s in all four of the Gospels. It was a bit of an event.

[00:01:53] And who can tell me the second last semi or probably miraculous thing that Jesus did? It’s not quite so dramatic as healing an ear, which has been chopped off. But what was the second last? I’m just testing how much you know about the life of Jesus. What was the second last semi-miraculous? It is actually miraculous when you think of it, but not quite so dramatic. Well, actually it was dramatic, but not quite so visibly miraculous. The second to last. Ooh, I found something to ask you that no one knows by the looks. it’s in the same moment exactly we better put the scriptures up from john’s gospel or no luke’s gospel i think we’re starting with um you’ve got the records down there it’s luke 22 48 to 54 and so we’re going to be going through what we’re doing here is just it occurred to me

[00:02:58] that in sundays we often go through various things of the gospel message but there are little places where we don’t actually know as much as as the other places because we’re not often speaking about it but this is one and the second last miracle was when jesus was presenting him to the people who came to arrest him let’s follow it through jesus said to him judas would you betray the son of man with a kiss that’s what Judas had done he pointed out the one to get grab is the one I go and kiss and then when those who were around him saw what would follow they said Lord shall we strike with a sword now this is actually Peter who’s being a brave man or seeking to be and one of them that’s Peter he’s not told here by John’s being rather kind not to mention his name

[00:03:48] when one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear but Jesus said no more of this and he touched his ear and healed him then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who came out against him have you come out against the robber or with swords and clubs when I was with you day by day in the temple you didn’t lay hands on me but this is your hour and the power of darkness and they seized him and let him away. Now this didn’t mention the second last miracle but we will pick it up as we go through the Gospels and how I plan tonight was just to go through the four Gospel accounts of this final moment of Jesus healing Malchus’ ear and the final moment of them picking up Jesus.

[00:04:37] I’m sure many of you have heard about Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and you’ve heard about Jesus being taken to the high priest and the trials they had in the middle of the night. But this is something that often we don’t get quite as easy grasp of that seems to pass by. But the second to last dramatic moment, I corrected myself earlier to say, yeah, it was dramatic, as you’ll see, but it wasn’t necessarily as visibly miraculous, but I think that it was. So we’ll go to another Gospel and we’ll gradually pick up. I’m not sure which one it is, but I guess we’re going to start at Matthew 26. We’ll go Matthew and Mark and then John. So Matthew 26 and starting at verse 45. That’s good. And then he came to the disciples and said to them, sleep. Now they’ve been sleeping.

[00:05:25] This is a Garden of Gethsemane place where Jesus has some of them try and stay awake and watch with him, but they keep falling asleep. Sleep and take your rest, he eventually gives in to what’s that they’re doing. Later on, see the hour is ahead and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. Now that’s because out of the corner of their eyes, they can see this great horde of people coming with Judas. And while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests. Now you wonder why they would bring such a great crowd of people with clubs and swords. They don’t know whether, I guess, the disciples might put up a defence. But that’s how they came.

[00:06:14] And we’re still in the same… No, we’re Matthew. That’s good. So, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests. And, as it continues in Matthew, verse 50 something, verse 52 do you have? Good, there we are. Then Jesus said to him, Put your sword back in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. A very famous statement of Jesus about using violence to win your way. All those who take the sword or live by the sword, one version reads, will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he’ll at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled? So Jesus is aware of what has to happen

[00:07:09] and he can’t put up a resistance or let the disciples do that because it’s been written in the scriptures what is to happen and he knows it’s the reason why he’s come. And how then should the scriptures be fulfilled? At the hour Jesus said to the crowds, Have you come out against us as a robber with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching and you didn’t seize me. But all this has taken place that the scriptures and the prophets might be fulfilled. Then the disciples left him and fled. Then those who seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest where the scribes and the elders had gathered and Peter was following him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest and on going inside he sat with the guards to see the end but we haven’t

[00:08:05] learned yet the second to last miracle I’m getting to but that was Matthew but now we’ll go to Mark I’m keeping you in suspense Mark’s gospel and it is chapter 14 verse 26 okay and when they had sung a hymn they went out now this record from Mark is going back to the event that was immediately before what we’ve been just hearing which was the last supper before they get out to the garden of Gethsemane and when they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives and Jesus said to them you will all fall away for it is written I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered but I’ll strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered but after I’m raised up I’ll go before you to Galilee Peter said to him even though they all fall away I will not

[00:09:01] And Jesus said to him, truly I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. I think that rooster crowing measures certain time spans through the night. You will deny me three times. But he said emphatically, if I must die with you, I will not deny you. That’s Peter. And they all said the same. And they went to the place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. Well we didn’t learn from that one either. That was Matthew and Mark and so we’re going to go now to no what was that? That was Mark. We’ll go now to John and John 18. We’re looking for the second last miracle that Jesus did. Just for a sake of completeness of knowledge. This is in John’s Gospel chapter 18 verses 1 to 13. When Jesus had spoken

[00:09:58] these words he went out with his disciples across the brook, Kidron where there was a garden. He’s going to the garden of Gethsemane which he and the disciples entered. Now Judas who betrayed him also knew the place for Jesus had often met there with his disciples so Judas having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the high priests and Pharisees went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus knowing all that would happen to him came forward and said to them Whom do you seek? And they answered Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said to them I am he. Judas who betrayed him was standing with them and when Jesus said to them I am he they drew back and fell to the ground. Now this is what I think was somewhat

[00:10:48] miraculous though you couldn’t really call it a visible miracle the same as the others but I think that was evidence of who Jesus was with great power. Part of that does lead the people who commentate on the scriptures to that conclusion because of what Jesus actually said to them when he said I am. You don’t have to have a he in the language I am meaning I am the one. But that little those little words I am had a reference elsewhere in the scriptures because it makes the word for God. He is the great I am. You’ve probably heard that before. So Jesus stood forward and he answered them and he said I am and they all fall backwards to the ground. I think that was an indication of a powerful effect from Jesus’ assertion his deity. They all

[00:11:45] fall back to God but to the ground but it’s not that visible. But I think that probably is the second last miraculous moment in Jesus’ life as long as you don’t count him rising from the dead which happens later and other events that did occur around him. But this is the second last visible indication that people could have gained from Jesus that he really was deity come in the human flesh. It made them, these people coming to collect him, all the more in the wrong. It does strike me as rather an unusual thing about the disciples when you think about Judas. He’d followed Jesus for three years. He joined him with the others, none of them knowing that he would be going to be the betrayer because when at last Jesus begins to say at that event just before they

[00:12:37] came to the Garden of Gethsemane that one of you is going to betray me or begins to say about it and they all say to each other, who is it Lord, who is it? And they don’t know that it’s Judas and so he’s been with them three years. Was he just three years incognito, hiding the truth? Or is it possible that Judas in his early days with Jesus was going along with the other disciples in the following of Jesus? Is it possible that someone can have a religion but without the real heart of it so being true that at the end they can turn up like Judas now and betray the Lord? I take this storyline a little bit of a warning that a little bit of religion doesn’t necessarily mask the need for a person to have their heart completely changed. Just because you get mixed in with the good effect of church life

[00:13:35] or you get mixed in with families that have good standards doesn’t mean that the answer to the human need of sin, which all of us have, has not been met by Christ necessarily. And in Judas’ case that is it. There’s a further explanation of Judas that comes about because there’s a spot that says that when he was thinking of betraying the Lord and he went out and it was dark. The way the description is made makes you think it’s saying a bit more than just a dark night. He went out and it was dark and it says that Satan entered him and he became a person controlled by the devil. Started out he made three years in a good Bible college, the Bible college of Jesus following him around but he went out at the end and did probably what’s been written down as one of the worst sins anybody’s

[00:14:26] ever committed which was to betray Christ. So it’s a bit of a warning to us that being in the right circles, being someone who’s learning the good thoughts about Jesus doesn’t guarantee that you won’t be a person off the track eventually and betray him. What will make the difference is if you actually understand why he came and how he died and you come and ask for your heart to be changed and then you won’t necessarily end up a Judas. You don’t have to be afraid of being a Judas but it is a worthy thing to note that someone could be in the best of religious circles and still end up a complete failure like Judas did. So Judas had answered I told you that I’m he so if you seek me let these men go. Now what’s of interest about this that the passage tells

[00:15:19] us something about the scriptures that it said this was to fulfill the word that he had spoken and that bits the little next bit please, fulfill that those whom you gave me I will have lost not one and so there had been a statement by Jesus that he knew that he wasn’t going to lose and he didn’t want to lose one of his disciples he certainly lost Judas but he was wanting his disciples the ones that really believed in him to be kept safe and so when the last they come to arrest Jesus he steps forward not only to in his honesty to say he’s the person but he steps forward so they can take him and the others not be one joined in a fight and maybe lose their lives or the others taken in rebellion against what these Jewish leaders are doing and they be taken and crucified too.

[00:16:12] He’s actually protecting his disciples. And I find this just a little note in the overall storyline that we learn of how Jesus is concerned for those who are his followers. He didn’t want one of them. He had to lose Judas, but he didn’t want one of the others to get lost. And that comes to me as a real encouragement to know that the Lord knows we’re trying to follow him. He knows that we have our difficulties and these disciples are all going to run away in a minute and be, you know, a bit of cowards. But nonetheless, Jesus is trying to preserve them so that they don’t get taken and crucified along with him. So what happens? Jesus, we get the record of Jesus healing the fellows here. Then Simon Peter, he had tried to strike the fellow and cut off his right ear. And the servant’s name was Malchus.

[00:17:07] So Jesus said to Peter, Put up your sword into his sheaf. Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me? It’s really interesting how in their lingo, in their idioms, they talk about a cup to be drunk. It’s talking about something you have to go through and someone’s giving you the cup. But we do have in our culture a little bit of a use of a cup that’s been poisoned or talking about something where someone has gotten at you by something being in the cup that’s deadly. But Jesus is not saying that something wrongfully is in the cup that’s deadly. It is the cup that his Father has given him. And he’s talking about the fact that the events that he had such sorrowing over and didn’t really want to go through and had to pray for help to say, yes, Father, I’ll do your will.

[00:17:56] All of that is a cup that the Father has given him and it’s a cup by his drinking it in the first instance that we get saved. We actually have a communion service whereby we celebrate the death of Jesus and his life given by the bread representing his body given and the cup representing his bloodshed and the death that he experienced. And that cup Jesus had talked about in the very place where it’s referred to as about the new covenant is in the Gospels, that very moment before going to the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus refers to the cup that the Father has given him, shall he not drink it? And he doesn’t want the disciples to get lost, he knows that he alone has to suffer for our sins. The atonement of the sin of the world is what he has to accomplish by his death.

[00:18:48] Well, that’s why he gets to make sure that he does it in the way the disciples get to escape. So the band of soldiers and their captain and officers and the Jews, they arrested Jesus and they bound him. First led him to Annas, and for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas who was high priest that year. And so the trial of Jesus goes through and his eventual death on the cross, He’s being dead and on the third day rising again. Following that, he appears to his disciples across 40 days, I think it is, but eventually ascends back to heaven. And when he’s in heaven, what he does, while he’s with the disciples for the days, he tells them to get ready, not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the right time, which is going to be the day of Pentecost. Jesus goes back to heaven,

[00:19:37] and in heaven is crowned King of kings and Lord of lords. the Father passes to him be the one who will send the Holy Spirit to now act on Jesus’ behalf and that sending of the Spirit happened at the day of Pentecost when Peter preached the first real Christian gospel message on that day and at the end of it he offers the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit as the two blessings of people responding to the gospel when you hear how Christ died for you and that he gave his life that you should be forgiven that he paid the atonement for your sins by what happened to him on the cross. That he’s gone back to heaven and he’s sent the Holy Spirit to represent him to come to earth and now that Holy Spirit’s available to those who come for the forgiveness of sins. That’s why when we articulate the gospel

[00:20:28] it is about Jesus and who he is and what he’s done. It’s about the fact that now he’s sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the beginning of the new covenant. There’s opportunity for people who make a response to that offer to come and know both the twin blessings of the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And that happened on the day of Pentecost. And so when a person responds to that message, there were 3,000 or so who did, as recorded in the book of Acts, on that first Pentecostal day. When people came to respond to that, they got not only the once and for all forgiveness of sins that Jesus’ atonement has worked, But they also receive the Holy Spirit who came to their hearts in order to bring the direction of Christ. That’s why we talk about receiving Jesus into your heart.

[00:21:17] The actual truth is the way he comes to your heart is by the Holy Spirit coming as a gift when you receive the Gospel and creating and set up for Jesus’ rule to happen in your heart. That’s what it means by have Jesus come into your heart. He does it by the help, by the agency of the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, when you have Jesus come to your heart by the Holy Spirit, the Father says he makes his home with you as well. And you get all that the Godhead is, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to come and be with you. And that Christian conversion moment is when you get right with Father God, when you have Christ as your Saviour and when you’ve received the Holy Spirit into your life as a consequence of your coming for that forgiveness of sins. If anybody says to you that you’ve come and had Jesus

[00:22:08] but you haven’t got the Holy Spirit, they just don’t know the Gospel. Because the way that Jesus comes to your heart, check it up in the book of Ephesians, the way that Jesus fills your heart is by the ministry of the Holy Spirit which is why the Jesus, his body included, is in heaven. He can also be in your heart via the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the moment that happens first for you is at your Christian conversion moment. You may not necessarily know exactly when that happens. Some people just know, they come to realisation that it has happened, but they can’t tell you exactly when. Other people, it’s a very dramatic moment where they know exactly when it was. There are a lot of differences in how people experience this, but the one truth of the Gospel is that the moment of the beginning

[00:22:55] of the new covenant era, the day of Pentecost, was the first time anybody got to be a Christian. They were God-loving in the Old Testament. They were doing the best that was available through the old covenant but the new covenant was a new covenant whereby everybody who comes to Christ, receives the Holy Spirit and equally is a part of the body of Christ, has Jesus as their Lord and He’s in heaven at the moment but He rules in your heart through the Holy Spirit’s ministry that is there. This is the gospel that I’m wrapping up and making plain as we’ve travelled through these last moments of Jesus’ life. It’s fascinating actually to read of these things that happen right at the end I found it a little bit of an interesting I made a few notes for myself And one is this business of Jesus

[00:23:47] Jesus wanting to take care of those disciples And the fact that he didn’t want them to get caught up with it So they lost their lives He wanted them to be alive Actually, they become the first apostles who are given the task to witness to Jesus because they’d seen him before his resurrection. They’d seen him in that terrible time we’ve just gone through and they’d seen him after his resurrection and could give a good witness to the fact of who he is and how he is alive. And so those first 12 apostles, one of them, Judas, as we’ve just learned, ends up making a wreck, but he’s replaced by Paul and they are then the 12 apostles who’ve found the Christian religion. Well, they’re the storyline we’ve been over today and I hope you found it interesting just to hear about the final moments of Jesus’ ministry

[00:24:43] and the final miracle. I find it rather interesting that right at the moment when they’re arresting him, he does a wonderful miracle of healing to the fellows here. What’s his name again? You remembered? Malchus. No, I’m sorry. Malchus is the name of the fellow. And on top of that, there is, I think, the demonstration of Jesus’ personal power when he says, I am. And the last moment of his ministry, he’s bringing out to those Jewish people what they should have understood because I am was the name of God from the Old Testament. And when he said, I am, and they all got knocked over backwards, do you think that they must have wondered the rest of their lives, what made me fall over backwards? Who was this person that he announces his name as I am and I fall over backwards? I think it’s the last moment.

[00:25:36] Those people too are getting an opportunity, a bit of a grace moment of knowing who Jesus is. I wonder whether some of them who watched through his trial and saw his death, but later might have been amongst the people who responded on the day of Pentecost when Peter announced the gospel with a first opportunity for people to become Christians, whether some of them might have been these high priest servants. I don’t know. But I wonder whether they reflected on who Jesus really was as the great I am, as the one who died for our sins, as the one who rose from the dead and went back to heaven, and the one one day who’s coming back again. It’s a great joy to go through. I actually liked the task I gave myself for tonight to go through all four of the gospels. It is not unimportant.

[00:26:29] This final moment is recorded by all four. Some parts are left out, one from the other, but they’ve all got an account of them arresting Jesus in the garden. And they’ve all got an account about Malchus’ ear getting healed by Jesus. So right to the very last moment, when the opposition are trying to drag him away to have him eventually crucified, Jesus is having mercy on one of their number to heal his ear. That’s what Jesus is like. And no matter how far from you you may think you may be, Jesus loves you and he died for you too. And he wants you to come and he will heal that part of you that might be your wounded ear or your person being caught on the wrong side of the fence or some other explanation as to why you haven’t found him yet. And Jesus’ love is brought out right to the end of this storyline

[00:27:27] that he wants you and he wants you to come and find him. If you’ve never done that before, how does it happen? Different people choose different ways to express their desire. I used to be a school teacher. I started in primary school, ended up teaching maths and physics in high school. But in the primary school, my first year of being a teacher, I was pretty raw and not really knowing what I was doing. But I did find ways to tell my class about Jesus. Jesus, and there was a little boy who was always getting into trouble. And one day I called him out telling lies to cover up everything, and he sort of realised he was found out. I’d taken him outside and given him a good talking to. But I included in the talking to that there’s somebody who can help him about how he’s always telling lies.

[00:28:22] And that person was Jesus, and he needs to ask Jesus to help him to be forgiven. and have some help not to carry on always being a liar. Well, I led him back into the class. He was sitting down the front and he sat at his desk and then as I went on with the day, he put his arms like that and his head down and I was looking, I didn’t know what he was doing. He looked like he was whispering something or praying perhaps. Then he put his hand up, but he didn’t put his hand up to me. I saw the hand and I asked him later what, you put your hand up? He said, I put my hand up to God. That little boy got in the door with Jesus that day and I want to tell you that when you have outlaid before you about the Lord Jesus Christ and what he’s done the opportunity comes to you express it whatever way you like.

[00:29:18] A little boy says he had his head bowed and he just put his hand up didn’t want me to answer he wasn’t putting his hand up to a person, me but to the person, Jesus and you can find your own way as to how to express but even this Sunday night if you’ve never really done business with Christ and found him as your own you can do that before the night is over if you wanted to. I’ll hand over to what do we do now? We have a benediction yeah, okay I’ll have a benediction prayer shall we pray Heavenly Father thank you for the evening service and Lord I thank you for the joy of looking through all those passages about the final miracle of Jesus healing Malchus’ ear and that accompanying moment I’m not quite sure whether to call it a public miracle but just the way that when he said I am they all fall over backwards

[00:30:16] that Jesus right at the final moment had been captured and taken on trial still was the powerful Son of God in charge of the whole event thank you too for his love for the disciples not to let them get captured and he cared for them and I thank you because I learned from that that you really care for me and want me to succeed in life and you want me to know how to walk with you and you take care of us just like you took care of those disciples we give you praise in your name Amen Thank you.