Walking in Peter’s Sandals – 4. Midnight Miracle
Luke 22: 49 - 51
Midnight in Gethsemane. Jesus has been praying alone. In the distance the disciples can see the flickering lights as a group of soldiers crosses the Kidron Valley. They are led by Judas. It all happened so quickly. A brief conversation, a hurried kiss on the cheek, the soldiers step forward to take Jesus away. In the confusion and semi-darkness, Peter knows he has to act, has to do something to protect his master. Grabbing his sword, he takes a wild swing, aiming at no one in particular. The sword finds its mark but not as Peter intended. If he hoped to scare off the soldiers, it didn’t work. If he hoped to inspire the other disciples, that might have worked had not Jesus stepped in.
He lopped off the ear of the high priest’s servant. No doubt the servant fell to the ground and began screaming in pain. Blood must have come spurting out of the hole where his ear had been. The soldiers would have drawn their swords, ready to kill Peter. But before things get out of hand, Jesus touches the servant’s ear, healing it instantly. And just like that, the crisis is over.
It made an impression on the disciples because this incident is recorded in all 4 gospels. Only John tells us that it was Peter who swung the sword and that Malchus was the servant’s name. Only Luke tells us that Jesus healed his ear. When we think about the betrayal and arrest of Jesus - the disciples never forgot what happened to Malchus. If it seemed that important to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, if the early church never forgot this story, then it contains important lessons for us. Frame the question - How does a follower of Christ react when all is lost? What do we do when our dreams seem to disappear in the darkness? Several important answers. We react righteously when all is lost …
1. By Refusing to Give In to Impulsive Anger.
We can easily understand Peter’s desire to fight back. In the confusion of the late-night arrest, he saw his Master being threatened, and he decided to fight back. Who can blame him? So grabbing a sword he takes a wild swing and cuts off Malchus’ ear. No doubt he meant to behead him but the angle wasn’t right - and I’m sure Malchus didn’t stand still either - so he lopped off his right ear. In his fear, anger and desperation, Peter has lashed out at the nearest target, the high priest’s servant, wounding him but not killing him.
Everything about this story makes perfect sense. You can hardly blame the disciples for thinking, “It’s time to fight,” and of course, we would expect no less from Peter, the volatile, emotional leader who generally acted first and thought about it later.
“Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness” (James 1: 19, 20). Slow to anger. How many of us are good at that? Raise your hand if you are slow to anger. I am sure there is a slice of humanity that can honestly say, “I am slow to anger,” but for the rest of us, here is a message from the Lord. Your anger and God’s righteousness generally move in opposite directions.
Most of our anger stems from fear, and most of our fear comes from the perception that we are losing control. Stop and think about it for a moment. As long as we are in the driver’s seat and things are going our way, we rarely get angry. But let things spin out of our control, as they did that night when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, and fear takes over. It is only a short step from fear to impulsive anger, and from sudden anger comes all manner of evil.
2. By Choosing to Lose Rather Than Winning Through Brute Force.
Losing is not a popular idea today. We all want to be on the winning team, don’t we? We want to be able to say, “My team won.” Nothing seems more un-South African than choosing to lose. But that’s precisely what the followers of Jesus are sometimes called to do. In Christ’s kingdom, the values of the world are turned upside down.
He that would save his life must lose it. Take up your cross and follow me. What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? He who would be first among you must be the servant of all. Whoever loves his life loses it. Whoever loses his life saves it.
Sometimes when you follow Jesus, you have to lose in order to win. That’s what Jesus meant when he said to Peter, “Put your sword back in its place for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26: 52). Brute force does not advance Christ’s kingdom. We cannot accomplish God’s work by bullying people into submission. When we try that approach, it may produce short-term results but it always backfires in the end because the appeal to brute force means that we don’t really believe in God. If we did, we wouldn’t try to take matters into our own hands. “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (v. 53). Do you think 72,000 angels could handle the soldiers that came out to arrest Jesus? But if Jesus had that sort of power at his disposal, why didn’t he use it? v. 54 says that Jesus refrained from calling on those angels because he knew that his arrest was necessary to fulfil God’s plan. “It must happen this way,” Jesus said.
I don’t blame Peter for not fully understanding those words. It’s after midnight, and he is tired, distraught, confused, angry, worn out, upset, and in his despair he wants to do something, anything, that will rescue Jesus. But Jesus doesn’t need his help. He doesn’t want to be rescued. Jesus can take care of himself. What seems to be the cluttered rush of events turns out to be the plan of God unfolding to bring salvation to the world. When evil seems to be winning, Christ calmly submits, knowing that in the end, God’s will must be done.
In our losing of our power, our significance, our place in the lights, our fame and fortune and all that we hold dear, especially our reputation in the world, in giving all that up, our losing with God wins for us a blessing the world can’t match and does not understand.
3. By Relying Completely on Christ’s Supreme Power Rather Than Our Own Puny Strength.
Sometimes we just have to let go. How hard that is for most of us. Letting go doesn’t exactly mean giving up. It doesn’t mean passively sitting by while the world takes advantage of us.
Letting go means giving up the right to always be in control. Letting go means admitting that you aren’t calling all the shots. Letting go means that you choose not to manipulate others. Letting go means admitting that you don’t have all the answers. Letting go means yielding your frantic emotions to the Lord. Letting go means resigning your position as Boss of the Universe.
Could God have made things turn out differently for Jesus? The answer is yes. He’s God. He could have arranged the circumstances any way he chose. But God ordained that his Son would die. “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53: 10).
Jesus had to die! Think about that and you will know why Jesus didn’t fight back. He knew that without his death, the whole world would be lost. So to serve God’s greater good, he endured the indignity of the howling mob, the false accusations, the brutal beating, and the shame of death on a cross.
Good Friday always comes before Easter Sunday. There is no resurrection without a crucifixion, and there are no shortcuts on the road to glory. Peter’s wild attack, motivated no doubt by desperate love, meant that he still didn’t understand that Jesus had to die. That’s why he relied on his sword to protect the Son of God. Peter’s use of force was . . .