Why we need to be spiritually fit (and how to get there) – John 18, Part 1

This week I welcome guest blogger, Emerald Scaffe. Emerald is married and together with her husband, has three children. She also serves on the teaching team at Faith Church.

In John chapter 17, Jesus is praying with his disciples after the Passover Feast.  I want to highlight some components of Christ’s prayer, before diving into chapter 18, because that prayer plays a significant role in the spiritual preparation necessary before Jesus is arrested.

In his prayer Jesus emphasizes that the purpose of the coming dark times is to glorify God the Father.  With that glorification, God the Father will bestow eternal life to His children; with that eternal life, they will deeply know the love of God, and with that love they will live in this world with unity and oneness with Christ. 

This promise of a deep relationship with God becomes possible when He is glorified through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the sinless Lamb.  Through Jesus’s prayer we see the clear purpose and motivation behind Christ’s willingness to proceed into the 18th chapter. 

Now we can study John chapter 18.  As we begin, we are going to tip-toe our way in, so that we can try to grasp some important connections. The chapter opens with an acknowledgment of Christ’s prayer, vs. 1 “When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley.  On the other side there was an olive grove, and he and his disciples went into it.”  John does not mention the name of this place to be the garden of Gethsemane, but we know from the other gospels that it was in Gethsemane, at the Mount of Olives.

We read on in verse 2, “Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.” Before we read verse 3, where Judas approaches Jesus, we should remember what happens in between verses 2 and 3.

In the book of Luke, chapter 22, we read about Jesus taking Peter and John with him to the garden, in order that they may pray.  Luke 22 verse 39, “Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.  On reaching the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you will not fall into temptation.’”

As we read on, Jesus goes a few paces away and prays alone to the Father, asking for the cup to be taken away, but moreover that God’s will be done. When he returns to his friends, they are asleep, “exhausted from sorrow”, and again Jesus says to them, “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

This connection Jesus makes between prayer and avoiding temptation is key to understanding the need to be spiritually fit prior to foreseeable opposition.  In this case, Jesus is referring to the events of John chapter 18.  We see how Jesus steeped himself in prayer.  He was consistent in his personal retreats with God, hence how Judas knew where to find him.  Jesus chose to connect with God through prayer, right before the arrest.  Consider this description of Jesus in Hebrews 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are- yet was without sin.”

Here, in the story of Christ’s arrest, we see him offer his disciples a spiritual tool to avoid temptations.  It is the tool of spiritual preparation that Jesus himself utilized, in order that He could stand firm in the storm.

I’m focusing a lot on the preparation prior to the betrayal of Judas, because the moment that Judas approaches Christ is when the match is lit, and the fire has started. It stands to reason that how Jesus handled the upcoming tragedies are a direct result of his intentionality of connecting with God beforehand.

As we go back to John chapter 18 and pick up in verse 3, we will see a shift in the narrative.  The spiritual hope and joy that has been taught by Christ in the first 17 chapters of John seem to be lost behind the fog of sinful depravity.  The way this chapter is written, it’s almost clinical in its account. 

Reminds me of a moment in my life, when in my first marriage my daughter and I left our home for safety reasons.  The next few days were a whirlwind of events.  As she and I found shelter with two married friends of mine.  The husband recommended that I write down the events of the last 48 hours.  That was incredibly helpful later on, as my mind was fairly overwhelmed. 

If I were to go back and read about those days, many years later, it would not encapsulate the depth of my pain and it also would not articulate the presence of God.  Yet God was very much in that situation, it’s just that sometimes when life gets overwhelming God can be hard to see in the fog, but He is there.

Something that we will be doing as we step into John chapter 18 is actively searching for moments of God’s faithfulness in the midst of the tragedy. If we can accomplish that in this story, we will be able to see God in our stories.

Photo by Fa Barboza on Unsplash