This is the sixth week of the season of Lent and Palm/Passion Sunday. We conclude our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. The Scripture passage this Sunday is John 18:1-11.
As we near our Easter celebration, we might be tempted to want over to skip over the bad stuff and jump straight to the celebration and the eggs and the fun! And we would be wrong to do this. I wonder if Jesus was tempted, as he concluded his prayer and as the soldiers approached, if he was tempted to use unimaginable power to avoid betrayal and arrest and torture and the horror of crucifixion.
Professor Levine highlights the way Jesus claims his identity in this passage. In the first chapter of John, Jesus is identified by the Baptizer as God’s son. In this 18th chapter, Jesus says that he is the one the soldiers seek by saying, “I am.” We know this to be the way God is named as Moses speaks with the voice from the burning bush.
Jesus faces the temptation and claims his identity as “I am.”
John 18:1-11
1 After he said these things, Jesus went out with his disciples and crossed over to the other side of the Kidron Valley. He and his disciples entered a garden there. 2 Judas, his betrayer, also knew the place because Jesus often gathered there with his disciples. 3 Judas brought a company of soldiers and some guards from the chief priests and Pharisees. They came there carrying lanterns, torches, and weapons. 4 Jesus knew everything that was to happen to him, so he went out and asked, “Who are you looking for?”
5 They answered, “Jesus the Nazarene.”
He said to them, “I Am.” (Judas, his betrayer, was standing with them.) 6 When he said, “I Am,” they shrank back and fell to the ground. 7 He asked them again, “Who are you looking for?”
They said, “Jesus the Nazarene.”
8 Jesus answered, “I told you, ‘I Am.’ If you are looking for me, then let these people go.” 9 This was so that the word he had spoken might be fulfilled: “I didn’t lose anyone of those whom you gave me.”
10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) 11 Jesus told Peter, “Put your sword away! Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?”
Consider these questions:
- Who are you? What’s your identity? Where did/does your identity come from? Do you claim this identity outwardly? How?
- Over this time of Lent, have you experienced temptation? Have you felt tempted to skip over difficult things? How have you responded? Has your response been what you would have hoped? If not, what are you willing to do differently?
- Jesus claims his identity in the face of temptation. Is there a parallel in this for you?