The first part of John 18 has two pairs of characters, set on different sides of a hasty nighttime trial that is fishing for an excuse to send Jesus to the Roman authorities. On one side of Jesus’s trial are two high priests, Annas and Caiaphas (18:13), and on the other are the only two disciples who followed Jesus to his trial, Peter and the mysterious disciple “known to the high priest” (18:15).
The other Gospels add another pair to this story, telling of two governments that Jesus is shuttled between — a rubber-stamping puppet regime led by King Herod (who doesn’t even show up here in John!), and the governor who everyone says has the real power, Pontius Pilate.
Judas has led “a detachment of soldiers and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees” to Gethsemane, carrying fire and steel, “torches and lamps and weapons.” (18:4) But Jesus is waiting for them. He wakes the disciples and steps forth, asking “Whom do you seek?” They say, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He says to them, “I AM.” (18:5) And they step backward and fall to the ground. (18:6)
Is this moment worship? Is it fear? Is it irony? Whatever it is, Jesus takes the first step, asking the opening question. He is always asking questions, even here.
Psalm 35, quoted in John 15:25, also says, “Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt. … Let their way be dark and slippery.” (Psalm 35:4,6a) With two words spoken, Jesus identified with the psalmist, and shows the power of the Word made flesh.
When Jesus says “I AM” in the garden, He sums up all of his previous “I AM” statements, from the bread of life to the true vine. He also repeats God’s own name given to Moses from the burning bush, words coming from a fire that does not consume. John repeats “I AM” three times. Could the Trinity be hidden in this text?
In John 18:8, Jesus negotiates his disciples’ release, keeping his promise made in John 17:12. And Peter, with his usual exquisite self-control, chooses that exact moment to draw his own steel sword and start hacking away. Peter can’t even manage to hit his target, but hits the high priest’s servant instead. John knows some interesting details: the servant is named Malchus and Peter cuts off his right ear. (18:10) But despite Peter’s ill-timed heroics giving a good reason for arresting everyone, the solders are only after Jesus, so they let the others go.
Jesus is the one who stops Peter’s sword, asking yet another question: “The cup that the Father has given me, shall I not most surely drink it?” (18:11) This “cup of God’s wrath” is found throughout the prophets, in Isaiah (51:17,22), Jeremiah (25:15-17), and Ezekiel (23:31-34), for the wicked and oppressors to drink. This cup is filled with violence and destruction, stored up by the violent and destructive in the escalating cycle of revenge and retribution familiar to all historians, and all humans.
Jesus tells Peter to sheathe his sword so that Jesus can step in to the middle of this cycle and drink this cup. Jesus knows what he is doing, breaking the violent “circularity of closed societies, whether they be tribal, national, philosophical or religious.” Jesus stops Peter’s righteous (albeit clumsy) violence, forgiving it by healing Malchus’s ear. This is why Rene Girard interprets the cross as a revelatory moment where the Accuser is cast out, even exorcised: “From now on this violence has become its own enemy and will end by destroying itself. The Kingdom of Satan, more than ever divided against itself, will be able to stand no longer.” But the full revelation of the cross has only just begun – the first stone has crumbled of the Kingdom of the Accuser, and its end is sure.
Jesus is taken to Annas, who is technically not the high priest, but is sort of a pseudo-high priest. Annas held the official office from 6 to 15AD, had sons who were later high priests, and had a son-in-law who was the current high priest, Caiaphas. Annas was like a powerful professor emeritus who appears retired but still pulls strings with plausible deniability if things go wrong.
Annas asked Jesus an innocuous question about his teaching. Jesus said, basically, if you want to know what I taught then you can ask my students what they remember (which is what we have in the gospels: narratives of what his former students remember!). This answer earned Jesus a slap in the face, the first blow of many.
Violence was lurking beneath the surface of these (barely) civilized proceedings, waiting to lash out. The law in question included Exodus 22:28, “Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people,” but God was not blasphemed. Rather, the ruler of the people felt threatened by Jesus’s typical evasiveness and question-asking. That ruler’s representative took it on himself to stand in God’s place and punish the alleged lawbreaker. All the while, God’s actual place was in the man, right there, standing trial, already bleeding.
Annas couldn’t get a clear admission of guilt, and was probably a little shocked at how quickly the officer struck the defendant. This was getting out of control. So Annas kept the matter in the family and sent Jesus to the real high priest, Caiaphas. John lets the other Gospel writers tell us about Caiaphas’s trial.
Meanwhile, only two disciples had followed Jesus. The disciple “known to the chief priest” went in to the midnight trial as Peter was left outside, then returned and told the gatekeeper to let Peter through. That disciple returned to the trial, probably serving as the inside source for John’s account of those proceedings, and Peter was left alone. The adrenaline wore off, leaving him weak and in shock.
The cold courtyard was warmed by a charcoal fire that everyone gathered around, soldiers and slaves. (18:18) The gatekeeper, a mere girl, peered at Peter in the dim light and asked him if he was Jesus’s disciple. Peter lied, “I am not.” (18:17) Someone else asked again, and again Peter said, “I am not.” (18:25) Then one of Malchus’s family, still reeling from witnessing Malchus being maimed and healed only an hour or so ago, persisted: “Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?”
Peter kept lying. As the words left his lips a third time, a rooster crowed. (18:27) Peter ran out, isolating himself in his failure. The sun rose on the morning of Good Friday to the sound of bitter tears.
QUOTES: P.199 and P.203, Rene Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World.
IMAGE: The Denial of St. Peter, c. 1623 Gerrit van Honthorst
