CS Lewis once uh said to his great friend J.R.R. Tolken, “My entire philosophy of history hangs upon a single sentence of your own.” And that great influential sentence that Lewis referred to comes from a passage in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf the wizard is explaining to Frodo the history of the struggle for Middle Earth. And Gandalf says, “There was sorrow then too, and gathering dark, but great valor and great deeds that were not wholly vain.” Now, why would CS Lewis single that short sentence out and declare that to be say say that it captured his entire philosophy of history? Well, both both Lewis and Tolken had fought in the awful trenches of World War I. They knew what what it was like to see this gathering dark steel over what was what was considered the enlightened Christian nations of Europe. And that radical darkening in Europe would have been unimaginable a few years earlier. But in the midst of the darkness, they recognized also with their fellow soldiers a great valor, a heroism, a courage that was rising up against that darkness. And so their later fictional works, the Lord of the Rings and the Narnia series, they both display courage and val valor at a point where defeat seems inevitable. And then their stories take a joyous turn at the very point when all seems lost. In our passage this morning in John 18, the spiritual climate on earth was seriously darkening. Son of God sent from heaven to earth. he was about to fall into the hands of his accusers, his murderers. And despite the fact that the Passover time always occurs uh when the when the moon is full, the happenings at Gethsemane that night and the next day at Calvary show it to be the darkest of the darkest times that have ever happened on our planet. But this morning, there are two hints of a joyous turn that is to come. where Tolkien’s words that meant so much to CS Lewis would be realized. There was sorrow then too and gathering dark but great valor and great deeds that were not wholly vain. So we’re seeing the valor of Jesus this morning. Great deeds displayed two ways by his flex and by his willingness to drink the cup. The flex and the cup. And the valor that Jesus displays massively encouraging for us, especially if you’re in a time in your life where there’s some sorrow and some darkness that seems to be gathering and you’re longing for a sign, any sign, any little hope that there might be a joyous turn for you in the future. Let’s look first at what might be called the flex. And it occurs ever so briefly in verse 6. We might blink and miss it, but it’s one of my favorite little morsels in all of the gospels. Uh we spent a good number of Sundays reflecting on Jesus’ last words to his uh disciples delivered as it appears first in the upper room in Jerusalem where they had supper together. And that part of the conversation seems to be covered in chapters 13 and 14. And then the end of chapter 14, Jesus says, “Come, come now, let us leave.” indicating that perhaps the rest of his words to them and the prayer that he prayed for them and the prayer that he prayed for us were spoken as they were on the move through the dark streets of Jerusalem toward that kind valley in the east beyond which there was this olive grove in the garden of Gethsemane wherever it was that Jesus delivered his closing prayer for his followers. Chapter 18 begins with when he had finished praying Jesus left with his disciples he crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was an olive grove and he and his disciples went into it. Now Judas who betrayed him knew the place because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. So from what we read of Jesus’ habitual practice during the Passover season, what we would know today as Holy Week, he would come into Jerusalem by day. He’d spend the nights in the small village of Bethany outside Jerusalem, the company of his great friends Lazarus and Mary and Martha. But as commentator Don Carson points out, on the night of the Passover, Jewish law required that all observant Jews, no matter where they were from, spend the night within the extended city boundaries of Jerusalem, which didn’t include that village of Bethany. So spending that night in the olive grove, the garden of Gethsemane appears to have been maybe the annual practice of Jesus and his disciples, shown by the fact that when Jesus most sought for his disciples to stay awake and pray with him, they were bedding down for the night and they were falling asleep. And Judas, the defector, the betrayer, he knew the location. Jesus made no attempt to deviate from his normal practice. Wasn’t hard for the arresting party to find him. Judas made his way to the olive grove. He guided some Jewish officials, some some sent by the chief priests and the Pharisees along with a large gentile military presence of Roman soldiers. And that term detachment or cohort of Roman soldiers, quite a formal term that would really at minimum comprise from 100 to to 200 men. Jesus was a very popular figure in the crowds and especially at Passover time when the whole city was swelled with pilgrims from all over. Better to be safe than sorry. Better to go with some overkill. Uh not to be outgunned. They’re going after someone who’s reputed to be an insurrectionist. So one to 200 Roman soldiers. You know, it seems to be a great rise of anti-semitism or hostility against Jewish people in our cultures, particularly over the last few years. seems to always burble just underneath the surface of Western culture and periodically it it comes to the surface and there’s overt racism, hostility against Jewish people. Just this past week in Toronto, there were three synagogues I think that were uh shot up and no one knows what that’s all about. My dad has told me how in Edmonton because the Jewish community was not well accepted here that they had to uh uh found their own clubs, their own organizations. In 1922, because they weren’t allowed to golf on any other golf courses, they built the Mayfair Golf and Country Club near Horlac Park. And then in the early 50s, they felt compelled also to form their own curling rink. They called it the Manora. It was later renamed the Aanire. It’s up by Kingsway Mall. And my uncle recalls going to a beach near Winnipeg where the signs would read Gentiles only for swimming there. And anti-semitism always seems to be an evil that’s just looking for an opportunity. Been common throughout church history for Christians and for other people to lay the blame solely on the Jewish people for the killing of Jesus. But our passage this morning, it’s filled to the brim with Roman soldiers and and subsequently the next chapter has Jesus appear before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, illustrates that the whole world was hostile to the son of God. People of every race, believers, unbelievers, they all joined together to attack Jesus. And we would expect that. Romans 8:78 says, “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. Earlier in Romans 5:10, we read that it was when we were God’s enemies that we were reconciled to him through the death of his son. So the picture the Bible paints is that all of us are naturally lethally opposed to Jesus. No one on our planet, however nice they might be, is just idling and spiritual neutral. the nicest people that we know apart from Christ still sworn enemies of God. The Bible would tell us even though that thought would never occur to them and it they they’d be shocked to hear that only sometimes only occasionally they might catch a glimpse of how dark their sinful nature really is, their potential, their propensity to do evil. And that little momentary glance in the mirror at their own dark soul might be a time when Jesus will give a little flex and it will undo them. That’s what happens in our passage. There’s this great mob of people coming toward Jesus with torches and lanterns and weapons. And rather than slip away, Jesus goes out toward them saying, “Who is it you want?” And someone yells back in the dark, “Jesus of Nazareth.” And then our English translations have Jesus say,”I am he.” But in the original Greek of this passage, he simply says two words, “Ego ami.” I am. That’s the divine name that God gave to Moses when he was in front of the burning bush. And Moses asked, “Who should I say is sending me uh to Egypt to deliver your people?” And God spoke said, “Say, I am has sent you.” Meaning, I’m the self-existent one. I’m the one who has no beginning, no end. The one on whom all creatures, every human being on the planet depends for every second of their being. The one who is dependent on no one. Now Jesus had infuriated people earlier in the gospel of John in chapter 8 when he said, “Before your father Abraham was ever born, I am clearly taking that divine name to be his own.” And the crowd at that time had no doubt that Jesus was making the supremely blasphemous claim to be the eternal God. and they picked up stones to kill him, but it was not his time yet. And on that occasion, Jesus slipped away. In the garden of Gethsemane, as the soldiers came to arrest him, Jesus called out, uh, “Who is it you want?” And they yelled back, “Jesus of Nazareth.” He uttered the phrase, “I am,” twice, verses 5 and verse 6. And it’s like he momentarily flexed his divine muscles. He flexed his true identity. Jesus feared 200 soldiers, Roman soldiers, no more than we would fear an army of Lego men. And what was the result of his flex? We read that that great mob, including more than 100 solid, battleh hardened, pragmatic Roman soldiers were knocked off their feet. Verse six says, “When Jesus said, I am,” they drew back and fell to the ground. There it is. That’s one of my favorite moments in all the gospels. one little divine flex. No one can stand. No one can stay on their feet. That settled wrath of God, his anger against sin was released for just a millisecond. No one could stand. Common occurrence in scripture. Whenever God flexes his holy identity. Ezekiel chapter 1, the prophet experiences a revelation from God, he’s flat down on his face. 2 Chronicles 5, the the temple’s being dedicated. The glory of God comes in and fills it and the priests couldn’t stand or continue their ministry. Isaiah in chapter 6 gets his experience of God’s presence and he cries out, “I’m ruined. Woe is me. I’m a man of unclean lips. My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” or Peter early in his acquaintance with Jesus in Luke 5, there’s this miraculous catch of fish that demonstrates to Peter a little divine holy flex from Jesus. And he falls at Jesus’ feet and says, “Go away from me, Lord. I’m a sinful man. I just can’t take it.” And you hear the fear in the voices of everyone who experiences that little moment of a holy divine flex. And it illustrates to them God’s settled wrath, his anger against sin, and that they are unworthy and that they can’t stand in his presence. In the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus says, “I am,” it’s like a micro burst of glory mixed with wrath that shatters the spirit of those soldiers. Now, as quickly as it was revealed, it was withdrawn. And I can picture this group of soldiers very sheepishly getting to their feet and they’re looking at one another and they’re saying, “What was that?” They quickly regained their composure. They remembered why they’d come to the garden. They set their teeth. They put their hand on their weapons and proceeded to arrest the one whose words had knocked them flat. What we see here really is the long suffering of God withholding of his wrath against sin. There’s something about what Jesus does here. He has great power over human beings, sinful human beings. Yet, he refuses to use it to destroy people. It’s a template that inspires any anytime we hear of something like that, it inspires us. Last week, I watched an Iranian film uh entitled It Was Just an Accident. And it was filmed under the radar of the Iranian sensors, but it gained recognition. It won the coveted Palm Door at the Canon Film Festival in January. It was nominated for two Academy Awards. And the film deals with a small group of Iranian citizens who had been imprisoned and tortured by a man, a former guard, whose life and fate was now in their hands. What were they going to do with him? Now, the film’s a composite of several real life experiences that happened to the director and his coowwriter and many others. Medi Mammoodian uh wrote dialogue for the film. He’s spent nine of the past 16 years in Iranian prisons as a result of his political activism. He’s experienced a lot of his own torture. He’s witnessed a great deal of it in prison. His latest imprisonment just came on January 31st. He signed a joint statement blaming Iran’s late Supreme Leader for the killing and arrests of thousands of protesters. He was released on bail in midFebruary. But during his recent time in prison, he saw many more marks of severe beatings. Spoke with young one young man whose 8-month-old baby had been tortured in front of him. They told him they would hang his baby if he didn’t confess to what they wanted him to confess to. Another man was arrested for along with his wife and he was beaten in front of her and then she was beaten in front of him and then his wife’s 14-year-old brother was beaten as well. And all of this, this has been going on for decades, many, many years in in Iran. And back in 2001, uh, Medi Mammoodian says he noticed a man with an amputated hand struggling to repair his car. Now, he worked in a nearby print shop, and he immediately recognized the man as a former guard who had used his left hand to torture Mammoodian in prison two years earlier. Mimoodian decided to help his torture. He invited the man into his shop. He offered him tea. He recruited a c-orker to fix his car. Hours later, as the man was preparing to leave, Mimoodian reintroduced himself to him as his former prisoner. And stunned, the man drove away without responding. But he did return to the print shop the next day and he asked for Mimmoodian’s forgiveness. He said it was the fault of the authorities. He was just doing his job. He regretted it. On another occasion last May, Israel launched a surprise air campaign against Iranian military facilities and they bombed the prison where Midi was being held. Both guards and prisoners were trapped in the rubble. So Medi organized a few others to break the locks and pull out all who were alive. And an hour and a half later, when the control of the prison was regained by the guards, one of the very guards that he had rescued an hour earlier put a gun to his head and forced him to go back inside. Medi says that though says though that anything he’s done for others is the absolute minimum that he considers his responsibility toward other humans. He says I live in a society that believes that people’s value comes from what they believe in. But I follow the school of thought that that believes that humans have value just for the sake of being human. It’s very inspiring to hear things like that when people they have the power to enact revenge and and to harm those who amply deserve it, but they refrain and they offer grace instead. They’re following the template of Jesus in the in the garden. He had power over all who opposed him. Instead, he treated them as people of value, allowed those soldiers to clamber back to their feet, and even to come and fulfill the harm that they intended to bring him. He zealously guarded his disciples that night. In verse 8 says, “If you’re looking for me, let these men go and rather than be arrested along with Jesus, all the disciples were safely allowed to slip away in the night.” Jesus viewed all simple people, sinful people, as sheep without a shepherd. And compassion just ran through his veins. And though he had full power to prevent what was coming to him, he chose to accept it instead. You know, a moment later, Peter grabbed his little sword or dagger and he took a wild thrust and he cut off a man’s ear. Luke tells us that the man’s name was Mthus, and he was a servant of the high priest. And with blood bursting from the severed ear, Jesus briefly flexed his power again. He touched the man’s ear and healed him. He turned to Peter and as Matthew records it, he says, “Do you think I cannot call on my father and he’ll at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels?” Gospel writer John doesn’t include that that bit of dialogue. Rather, Jesus simply says to Peter, “Put your sword away. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” Now, here’s where we move in the passage from the flex, that micro burst of God’s awesome wrath, his anger against sin to this cup of voluntary sacrifice. Jesus says to Peter, “Peter, I don’t need your sword. I don’t need your hollow act of courage.” Jesus had already told Peter earlier that evening that he was going to disown Jesus and deny him uh three times that very night. But what Jesus does say to Peter is essentially this. Peter, I’m just I’m going to go over the gospel with you once more. Here it is in a nutshell. Shall I not drink the cup the father has given me? You about 400 years before the time of Jesus lived the famous Greek philosopher Socrates. And he was quite popular and he was considered exceptionally wise. But he ran a foul of the civil authorities in Athens. And he was put on trial. when he was asked to propose his own punishment, Socrates said, “Well, I think the government should uh give me a wage and free dinners for the rest of my life.” Not much of a punishment really. And this, of course, it wasn’t deemed acceptable by the authorities. And he had been found guilty of corrupting the vulnerable young minds of Athens. And so, he was sentenced to die by drinking a mixture that contained poisoned hemlock. And although he had an opportunity to escape, Socrates believed that to flee would indicate fear of death. And he believed no true philosopher should have to fear death. So on the day he was to drink poison hemlock, he calmly took a bath. He gave his followers a few words of wisdom. They asked him how he would like to be buried. And laughing gently, he said, “You can do it any way you please if you can catch me and I don’t get away from you.” And before drinking the poison, he was told he still had some time. But Socrates said if he delayed it would only make him look ridiculous trying to cling to life for a few minutes more. So he instructed them bring me the poison. He asked how how should you take it. He was instructed drink it all and then walk around until your legs start feeling heavy and then lie down and let the poison take effect. So without trembling or hesitating, Socrates raised the cup to his lips and he cheerfully drained it dry and tears of his followers rolled down their cheeks. But Socrates told him that was absurd. He said, “It’s best to die in silence.” And he got up and he walked around and when his legs became heavy, he lay down on his back. And the man who administered the poison started to pinch his feet and pinch his legs asking if he could feel it. And Socrates said, “No, I can’t feel that.” And after that, it came up to his thighs. And this cold and numbness was working its way to his heart. last words. Socrates turned to a follower and told him that he owed someone a chicken and uh he wanted to ensure that that debt was paid and then he was gone. He was consider it was considered a brave, noble, valiant death in Greek culture. But with Jesus, very different. As his death approached, unlike Socrates, he struggled. He agonized before his arrest. He was pleading with God. Is there is there any way for this cup to be taken away from me? Is there any way I can get out of this? I can be let off the hook. I can I can be relieved of this mission? And it looks like on the surface that the eternal son of God facing death was overwhelmed with doubts and fears and sorrow and weakness that might seem unbecoming or unflattering. And why is that? It’s because Jesus would was going to drink from a cup far more potent than the poison that Socrates drank. This cup is a cup of punishment. It’s a metaphor used in scripture for divine justice. In the Hebrew scriptures, the cup is that metaphor for the wrath that God pours out against human evil. Picture of divine justice being enacted. It’s a cup no one would ever want to drink, but God forces people to drink it all the same. Here are a few of the scriptures that talk about that cup. Psalm 75:8, “In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth, drink it down to its very drags.” Isaiah 51, “Awake, awake, rise up, oh Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord, the cup of his wrath. You who have drained to its drags the goblet that goblet that makes men stagger.” Jeremiah 25. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me, “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them.” Ezekiel 23, you will drink the cup of ruin and desolation. Habach 2:16, you will be filled with shame instead of glory. Now it’s your turn. Drink and be exposed. The cuff from the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you and disgrace will cover your glory. Finally, Revelation 14. If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he too will drink of the wine of God’s fury which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. Now the image in all those passages is of some foaming vile furious drink and your mouth is open and the liquid is forced down your throat and makes you stagger and go mad and be exposed and filled with shame. That’s the biblical description of the cup of God’s wrath. The cup of God’s anger. That’s the cup that Jesus tells Peter he must drink. It’s not a cup that’s forced on him by his enemies. It’s a cup that’s being handed to him by his father. And you think about it, all that Jesus had known prior to that point, whenever he turned toward his heavenly father, he was flooded with love. At his baptism, the spirit descended like a dove from heaven. Jesus heard his father say, “You’re my son whom I love. With you I’m well pleased.” At his transfiguration, when the disciples saw the glory of Jesus, the cloud enveloped the mountain. And the voice of the father again said, “This is my son whom I love. Listen to him.” And every time that Jesus prayed and turned his face toward heaven, he felt his father’s pleasure and his father’s approval. But in the garden of Gethsemane, when he turned to his father, he sensed instead wrath, separation, the abyss, silence. A cup was being handed to him that represented all the foaming wrath of God against all human sin for all time. You and you and I, we deserve to be made to drink from that poisoned cup. You know, our sins toward God, toward other people, our thoughts and our words and our actions, they make the death sentence against us completely just. But Jesus without any sin of his own, he was the one person who ever walked the face of the earth who could legitimately refuse to drink from that cup and just pass that on to the next person. But he tells Peter, Peter, tomorrow I’m going to drink from the cup that my father hands me. And I’m going to do it, Peter, so that you and all my disciples and all my followers and all who will ever believe in me, all those who will come to me to be saved, present and future, they’ll never have to tip this awful cup up to their mouths. Now, we don’t like talking about God’s wrath, his anger against sin, but if we have no vocabulary for God’s wrath, then we’re left with no vocabulary for God’s love. If we want a loving God, we have to have an angry God. Haven’t you noticed that the people you love, when you really love someone, you get very very angry at anything that’s going to come and hurt them or even anything they’re doing to themselves which is hurting them. You love not you you’re angry not in spite of your love, but because of your love for them. And the more closely and deeply you love people, the angrier you can get at what’s destroying them. Tim Tim Keller writes, “When you see people who are harmed or abused, you get mad. If you see people abusing themselves, you get mad at them out of love.” Your senses of love and justice are activated together. They’re not in opposition to each other. If you see people destroying themselves or destroying other people, and you don’t get mad, it’s because you don’t care. You’re too absorbed in yourself. You’re too cynical. You’re too hard. The more loving you are, the more ferociously angry you’ll be at whatever harms your beloved. And the greater the harm, the more resolute your opposition will be. And we might think that we just we just want a loving God. We don’t want an angry God. But when we think about it, one is incoherent without the other. God’s capacity for love is so much greater than ours. And the cumulative extent of evil in the world is so vast. The word wrath doesn’t even really do justice to how God rightly feels when he looks at his world. So it makes no sense to say, “Ah, I don’t want a wrathful, angry God. I just want a loving God.” If God is loving and good, he must be angry at evil. Angry enough to do something about it. And he did. when Jesus his son willingly drank the cup that was handed from his father’s hand to him, his father’s wrath on us. There’s a book entitled uh Letters to Malcolm where CS Lewis corresponds with a fictional character named Malcolm that he created. And at one point, Malcolm expresses how uncomfortable he is with the idea of a God who gets angry. He says he finds it helpful instead to think of God’s power and justice more like a little electrical wire. He says the live wire it doesn’t feel angry at us but if we blunder against it we get a shock. So he liked to think of God’s justice as mechanical and impersonal so that he could only think of God in terms of warmth and fuzziness. The live wire doesn’t feel angry with us but if we blunder against it we get a shock. CS Lewis replies, “My dear Malcolm, what do you suppose you have gained by substituting the image of a live wire for that of angered majesty? You have shut us up all in despair. For the angry can forgive, but electricity can’t.” And only when we see that necessary blending of anger and compassion in God’s heart can we begin to perceive just how valuable we must be to him. He’ll allow his son, who he loves, to drink the foaming cup that contains the wrath of God against all of our sin, every unholy word and thought and action you and I have ever done. The father will watch as his son on the cross willingly drinks that awful liquid right down to the bottom. Because only when his son drinks that cup, that’s the way for us to be set free and forgiven. And then Psalm 23 becomes our reality. Instead of being forced to drink the cup of God’s wrath, God can prepare a table before us. He can anoint our head with oil. Our cup can overflow with blessing and with joy. So that little flex of Jesus is a momentary micro burst that shows what the wrath of God is like. It knocks us off our feet. And if you aren’t yet a Christian and occasionally you get that sense of a micro burst that shows you your sin and God’s anger against it, that’s mercy that’s being offered to you in that little moment of revelation. And if you can find solace and salvation in knowing that Jesus drained that awful cup that his father gave him so that we can stand on our feet and worship him with thanksgiving, then we know what it’s really like to be loved. Let’s just take a few moments and uh pray a couple of these thoughts back to uh to our father in heaven and to Jesus his son who drank that cup for us. You might want to thank God for any flex of his revelation that you’ve witnessed and acknowledge that it hasn’t come to destroy you. It’s come to save you, to show you mercy. Praise God that he reconciled himself to you when you were his enemy. And consider for a moment the depth of your own sin. Thank Jesus that he was willing to drink the cup of God’s wrath for you. This is your time with God. Just take a take a few moments and then I’ll close us off.