NOTES for Joh 18:1-18

In describing Jesus' arrest and the events that preceded it in the Garden of Gethsemane, John is noticeably more laconic and restrained than the other evangelists. In particular, he mentions neither the prayer the Savior prayed before His arrest, nor how the apostles, unable to endure the strain that was too much for them, fell asleep despite their Teacher's requests. He reports only briefly that the Garden of Gethsemane was well known to Judas, as it was to the other apostles, because it was Jesus' usual place for meetings and conversations (vv. 1-2). Judging from the evangelist's testimony, those who came to arrest Jesus were not Roman soldiers, but the temple guard, and the arrest took place in the presence of representatives of the Pharisaic movement (v. 3).

Jesus, who was expecting arrest, Himself went out to meet the representatives of authority who had come for Him (vv. 4-5). The effect of the Savior's Person on everyone who found themselves near Him was so great that those who had come for Him did not at once dare to do what they had come to do (vv. 5-12). Meanwhile, Jesus did everything possible to spare His disciples from arrest (vv. 7-9).

He evidently understood that the apostles had difficulty grasping the significance and meaning of what was happening, and perhaps feared that they might try to seize the moment and, by offering armed resistance to the representatives of authority, begin an uprising that, according to their plan, would grow into a full-scale war under religious and messianic slogans. And His fears, evidently, were not groundless: Peter, the most decisive of the apostles, really did try to resist (v. 10), but Jesus stopped him (v. 11).

Clearly, this reaction of Jesus completely disconcerted the apostles. Not knowing what to do next, they, judging from the testimony of the other evangelists, simply scattered, and later mentions of them appear again only in the accounts of the Savior's crucifixion. John does not speak directly of the apostles' flight, but from his description of subsequent events it becomes clear that only two followed Jesus: Peter and one other disciple, whose name the evangelist does not mention (vv. 15-16). Still, they too no longer hoped for anything, apparently wanting only to see how the trial of their Teacher would end. As for messianic expectations and hopes for the swift triumph of the Kingdom, nothing, it seems, remained of them: after all, their Teacher Himself had just voluntarily refused any resistance. Now all that remained was to wait for the judicial process to end. What remained was a personal, human attachment to the Teacher, who seemed to the apostles to have lost, but whose Person, evidently, had not lost its charm in the eyes of the disciples. It seemed that the disciples had only the memory of the Teacher left. But that memory was sacred in their eyes.