Holy Courage
30 Days in John - day 22
Something easily overlooked in the arrest of Jesus is His holy courage. We tend to focus on the injustice, the betrayal, the suffering. But in John 18, John quietly holds something else before us: Jesus is not a victim swept along by events. He is a man who steps forward.
When He left the Upper Room, He led His disciples to a familiar garden—a place Judas knew well.
When the band of soldiers arrived with their swords and torches, Jesus didn’t try to hide Himself. He stepped forward and presented Himself to them.
He walked willingly toward the High Priest’s chambers and then to Pilate’s hall — never cowering, never resisting.
That He went of His own volition is forcefully demonstrated when He replied to the mob’s statement that they had come seeking Jesus of Nazareth.
“I Am.”
In the Greek text, Jesus simply says, “I Am.” The added “He” in our English translations helps the sentence flow, but the weight of the statement is unmistakable.
Up to now, in this series I’ve not written much about John’s use of Jesus’ words “I Am.” It shows up in this gospel a lot. In chapter 18 the force of it is on full display. For, when Jesus says “I Am,” His enemies all step back and fall to the ground; not once but twice. What explains this?
John doesn’t try to explain it. He leaves that for us to grapple with. It is not difficult to understand what John wants us to see. Jesus uses the divine name revealed in the Old Testament; the name spoken to Moses at the burning bush in Book of Exodus 3:14. For a brief moment, the veil of His humiliation lifts, and His divine authority is revealed. The soldiers do not arrest Him. They fall before Him.
This brings His holy courage even more into focus. It becomes clear that the cross was not forced upon Him. As He said in another Gospel, He could have called twelve legions of angels. Or, as John shows us here, He could have stood in His unveiled glory and no one would have touched Him. But He did neither. He chose the path of suffering.
One might argue that He did so because He knew what the outcome would be. He knew the necessity of His death. He knew it would bear fruit, like a grain of wheat falling into the ground. He knew resurrection would follow. The cross was not the end of His story. It was the doorway to glory — for Himself and for all who would believe. His foreknowledge was at the heart of His courage.
I think this is right. His holy courage, His willingness to face suffering and death, was born out of a confident knowledge of what the future held. And because He faced the future with confidence in the Father’s plan, we too can face ours without fear. Though we can’t know in the same way Jesus’ does, we can know that all the promises of God will come true because of what Christ has done for us. Nothing that anyone or anything can do to us today – including death – can change that. So, fear not and have holy courage.