We are too used to reading the Gospels’ stories of Jesus’ arrest, trial, condemnation, and death from a devotional perspective and so we miss a lot of what’s going on. We actually have a difficult time trying to figure out the meaning of the details of the story. Of course, we will defend the historicity of the details of the story against unbelieving academics and liberal churchman. But why these details? Why any details at all?

John has already wonderfully summarized things in chapters 1 and 3. “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world” and “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.” But what does God’s provision of a lamb for the sins of the world have to do with this long story of what happens to Jesus the night before he dies? What does God loving the world have to do with the machinations and conspiracies of Judas, the High Priests, Pilate, and the Jewish crowds? A great deal, truly, but we will have to learn to read the Passion accounts a bit differently.

You see, here in the narrative of Jesus’ arrest and trial and condemnation we have a somewhat surprising perspective.  It does not contradict or compete with the other apostolic explanations of Jesus’ death; rather, it complements and enriches them. Remember, the meaning of the death of Jesus is far richer than we are often used to acknowledging. When we look at the details of the text—what events and characters and words John has carefully chosen to weave together from the story of Jesus’ last few days—we can get a pretty good idea of what he is trying to communicate. This is not fiction, but history. Nevertheless, narrating history is never simply a matter of reproducing what has happened. Out of a million and more little details one must pick and choose just what to record

John could have written something very simple and matter of fact, something like this: “Jesus went out from the upper room and was met by Judas who betrayed him into the hands of the Jewish authorities, and they in turn convinced Pilate to crucify him.” That sentence could replace the entire story from 18:1—19:16. It is just the facts, Ma’am—the Dragnet method of doing history, according to Sgt. Friday.

Or John could have written a huge fat book on the last few days of Jesus’ life. You know that there was much, much more that he could have recorded but didn’t—volumes that Jesus said, that the disciples said, that others said. John himself will say that the world itself could not contain the books that might be written if every detail were recorded (21:25).What happened in the trials of Annas and Caiaphas? We’re not told. Surely John knew more than he tells us.

So what does John want us to see and learn here? Think about the defining themes of this portion of the passion story as told by John.

He is very careful to tell us how Jesus ended up on the cross. He is very careful to rub our noses in the contributions of all the various parties in Jerusalem—Jewish and Roman, religious and political. And in the end everyone was unified—Jesus must die.

What John shows us is how all the parties and factions, each group and community, and every individual in them, all came together to kill Jesus: Judas and his band of soldiers and bodyguards, the family of the High Priest (Annas and Caiaphas), Peter and the disciples, the Roman soldiers, Pilate and the Imperial Government of Rome, the Jews (18:38; 19:12). Is that surprising? Shocking? The death of Jesus has to do with the coming together, the unification of all these otherwise disparate, rival social units and individuals—Judas and Peter, the High Priest and Pilate, Israel and the Jews. People that would otherwise hate one another are all unified in their hatred of Jesus. And although Peter and the disciples don’t actively pursue Jesus’ death like the others, their betrayal and cowardice exhibit a shocking unity with the Satanic mob.

Notice how an astonishing unity is achieved by the end of the narrative (19:16). Everyone is together. They are united. They are one. They confess Caesar as king; they are unified together in his kingdom. Isn’t this what Jesus prayed for in the upper room? Unity? Oneness?

This is unity indeed, but not the kind of unity that Jesus prays for in John 17

What we see in the Passion story is a clash of two kingdoms, two ways of organizing and maintaining order in human society.  It is Lent, a time in which we focus on self-examination and repentance, and so it is good for us to consider the counterfeit unity of Satan’s kingdom—a unity in which we are all too easily caught up.

John exposes the false unity of fallen humanity. He exposes the ground and foundation of every concord that exists apart from the gospel. What is manifest here in Pilate’s courtyard is not the “kingdom of Jesus” but the kingdom of fallen humanity. Communities, governments, cultures, societies, clubs, cliques, gangs—if they are organized and unified as fallen human communities, it is on the basis of hatred and violence, and it always moves toward release of that hatred in the death of an innocent victim.

We came from the upper room where Jesus was speaking of the unity he had with his Father and his prayer that such a unity would come to characterize his disciples in their community. The unity that Jesus spoke of was a unity grounded in love and self-sacrificial giving. Read the last line of the upper room discourse (17:26). The Father loves the Son and lives to glorify the Son. The Son loves the Father and lives to glorify the Father. That is the foundation of unity in the Godhead and ought to be the foundation of unity in humanity, made in God’s image.

But there is another way to achieve unity—a way that is the antithesis of love and sacrifice. It is that way which is so carefully narrated here in John 18–19. It is the way of paganism. It is the unity sanctioned by every archaic religion, from the Greeks to the Persians. It is exposed here for all to see.

It will do us good to pay very careful attention to how this pseudo-unity, this false foundation for building communities works. It is simple, yet profound. You will resist it. You will not want to believe it is true about you. But you must, if you are a Christian. Carefully examining the process will allow us once again to penetrate the superficial illusions we so artfully embrace about our own sinful hearts. This is the purpose of Lent. This is why we meditate on these narratives.

Here’s the outline of the process of achieving the wrong sort of unity, a Satanic oneness.

First, it begins with rivalries between individuals and groups who foment trouble in a community. So in our story the Jews have a love/hate relationship with the Romans. They love their power, but they want it for themselves. They are intensely envious of what the Romans have. They ought to have it. This is a manifestation of the primordial sin. Satan enticed Adam with it. Why should God have what you want? You can be gods yourself. James makes this explicit: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this: that your passions are at war within in you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:1-2b).

Second, one becomes so obsessed with one’s rival that one is transformed into the image of one’s rival. In their hatred for Rome, they come to be like Rome. They imitate Rome.  Rome achieved power through violence. The Jews will achieve the power that Rome now has through violence. They seek to bring down Rome through violent rebellion. Conversely Rome hates the Jews. They are fascinated by them and yet fear them. The rivalry escalates and begins to infect and contaminate all of life and culture in Palestine. Rome wants to humiliate and break the Jewish spirit. The Jews want to humiliate and break the Roman Spirit. The point is that rivalries transform both parties into the other. It is a vicious circle, and the result is that the violence of hatred is pent up and ready to be released.

Third, one looks for someone to blame. Why can’t the Romans put down the Jews once and for all? Why can’t the Jews overthrow the yoke of the Romans and restore the glory days? Who’s to blame? Well, not the Jewish leadership, not the chief priests. Not the people. John the baptizer proclaimed the kingdom, and we believed it for a while, but nothing has happened. We thought maybe this guy Jesus was the Messiah—a Messiah in the image of our distorted expectations, a military might to finally destroy Rome. So who’s to blame? Why is everything so messed up?

What happens next is crucial—violence is about to erupt, but against whom and how? What will restore order and achieve unity in our society? The Jews are thinking: What will commend us to the Romans and give us time to organize our resistance? And the Romans are thinking: What can we do to ensure the compliance of these Jews. An answer emerges: Find a single victim and unleash all the pent up violence on him. Blame him.  Punish him. It matters not whether he is guilty of not. All that is important is that he is strange and odd and appears to be the source of the weakening of our unity.

Who can fill that role? There is only one answer: Jesus.