The tune to the words "The Final Countdown" ring in my ears. While we are going to begin John 18, what happens here did not occur until near midnight on what would have been Friday for them. Remembering that the Jewish days are from sundown to sundown...as soon as their time at the Last Supper reached sundown, Friday began. So - even the prayers Jesus prayed for them are part of his Friday. There is just too much to cover to keep it all in parallel time!
Soon after he prayed for himself, for his disciples, and for all believers, as we looked at in John 17, Jesus left the upper room and went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley to a garden that was familiar to this group of men because they met there often.
John doesn't share everything with us that other gospel writers do, including the part of the story when Jesus left 8 of his disciples in one spot, took Peter, James, and John with him, and went a little farther to pray alone after telling them he was in deep emotional pain, and admonished them to remain where they were, stay awake, and pray. After he poured out his heart and soul to God, he came back and found them asleep, and directed his statement of disappointment to Peter, "Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn't you stay awake one hour? Stay awake and pray so that you won't enter into temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." Jesus said this to him because Peter had just declared he would never forsake Jesus, and Jesus had forewarned him that before the cock crowed at dawn Peter would deny him 3 times. (John doesn't tell us that either.)
And again Jesus went away to pray alone, and when he returned he found them sleeping again. And he said the same thing to them once more, went to pray a third time alone, and after that time, when he found them sleeping (again) he told them that his time has come to be betrayed and he went with them back to the site where that was to occur. (Story found in Mark 14)
I visualize Judas first leading the entourage of soldiers and representatives from the chief priests and Pharisees to the upper room, and not finding Jesus there, he led them to this garden, where he had often been with Jesus. And just as Jesus walked back with his disciples to the spot destined to be the site of the encounter, Judas and those he brought with him arrived.
Jesus asked them, "Who is it that you are seeking?"
They answered, "Jesus of Nazareth."
"I am he," Jesus told them, and they stepped back and fell to the ground.
Again Jesus asked them, "Who is it that you're seeking?"
"Jesus of Nazareth," they said.
"I told you I am he," Jesus replied.
Then our dear Simon Peter , under the cover of the darkness of night, drew his sword and valiantly cut off the High Priest Servant, Malchus', right ear. Another tidbit John does not tell us is that Jesus picked up the ear and put it back on Malchus' head and healed it. It appears that happened so quickly that none of his accusers were even aware of what happened. But Malchus' knew.
Judas betrayed Jesus. Other writers tell us far more about that encounter. John just tells us the company of soldiers and Jewish officials who arrested Jesus tied him up and took him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the High Priest. It was around midnight, and the indignity of what Jesus had to suffer had just begun.
