John 18:1 "When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples."
"Jesus went over the brook Cedron." This brook, Cedron, is the
same as the Old Testament brook Kidron. If you do a quick search of the
word, Kidron, you will quickly see it was a stream of water outside the city of
Jerusalem that was used for cleansing. The type cleansing that was done
in this brook came about during times of revival in Jerusalem. When the
Lord would convict them of their sins, they would tear down their idols and cut
down their groves where they tried to hide their idolatrous worship. They
would grind them into ashes and carry it to the stream and there their acts of
sinfulness would be washed downstream. Hezekiah's first action as king
was to reopen the temple. The priests went into the temple to literally sweep
out the dust from the temple which had not been in use for such a long period
of time. The Levites then took the dust and cast it into the brook
Kidron.
You can see the significance of this brook as Jesus passed over the brook
Cedron (Kidron). A greater cleansing was about to take place. I wonder if Jesus
thought about all the times when the people had swept their sins into the brook
only to have them return again over and over. This time, sin would be
dealt with once with finality. The book of Hebrews deals with the
contrast between the law and grace that is found in Christ. Under the
law, priests would offer sacrifice after sacrifice. Time after time, they would
sweep the results of their sin into the brook. But this time, Jesus would deal
with our sin by sacrificing Himself. Hebrews 9:26 tells us, "but now
once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself." (The end of the world that is mentioned in this verse
is speaking of the end of dispensation (time) of the law. We are now under
grace through Christ Jesus.
One other thought concerning this verse: Jesus went into a garden. Is
there another Garden that comes to mind when you read this? Where was
Adam when he transgressed the one command of God that was given to him?
Was he not in a garden? Yes, he was in the Garden of Eden. It was
in this Garden that Adam gave in to the temptation to eat of the fruit of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was in a Garden where sin entered the
world. These were not the same gardens, but my attention is grabbed when
I see Jesus entering a garden where the final hours of His life were spent
dealing with sin that had entered in a garden.
I'm so thankful that Jesus entered this garden where He poured Himself out
before our Heavenly Father. In this particular garden, Jesus reaffirmed
that He came to this world for one purpose and only one purpose: to redeem us
from our sin. Be certain Jesus accomplished His purpose. We will see in
another chapter that Jesus declared His work to be finished. Actually back in
chapter 17, Jesus affirmed that fact. "I have glorified thee on the earth:
I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." (John
17:4) Because of Jesus' completed work on Calvary, we can now sing,
"It is finished! And Jesus is Lord!"