What if the moment that looks most like defeat is actually the moment of greatest power? In John 18, Jesus is arrested in a garden — but nothing about this arrest is what it appears to be. The soldiers who come armed and in force end up flat on the ground before a single word of resistance is spoken. A disciple’s panicked sword-swing is quietly corrected. And a cup of unimaginable suffering is accepted, not reluctantly, but with resolve. This sermon traces the thread that runs from a garden in Eden to a garden in Jerusalem, asking what it means that the new Adam walked willingly into the darkness the first Adam fled — and what that means for every moment in our lives we wish we could undo.
The Question, The Sword, The Cup, The Garden
Jon Pasiuk
Transitional Pastor
March 15, 2026
