"18 When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. 2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. 3 So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. 4 Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?”"
John 18:1-4
Following the Upper Room discourse and the great intercessory prayer, John now begins the record of the arrest, trial, sufferings and death of the Son of God. We should note first of all that, of all the gospel writers, John alone omits any reference to Christ's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is so striking an omission that there must be some reason for it. Two things may be said. The first is that to John, the whole of our Lord's life on earth was one of suffering, in the sense that right from the beginning the question of the cup He was to drink, and the hour for which He came into the world, were with Him in His consciousness. For John, that the all-glorious Son of God should have come down into human life at all was humiliation, of which the agony of Gethsemane was but one expression (cf Philippians 2:5ff). The second thing is that John's point and purpose in his gospel is to show Christ as a glorious Figure. Indeed, in more than one place His death is spoken of as being His glorification. In 1:14, he says, 'We beheld His glory'. It is the glory of the Son that he is stressing, and this fact runs through the whole of this passage before us. John portrays not so much a suffering Figure as a purposeful, glorious Victor going into battle. This is seen in the wording of 2:4. After the Upper Room, Jesus went into the Garden (1); this was manifestly not to hide, for Judas, who had gone out to betray Him to the soldiers and the high priests, knew the place, and knew therefore where to find Him. It was the last place He should have chosen in which to hide, if that had been His purpose. And this is further substantiated in 4, 'Jesus knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth'. He knew they were intent on arresting Him and that Judas had betrayed Him; He knew He would be arraigned before the high priests and Pilate - and, knowing all this, He deliberately, and with set purpose, went forth to be taken. The implication is plain. He was not arrested as an unwilling Victim; He put Himself in their hands. It was He, not they, Who was in control in that dramatic situation.