Observe a man when he’s facing hardship and we’ll most likely see what he’s made of. Watch a woman when she’s fearful, or mad or exhausted and we’ll catch a glimpse of her true self. Take a young person experiencing the squeeze of difficulty and we’ll find out her or his inner character.
Jesus faces the press of intense agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Study him in action and we discover what he’s made of. Let’s read Mark 14:26 – 42. While you are turning to that spot, I want to mention that in the first verse of our passage, it tells us that after Jesus and the disciples shared the Passover meal, which we call the Last Supper, they sang a hymn. We actually know what they sung. It was part of the tradition of Passover. After the meal, they sang Psalm 116 – 118, which includes this verse in Psalm 118, “I shall not die….” Jesus’ night after the Last Supper is a descent into darkness. He will be abandoned by all, even by those who love him. And yet, as he begins that journey downward, he is fortified by these words which his Heavenly Father gives him through the Passover tradition. (Read)
We’re taking a new look at Jesus these weeks heading up to Easter. Last Sunday, we marveled at Jesus’ capacity to escape the deadly traps laid for him, and to continue to offer to the very people bent on killing him the way to true life. As the refrain went last week, “I may not know much about the preacher, but he sure has a wonderful Savior.” The reaction of the crowds who heard him was high praise; “The large crowd listened to him with delight.” (Mark 12:38)
Now, it is the night of celebrating the Passover. No more crowds gathered around Jesus. The crowds have gone. Most of the disciples are gone, too. Now, it is just Jesus with his 12 disciples in the Upper Room. The movement here is from the many – the crowds, to some – his disciples, to the few – just the 12. We are going from the many, to the some, to the few. After dinner, Jesus leaves the city with his inner circle of disciples. On the way, he speaks of being abandoned. Quoting from the prophet Zechariah, he says, “Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered,” referring to the disciples. The idea of Jesus having to go it alone has come out in the open. Peter steps up and denies that he would do such a thing. How could he abandon his Lord? Jesus tells him, “Before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.” Peter refuses to let Jesus’ have the last word, so he says, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And the others said the same. This will not be the last time the idea of death will thrust its way into their evening.
They walk out of Jerusalem, down and into an olive Garden, Gethsemane. Jesus asks most of the disciples to sit and wait while he prays. Then, he takes Peter, James and John farther into the Garden: away from the many – the crowds, from the some – the 12, to the few – the three. Going farther, he asks the three to wait and keep watch, which is another way of saying pray. Then, he goes on. Now, he is all alone. From the many to the some to the few to himself. Alone.
“’Abba, Father,’ he says, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me.’” Jesus has no drinking cup with him. Instead, he is referring to the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, whom God told to take a cup. “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me (said the prophet Jeremiah): ‘Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.” (In Jeremiah 25:15) The cup represents God’s wrath. It will be poured out on the nations that have damaged Israel and treated them badly. In the New Testament, Revelations 6:16, God’s wrath is poured out on those who persecute the people of Jesus Christ. When they realize God’s judgment is coming upon them, they cry out to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb….” And, if we wonder why they ask for mountains to crush down on them – wouldn’t that kill them, that is the least of their worries when God’s great wrath is poured out. They will do anything to get away from his wrath.
God’s judgment is not reserved only for those who hate his people. His judgment is upon all sin. The purity and holiness of God can not mix with what is impure and less than perfect; otherwise, God would no longer be pure and holy. Our problem is that all of us fall into the category of sinners. All of us repeatedly go against God’s will. We, too, like everyone else fall under God’s wrath. And, if we ask why couldn’t God change things so you and I would not fall under his judgments, the answer is, God has changed things. He has put forward his only son, Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus faced the awful choice of willingly enduring God’s wrath upon the whole human race. He understands what will happen. No wonder Jesus is described in verse 33 as, “deeply distressed.” At its root, it means struck, and is described as, “a physical movement occasioned by terror and then the emotion itself.” (TDNT, εκθαμβεομαι) Verse 35 tells us that Jesus falls to the ground. He is struck, overwhelmed by the weight of what his Heavenly Father is asking of him. The physical act of falling down comes first, and then the emotion. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, to the point of death.” (verse 34) “Abba, Father.” The only Son of God will bear your punishment, and mine. We think of God’s judgment coming with fire, brimstone, pain. More literally, Paul affirms that with God’s judgment, “they will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. (II Thess 1:9) The awful weight of God’s wrath is felt in being excluded from his presence. Just imagine what it was like for Jesus, who enjoyed constant intimacy and contact with his Heavenly Father to be excluded from Him.
It is like descending into a cave – some of us have been to Luray Caverns, Crystal Caverns, Monmouth or Carlsbad Caverns – down, down, then wandering among the lighted stalagmites and stalactites. They are beautiful. Then, the guide warns us they will be turning off the lights for a moment. No big deal, we say to ourselves. The lights go out – total darkness, so total that we can’t see our own hand as close as our nose. Imagine staying there by yourself in the total darkness, alone and abandoned. From the many to the some and from the some to the few, until Jesus is now alone in the Garden, facing the awful choice. And yet, facing the horror, Jesus is able to summon up the response, “Not my will, but what you want.” Jesus will take the judgment of all humanity upon himself.
Jesus has reached his decision, but he has not finished his work in the Garden. He returns to his disciples, verse 37, “Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Simon,’ he said to Peter, ‘are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?’” The common understanding of this question is that Peter once again has failed his master. Jesus asked him and the others in verse 34 to “Stay here and keep watch.” We assume Jesus was asking for those closest to him to pray for him during his struggle to accept God’s judgment. When he comes back and finds them sleeping, he criticizes them for not staying awake and supporting him in prayer.
But, do we notice that Jesus never asked them to pray for him? He asks them to pray, without telling them for whom. The most obvious choice would be to pray for themselves. When Jesus comes back to the 3, he does not upbraid Peter for failing to pray for him, just for praying. A total of three times, Jesus comes back to check on the disciples. They have now become the focus of attention. In fact, in verse 38, Jesus becomes specific. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Jesus returns to check on the disciples praying for themselves. What should they be praying about?
They should be praying that they might not enter into temptation. Remember Jesus has predicted they will all abandon Jesus. The temptation is that when they come to their senses, they will be so overcome by grief and guilt and remorse and shame that they will give up on God and give up on themselves, just like Judas. They are in real danger here. Jesus asks them to pray for themselves, that, being tempted to abandon themselves, they would not give in. It is no accident that Jesus singles out Peter and James and John. Just before Jesus had entered Jerusalem, James and John had asked for a favor, that when Jesus came into his kingdom (they thought he was going to overthrow the Roman and re-establish a Jewish kingdom), they would have the highest positions under Jesus. Jesus asks them if they are able to drink the cup Jesus will drink. In blind self-confidence they respond that they are able. (Mark 10:35 – 40) They have no idea what they have agreed to in their pride and self-assurance. And what is the proverb? “Pride goes before a fall.” On the way to the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter declares he will not abandon Jesus. He is so full of his own abilities, so cock-sure of what he can do, that despite Jesus’ prediction, he ends the discussion by saying, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” (verse 31) But he would.
Jesus knows this and seeks to strengthen him. Jesus’ action in coming back to the disciples is quite simply astounding. Facing the greatest struggle and crisis of his life, Jesus thinks about others. He comes to the disciples to encourage them, when he is in the midst of mental and spiritual agony. His love for them pours out despite his own distress.
What did we say at the beginning? . Watch someone experiencing the squeeze of difficulty and we’ll find out his inner character. Squeeze Jesus hard and what we find is – love. He loved Peter, James and John so much that despite what he was facing, he was concerned for them. They were the ones who were so self-confident. They would be the ones who would take their abandoning Jesus too hard. They needed his help. Even in his dark hour, when Jesus needs all the help he can muster, he cares for them. As the lyricist expresses it:
What wondrous love is this, o my soul, o my soul,
What wondrous love is this, o my soul,
What wondrous love. What incomparable love. Jesus is amazing. And when a person opens him or herself to the love of God in Christ Jesus, there is a healing power to his unconditional love.
Alan Loy McGinniss, in his book, The Romance Factor, describes his work in a psychiatric clinic where he works. He says, “We deal with many collapsed lives. Occasionally depression has kept patients immobilized so long that I wonder how to begin. But sometimes, during the course of our work together, these patients find someone who loves them and whom they can love. To watch that happen can be very humbling, because love does them more good than all our pills and all our “therapeutic modalities” combined. I never tell single patients that they must get married to get well, but I do tell them that they must have some love, because there is, as Ashley Montagu says, “an awesome power in (human) love.”
When the poet Robert Browning picked up two green-covered volumes of poems by a new writer, he was taken by their “strange and affluent rhythms.” He wrote to the woman who had written them, “I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart – and I love you, too.”
He was 36, robust and overflowing with energy. Elizabeth Barrett war 40, an invalid who had not left the upstairs of her father’s house on Wimpole Street for over a year. But they fell in love. Tremulously, passionately, fully. As they saw each other more, she began to venture downstairs, and then into the garden, and finally, in September 1846, after weeks of plotting, they ran away to marry in St. Marylebone Church.
If such a love is pathological, then heaven be thanked for a disorder that could help an invalid walk and that could inspire the beauty of Mrs. Browning’s love poems. One morning in Italy she slipped into Robert’s hands a sheaf of papers that were later to be published as Sonnets from the Portuguese. One of these may be the best-known love poem every written:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach…
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life: – and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
There is a healing power to love. It begins with the Savior; the incomparable Jesus, who loves us beyond what we can imagine. Oh, may we open our lives fully to his love, that his healing power may work upon us.