Mark 14:32-42: Gethsemane: A Time of Terror for Jesus

INTRODUCTION

When I am troubled, I find comfort in these words of the 23rd Psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Did you know that there was a time in Jesus’s life when he was in the Valley of the Shadow of Death but could not find comfort in God? This is the strangest story in the Bible, but one that is important for us to know, especially as we draw near to Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter.

We love the stories of Jesus: the beautiful story of his birth with the angels and the shepherds and wise men and the star.

We love the stories of his acts of mercy as he healed the sick and calmed the storm.

We treasure his teaching about loving one another—even our enemies—the beautiful parables, his earthly stories with heavenly meanings.

And especially we love the stories of his encounters with people who were hungry to know God and how he brought light and joy into their lives—the story of Jesus’s encounter with the woman at the well…of his visit to the home of Martha and Mary…how he called Zachaeus down out of the sycamore tree and invited himself to Zachaeus’s house for dinner. And everyone loves the story of Jesus’s pleasure when the little children climbed up into his lap and he took them in his arms and blessed them.

We love the stories of how Jesus shared the sorrows of his people. How was moved with compassion as he looked out over a multitude, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things; when he looked down upon Jerusalem he wept because he foresaw the destruction that would soon come to the city; and he wept at the grave of Lazarus, so that people said, “See, how he loved him.”

But nothing in Jesus’s life prepares us for the story we are going to read today.

It is a story so unexpected, so inexplicable, so out of keeping with all that has come before in Jesus’s life, that it is an event that we can only begin to understand.

And yet, even though it raises questions in our minds that we can’t answer, this story is such an important story for us, and one that has so much to teach us, that we must consider it, especially as Holy Week will soon be here.

I. It was Thursday night, the night before Jesus would die on the cross.

A. The evening had begun in the upper room with Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, showing them that to be great in the Kingdom of God is to be the servant of all.

After Jesus had washed their feet, he and his disciples ate the Passover dinner together.

After supper Jesus gave them the bread and the cup and said, “This is my body…This is my blood…Do this in remembrance of me.”

Then—according to John’s gospel—Jesus had a long talk with his disciples. He told them about the Father’s House where he would go to prepare a place for them. He told them about the Holy Spirit, who would be sent by the Father to be their guide. He spoke to them about the vine and its branches, and he said, “Abide in me and I in you. …apart from me you can do nothing.”

Jesus was preparing his disciples for what was soon to occur.

B. Now comes the story we want to consider today. After they left the upper room, Jesus led his eleven disciples to Gethsemane, a garden on the slope of the Mount of Olives. This was a place where Jesus often went at night for prayer.

I will read the story from Mark’s gospel (14:32-42):

And they went to a place which was called Gethsemane; and he said to this disciples, “Sit here, while I pray.”

And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, ”My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch.”

And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.”

And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.

And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to answer him.

And he came the third time, and said to them., “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come; the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

After this we read how Judas arrived with the soldiers and betrayed the Lord Jesus with a kiss, and how they bound him and led him away for his trial and finally to his death on a cross.

II. Going to this garden was nothing unusual. Jesus often spent a night praying, and Gethsemane was a favorite place of his for prayer.

A. “Gethsemane” means “olive press,” a place where the oil was pressed out of the olives.

I picture the garden as a grove of olive trees.

The Garden of Gethsemane is still there. And there are still ancient olive trees.

One traveler to the Holy Land told me that the Garden of Gethsemane was the most impressive site he visited in Israel. Other famous places, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Jerusalem are much changed from the time of Jesus. But the Garden of Gethsemane looks as it did on that night when Jesus was betrayed.

The moon was shining that Passover night as Jesus approached the garden with his 11 disciples. He left 8 of his disciples at the entrance of the garden telling them to sit there while he prayed. He took Peter and James and John with him deeper into the grove of olive trees.

B. And then, we read, “He began to be greatly distressed and troubled.”

People who are scholars of Greek tell us that these words translated “greatly distressed and troubled” express the strongest and deepest feeling.

The New Jerusalem Bible translates: “He began to feel terror and anguish.”

Never before in the gospels have we read of Jesus experiencing such desolation.

Martin Luther said that these words are the most astonishing words in the whole Bible.

We might say Jesus has “gone to pieces.”

Then, in his grief, Jesus said to Peter, James, and John: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here and watch.”

He went a little farther, and he fell to the ground—the Greek says, “He threw himself on the ground”—And he begged the Father that the hour might pass from him.

He said, “Abba Father, all things are possible for you; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what you will.”

The “cup” in scripture is a figurative way of saying our lot in life.

Our cup could be a pleasant one, like in the 23rd Psalm where the psalmist says, “My cup runneth over.”

Or in Psalm 16, where he says, “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup…”

But the “cup” could also be a terrible one.

Often in the Bible, the “cup” is a cup of suffering, a cup of judgment.

It was this terrible cup that appeared before him, and Jesus begged would be taken away.

It was the cup of the judgment of God, the cup that held the consequences of the sin of the world.

C. As we read the story, it seems like Jesus’s prayer very short. But notice that when he awakened Peter, he asked, “Could you not watch one hour?”

Jesus had pleaded with his Father for an hour, begging him to remove that awful cup. And then he went away and prayed again, and came back and found them sleeping. And a third time he went away and prayed and came back and awakened them.

Jesus’s agonized prayers lasted most of the night until the soldiers came to arrest him.

III. What has happened to Jesus? Why this sudden dread of a death? He has calmly talked about his coming death several times. It was a death he had prepared for; this was his purpose in coming into the world.

A. This part of the gospel must have astonished the first readers of the gospel story.

Mark’s Greek readers might have remembered Plato’s account the death of the philosopher Socrates. Socrates had offended the people in power in Athens 400 years before and they had sentenced him to die.

Plato writes of how calmly Socrates conducted himself on the day of his execution. He spent the evening philosophizing with his admirers. He made little jokes with his disciples as he drank the hemlock that would kill him in a few minutes.

Mark’s Jewish readers would remember the stories of the heroic martyrs of Jewish history, who met their deaths with courage and heroism.

We have read the accounts of Christian martyrs through the ages, who have met their deaths heroically, sometimes even singing and praising God as the flames lept up around them.

B. This story of Jesus at Gethsemane tells us that Jesus’s death was not an ordinary death. Jesus’s death was infinitely more difficult than any other death.

Its sorrow was infinite—and its effects were infinite.

Jesus’s death was unique because by it Jesus’s death atoned for the sins of the world—from the beginning of time until the Last Day.

People wonder how the death of one man at one time in history could earn salvation for all believers in all times.

The Bible gives us some hints.

St. Peter writes, “He himself bore our sins in his own body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).

And St. Paul writes, “For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5.21)

John the Baptist looked at Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

And again Paul wrote that Jesus became a “curse for us.” (Galatians 3:13).

Jesus was the Lamb of God, he bore our sins; he became sin; he became a curse.

Hundreds of years before Christ, the prophet wrote in Isaiah 53, these words of prophecy:

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned every one to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

The sin of all the world was laid upon Jesus. And that is why Jesus’s death was so terrible for him.

That is why, on the cross Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”

Jesus went through that darkest valley alone and with the awful sense that he had been abandoned by God.

He went through the Valley of the Shadow of death alone so that we would not have to go through it alone.

What was going on in Gethsemane was a mighty battle between Jesus and all the powers of evil in the world—a battle that he would win on the Cross of Golgotha.

This is why we put crosses on our churches. This is why the most solemn and important ritual in our churches is the Lord’s Supper, when we take the Bread as the Body of Christ and the cup as the Blood of Christ to ourselves, uniting us by faith to Christ’s sacrificial death.

CONCLUSION

Let us never forget what it cost Jesus to win our salvation.

It was a terrible death Jesus died for us.

And in that death, Jesus brings us home to God.

He only asks that we give ourselves to him—in trust and in love and in obedience.

Because Jesus has loved us at such great cost, let us worship and adore him.

And let us give thanks to the Father every day for sending his Son into the world to die for us and to rise again and bring us to eternal life.

Nine centuries ago a holy man, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, wrote a hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, with Grief and Shame Bowed Down.” His hymn was written in Latin but we still sing it in English. Two of my favorite verses go like this:

What thou, my Lord hast suffered was all for sinners’ gain;

Mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.

Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ‘Tis I deserve thy place;

Look on me with thy favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace.

What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest Friend,

For this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?

O make me thine for ever! And should I fainting be,

Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to thee!