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!

1 Peter 1:3-9: Life-Giving Hope

INTRODUCTION

St. Peter wrote his first letter to Christian believers who were suffering for their faith. Peter addresses his letter to “the exiles of the Dispersion.” Peter called them “exiles of the Dispersion” because they were living among pagan people who were hostile to them because of their loyalty to Christ. They were suffering in many ways. They were misunderstood by their pagan neighbors who sometimes treated them like criminals. Some of them lost their jobs. Family and friends had turned against some of them.

These new believers had put aside the sinful ways that characterized their old lifestyle. But their neighbors put constant pressure on them to return to what he calls “the passions of their former ignorance.” Their friends thought they were weird because they didn’t join them in the wild behavior of their former lives (1 Peter 4:4).

Some of the Christian women had unbelieving husbands, and Peter challenged them to live in such a way that they might win their husbands to the faith. And he instructed Christian husbands how to conduct themselves toward their wives with affection and honor.

Many of these new believers were slaves. Slaves were property, and their masters could treat them as cruelly as they wished. Peter gives Christian slaves advice about handle the difficulties of their unhappy situation in ways that will bring credit to Christ.

Considering all the problems his readers were facing, it is interesting that Peter doesn’t begin his letter with advice about coping with their problems. He starts by praising God for the living hope that God has given them in the midst of their difficulties.

After he has greeted his friends, he gets right to the point. He writes:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Without having seen him you love him; though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy.

I. Let’s talk about what it means to be “born anew to a living hope.”

A. When give ourselves to Jesus, we experience a new quality of life. Peter calls it being “born anew.” Paul expressed it in an equally colorful way. He wrote in one of his letters, “If anyone is in Christ, that one is a New Creation, everything old has passed away. See, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Sometimes this happens in a dramatic way. I remember my friend Nathan who I met on a troopship on its way to Korea.

Nathan had found Jesus—or Jesus had found Nathan—at a Sunday evening church service in Seattle, a day or two before we boarded our ship.

We were on our way to take part in a war. None of us wanted to go to Korea. None of us wanted to be in a war. But Nathan was so happy in his new-found faith that he was just bubbling over with joy. He wanted to talk about Jesus. I remember seeing him look up at the sky and remarking about how much bluer the sky was since he had found Christ.

Most of us haven’t had such dramatic experiences as Nathan did. Maybe we can’t put our finger on the time when we actually were “born again.” But we know that Christ is our Savior because we can see what he is doing in our lives.

And the first thing Peter wants to tell these suffering Christian believers is about is about the “living hope” that God has put into their lives.

Hope is what I want to talk about today, because hope can change our lives. Hope can give us the strength and joy and faith to deal with our troubles.

B. People use the word “hope” to mean wishing for something they would like to see happen—no matter how unlikely.

They say, “I hope spring comes early this year.” “I hope my headache will go away.” “I hope my daughter calls today.” “I hope I can get to sleep tonight.” “I hope the Hawks win.”

But hope in the Bible is a lot more solid than just wishing hard. Hope in the Bible means desire combined with expectation. New Testament hope is a joyful waiting, a patient, confident expectation that what God is going to bless us with is grander than anything we can even imagine.

Maybe there was a time when your strongest desires were for a luxurious house…a new car…lots of money…a handsome husband…a loving wife. But by this time we’ve put those desires behind us.

If we love Jesus, our strongest desire is to learn to love as we’ve been loved, to see God bless other people through our lives.

We pray that God will be so real in our lives that we can face death with calm assurance and a witness to others that God is real in our lives.

The hope God gives us is confidence that the things we hope for will happen.

C. Our hope, Peter tells us, is a living hope. The hope God gives us is alive, and it gives life, a life full of joyful anticipation.

This living hope—this confident assurance that Jesus is always with us—gives us peace in the midst of difficulties and disappointments. And our living hope gives us the strength and courage and faith to keep on with God to the end of the road.

Peter tells us that our living hope is imperishable, undefiled and unfading—it will never die, will never spoil, and never fade. In fact, the longer we live—if we live for God—the more real, more alive, the more sure our hope will become.

II. We all want this “living hope.” Now I want to tell you some things that nourish thie life-giving hope in our lives.

A. Troubles can actually strengthen our hope if we can make sense of them. Troubles are easier to bear if we can see a purpose for them.

Just now I read these words, “In this hope you rejoice—though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

God can use our troubles for our good.

God doesn’t send us our troubles. Some of our troubles come from our own foolish choices. Some of our troubles come from the misdeeds of other people. Some of our troubles come from chance happenings. And some of our troubles come from the Evil One the devil.

But Peter tells us that just as gold is refined and purified and proved genuine by fire, so our faith is refined and purified and proved genuine by the fire of suffering.

If everything always went well for us, we wouldn’t need faith, would we? We could just sit back and enjoy life. But our troubles can make us depend more and more on God. When we depend on God in our troubles, we prove that our faith is real. We show others that God is real. Our troubles can make us strong witnesses for Christ.

B. Second, our troubles can make sense if we can see that they can actually increase our confidence—our hope in God.

If we were secure in this world—if we had no troubles, no setbacks—hope would vanish.

Jesus told a story about a rich man, whose crops produced so plentifully that he had nowhere to store his grain. The rich man thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry!”

But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:16-20).

The rich man’s security proved to be his downfall. It gave him a false assurance that all was well. And in the same way, if we were secure in this world, we would have no need for hope. But we are not secure, so our insecurity gives us an incentive to put our hope in God.

In Romans 5, Paul mentions some of the good things that might come out of suffering. He writes, “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope…” It is remarkable that he lists hope last rather than at the beginning where we might expect it. Hope doesn’t come from thinking positively; hope comes from struggle. Hope is a product of faithfulness.

C. The third way that we can make sense of our troubles when understand how our sorrows can help us to sympathize with the sorrows of others. We live in a world of troubled people. And if we have experienced troubles of our own, we can begin to understand and sympathize.

We will never understand just what our friend is going through because everyone’s troubles are different. We can’t say, “I know just how you feel,” because we can never know just how anyone feels, but we can tell them of a time when we were despairing—or doubting—or ready to give up—and we can tell them how God comforted us and gave us strength.

D. The fourth way that we can make sense of our troubles is to remember that Jesus bore his cross of sorrow and calls us to take up our crosses and follow him.

He said, “If you want to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” The way of the cross means death to the self-centered life. It goes through death to resurrection with Jesus.

When we think about what Jesus did for us on the cross, our troubles bind us more closely to Jesus who suffered.

St. Paul wrote that his aim was to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, so that he could become like him in his death—and attain the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:10-11).

Suffering washes away the dust from our eyes so that we can see into the Promised Land of light and glory.

I have read that the Indonesian word for “hope” means “looking through the horizon to what lies beyond.” Hope looks beyond the horizons of this world to see into the glorious world to come.

E. We nurture hope in our lives by obedience. Jesus urges us to lay up treasure in heaven. The more we have invested in the Kingdom of God—time, money, effort—the more firm will be our hope. If we can’t see the future, we can see the duty that lies before us.

This short time we have on earth is a time for working out our salvation—for putting our faith to work in whatever ways we can.

We pray for strong faith when our time comes to depart this world. The more time and effort we put into our life with God now—by earnest prayer, generous giving, church fellowship, sharing our faith, encouraging others, and using every opportunity we can find to serve our fellow humans—the more we will be drawn to the world to come—the more real heaven will be to us.

CONCLUSION

I want to close with a true story I read recently of a pastor’s visit to a faith-filled woman near the end of her life. He writes:

“This past week I visited a lovely lady in the hospital who is dying with cancer. Doctors have given her about three months to live. With great faith and assurance and peace, she told me that everything was going to be all right. She is not delusional. Her mind is not clouded with morphine. She is at peace because her King reigns from a cross. He is not far away from her, sitting a throne removed from her agony. Her King is at her side suffering with her. Christ is not above her pain. He is experiencing her every pain. He is not slowly taking her life away from her. He is giving his very life to her, and promising her every minute of every day to see her through.

“Because of this, she told me that she has never known a time in her life when she more close to her Lord. All of her despair has been transformed into hope. And she is absolutely convinced that her death will be transformed into life everlasting.”

After she described the intensified intimacy she now shares with her Lord, she then said something miraculous. With a hopeful joy in her smile and eternity in her eyes, she told me that she is really looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving this year. Think about that for a moment.

A woman, dying with cancer, told me that she has a lot for which to be thankful.

Don’t we all?

(From a blog by Jarrett Banks)

I want to depart this earth like that—full of faith and hope and gratitude. Don’t you?