The Glorious Plan Mark 14:32-42

32 And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” 37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 41 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. 42 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

Pray

I am a big fan of biographical movies and stories. I really have been into all of the WWII shows recently. These kids with zeal for their country and adventure, sign up to fight against the evils facing the world. They had a just reason for battle, they felt like they had to do their part. The kids came from mostly farms and rural areas and most had never been out of their county. 17, 18 and 19 year olds signed up to be put on a ship to go to the other side of the world. They knew what they had to do. It was no secret that they had to fight and it would mean, in some cases, fighting to the death. Some of you in this room have done similar things, whether it was law enforcement or military. You go through your academy or basic training and you know what is coming, but when you are approaching the actual work, it is a different story. I am reminded of the Bill Wither’s song, “I Can’t Right Left Handed.” It is about a boy that goes to Vietnam and loses his arm. He says this,

“Bootcamp we had classes, You know we talked about fightin', fightin' everyday And lookin' through rosy, rosy coloured glasses I must admit it seemed exciting, anyway Oh, but something that day overlooked to tell me, Bullets look better, I must say Rather when they comin' at you But going out the other way”

Though the fighter knows that he will be in a fight one day, it does not make the gravity of “the day” any less.

Jesus knew that this day was coming. In 12 hours, He would be hung on a cross and would suffer. He would be abandoned by those that He loved and He would be crushed by God. The plan God had for His life was for this very moment. Knowing the moment is coming does not lessen the weight of the moment, so the Son needs to talk with the Father.

32 And they went to a place called Gethsemane.

This place where they have gone is an olive orchard. Gethsemane is an apt name for this place because, yes, people just ate olives but the main use for the olive was the oil. We use olive oil today. How do you get the oil from olives? You have to press them. Gethsemane means “oil press” or “olive press”. What a fitting title. The time to do what Jesus has come to do is here. The training is over, the boats have landed and He is about to storm the beach. All of the weaponry is firing at Him and He is scared.

And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.

He tells the 11 to sit and wait while He prays, then he takes the three, Peter, James and John, off by themselves and Jesus shares what He is feeling, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.”

Do not get the wrong picture of Jesus. We spoke on this a few weeks ago, but Jesus is truly God AND truly man. There was no help to relieve His suffering. The Father did not give Him a pain reliever. He experienced everything the way that we would experience it. Every lash that struck him, every insult hurled at him, every strike to his face, the thorns being gouged into his forehead, the nails in his hands and his feet. All of it was felt with the nervous system of a normal man. Jesus knew this was coming, not to mention being forsaken by the Father.

It had to be this way, that in order for Jesus to take on the SINS OF THE WORLD that the Father would have to withdraw Himself. He is holy and cannot be near it. One man hanging on a cross is the most horrific punishment imaginable, but Jesus also carried the sins of the world on His shoulders and in His mind. Think about, if you are in Christ now, how much you grieve your own sin that you have brought against the Lord. How much more the sins of the whole world? I dare say that it was a worse feeling bearing the sin and being left alone than the excruciating pain of the cross.

Notice the first thing that Jesus does when He is facing trouble. He prays. He gets alone and He prays to the one that has the power to change things.

35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

A few things about this prayer. Notice HOW he prays. He falls down on the ground, face to the floor in full submission to the King. This is an example to us. Sometimes this is lost to us in America where everyone is equal and you can speak however you want to in whatever way you want to. Bowing is a sign of respect to someone that is higher than you. That is why we bow our head when we pray or, like in Jesus case, we fall with our face to the floor to pray to show the upmost respect for the holiness of God and to show our lowly state.

In Jesus prayer, He is pleading for the Father’s mercy in this moment. You may hear this and think, “Is Jesus God?” Yes, like we said before He is truly God and truly man but there were certain things that He did not know. There were certain things withheld from Him as a man. There is a divine mystery here, but we have to let the Scripture speak here. Jesus believes that speaking with the Father may change His course.

He calls Him Father, this loving title for a loving God and Jesus says, “all things are possible with you”. Don’t skip past this statement. Who has the power to change circumstances? God alone. Jesus knows this. This does not make Jesus any less God, but in his human for He had to give up some of his knowledge, so when He is praying to the Father, He wants to know if there is another way that people can be freed from the slavery of sin without the cross.

Have you ever prayed for something like this? A sick family member? A large life shift? A problem that you found yourself in? Was prayer your first move or was it after you had tried all of your own schemes first?

We have to take Jesus at His word and His actions for every aspect of our lives. Jesus didn’t try to come up with another way. He was up against this problem and He prayed for the Father to change it, but Jesus adds something else in the prayer. “Remove this cup from me. YET not what I will, but what you will.” Is that at the end of your prayers? Are you ok if God lets you go through the dark time? That is a hard one to swallow. I know that there have been deep, moaning prayers in this room that the Lord did not change the trajectory of what was being prayed for.

I am reminded of the story of David and Bathsheba and the son they had together in 2 Samuel 12.

And the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick. 16 David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. 17 And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. 18 On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us. How then can we say to him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.” 19 But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead. And David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.” 20 Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped.

There is a trust that regardless of what we are going through that we trust in God’s good plan. This is not something that we have mastered yet. Don’t fret, it was also not something that the disciples had mastered either.

37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

The time of this event, most put around midnight. The disciples did have a long day with Passover prep and such but this was a different night. Jesus doesn’t normally get troubled like this. Why would they be sleeping? Did they not think that it was a big deal? It is curious.

Jesus even sends a subtle rebuke to Peter by calling him by his old name. Remember, Jesus changed Peter’s name from Simon to Peter. Peter stands for “rock”, sturdy, foundational but tonight, he is not acting like it. He was acting like the unsure Simon that first followed Jesus.

What caused these men to sleep and disobey the commands of their Lord. Luke’s gospel gives us a detail on why this is. Luke 22:45

45 And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow

Sadness drove them to sleep. The thought of losing their Lord and friend was too much for them. Jesus tells them that they have a job to do and repeats what he wants them to do, “Watch”, “pray” and “don’t enter into temptation”. Jesus knows that the enemies are coming. They need to be on guard. We cannot let our bodies go weak. We must watch, we must be on guard. We must not let sadness or a fear of what is coming paralyze us with fear. We must have eyes to see the enemy so that we know where the fire is coming from. A soldier is no good to anyone even if he has the best ammunition, the best guns, the best training, if he will not get out of his fox hole. Normandy was taken by the men that got off the boats, got off the beaches and moved forward in the face of roaring opposition. (Sorry for the WWII analogies, I have been inspired by their stories recently.)

Jesus is telling them to pray that they do not get lead into temptation and then He says, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” As we saw last week, Peter said that he was willing to die with Jesus if it came down to it. Peter was trusting in his flesh. He was trusting in his head knowledge and in his position as head apostle that he would not fall away. Jesus knows what’s in his heart. He knows that Peter will deny him and so Jesus tells Peter that he knows whats in his spirit but your flesh is going to draw you in another direction.

Any of you ever felt that way? “I want to honor Jesus and I will not do that sinful thing again.” “Shoot, I did it again.” You have to watch, you have to pray, you have to be diligent of the attacks that are coming for you. You can’t hide from it, you can’t sleep through it, you must hit it head on.

In the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah is rebuilding the walls of the temple. He had a job to do, but the surrounding enemies did not want the holy city to be rebuilt so they used anything they could to stop the work from being completed. What was Nehemiah’s solution? Nehemiah 4:9

9 And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.

They watched and they prayed. Later on we read that they worked on the wall with their left hands and had their swords drawn with their right always being ready for battle.

If you don’t think that you are in a battle, you have already lost. Every day there are weapons and traps launched against you to get you to stumble. Some of it is from the Enemy, some is from the world and some is from within. Jesus tells them to recognize it, “Watch”, then bring it to the Father, “Pray”, and then DO NOT enter into it.

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

Jesus again leaves and prays. What does he pray for? The same thing that He had been praying for, that the cup of wrath that He was going to have to drink on the cross would pass from Him. He kept approaching the throne of God with this prayer. What does that show us? The first time He prayed there was no answer from the Father so He went back.

Have you ever prayed and not gotten an answer? Did you give up? You shouldn’t have. Keep coming. Keep asking. Keep pleading. Father, are you sure? Father, is there another way? Father, please move here so I can see you. Over and over we should approach until we get an answer or we receive peace. The disciples should have mirrored what Jesus was doing. They were saddened at the prospect of Jesus dying and instead of reaching out to the only one that could change the plan, they threw up their hands. They lost hope and got lost in their sadness to where they went to sleep. Though they had been chastised before by Jesus they did it again instead of joining Him in prayer. They knew what they were told to do and deliberately disobeyed and they had the proper response.

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

What could you answer the Lord if you were Peter, James and John? You can’t blame anyone, because sleeping is a solo activity. You can’t make someone else sleep. They knew that they were not doing their job and instead of learning, they continue to leave the gates open to an attack from the enemy.

41 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. 42 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

Notice what doesn’t happen. There is no audible answer from the Father to the request of the son, but just a playing out of the plan. There was no longer time to be alone with the Lord and pray, the hour had come. Jesus knew the plan was unfolding when He could see Judas coming. Judas’ coming was the answer to Jesus’ prayer. In fact, Jesus probably knew the answer from the sleeping disciples. The armies could have come and surrounded Jesus without Him knowing because his watchers were all asleep.

This is no surprise to the Father. It was always the plan. There is a mysterious thing that happens that He uses our weakness to bring about His plan. He always knew that the disciples would be weak and sleep when they should have watched. He knew that Peter would deny and the rest would scatter, yet, He still asks them to watch and pray.

He knows how our lives will turn out and what we will do before we do it and what we will say before it leaves our mouths, yet He still implores us to ask, to seek. There is an obedience that the Lord requires. It is a giving back of the things that He has given us. It is a heart of wanting to draw near. It truly is a want from the Father for the sons and daughters to buy a gift with money that He has provided. You know how when your kids are young you give your kids money and they take that money and buy you a gift with it. It has nothing to do with the gift or the money but the heart that wants to give back to the Father. It is the heart that wants to be near the Father that He is seeking.

It is the obedient heart that submits to His commands. When He tells us to “watch and pray”, we watch and pray. When we see danger coming around the bend, we pray and ask Him what to do about the danger and we trust Him to protect us or be with us through it. The heart of this passage really is, “Not my will, but Yours.” We can have peace in it because in our weakness we find His strength. We have to trust that in what seems to be the darkest times, He is working a plan that is more glorious than we can imagine.