Gethsemane

Gethsemane

Mark 14:32-42

            The title of the message this morning is Gethsemane. And what we learn from this passage is to trust God even when our heart is afflicted.

 What would be the most difficult thing you could ever go through in life? The loss of a child, a terminal illness, a freak accident that left you unable to take care of yourself. What would be the one challenge that would cause you to prefer to die rather than continue to live?

            I heard a story this week about a young man who took his infant son to a job interview. He couldn’t find anyone to watch the baby, so he took him along and left him in the car while he was being interviewed? Well, the interview took longer than he expected and went he finally got back to the car the baby was dead. A few hours later that young man committed suicide because he couldn’t stand to live with himself after what happened.

            Tragedy doesn’t discriminate, it’s a part of each one of our lives. Sometimes it is sickness, disease and death and its years in the making, and sometimes it’s an accident and it happens in an instant. Either way, the pain and agony we feel can be too much to bear. And while I have experienced loss in my life, some of you sitting here have experienced pain that I cannot imagine.

            The question is how can we continue to live when our hearts are broken, and our life is shattered? The answer is we must trust God. Even when our heart is afflicted, we must believe He has a greater purpose for our life. And no matter what we are going through and no matter how intense the pain. God has a reason for it, and He is going to use it to bring Him glory.  (Read Mark 14:32-42)

  32      They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here until I have prayed.”

  33      And He took with Him Peter and James and John and began to be very distressed and troubled.

  34      And He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.”

  35      And He went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by.

  36      And He was saying, “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 said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?

  38      “Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

  39      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 resting? It is enough; the hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.

  42      “Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!” (Pray)

In our passage this morning we see Jesus in His humanity facing the most challenging moment of His life. Not only is He going to be arrested, condemned to die, and crucified on a cross, but for the first time in all of eternity He will be separated from the Father as He bares the sin of the world.

No man has ever gone through this before and no man will ever go through this again. And we cannot fathom the depths of the sorrow He feels. In this moment He would rather die than continue to live. Yet He knows God has a greater purpose for His life and He is going to use His suffering to bring Him glory.

And the same thing is true in our life. God has a purpose and a plan, and no matter what we are going through, we can trust Him, and He will deliver. And that is the picture we are given in this passage, and it should cause us to bow our head and worship the Lord. What we learn is to trust God even when our heart is afflicted.

The first thing I want you to see in this passage is the Place of Gethsemane Vs 32-33.

Gethsemane is the holy of holies. It is the New Testament version of Moses and the burning bush. I am not going to be able to do justice to this story this morning, I don’t believe anyone can.  Instead of focusing on the words and phrases of this passage, I think we should step back, catch our breath, and just look at the details. This is the Mona Lisa of the Bible, and we should just take our shoes off because we are standing on holy ground.

            It is just about midnight in Jerusalem. Jesus and His disciples are at the foot of the Mount of Olives just outside of the city and they have come to a place called Gethsemane. Gethsemane is a word that is only used twice in the bible, here in Mark and in Matthew’s version of the story. But John 18:1 tells us it is a garden and that is why we call it the Garden of Gethsemane.

            The name Gethsemane itself is a foreshadowing of what was to come. Because the name is synonymous with tribulation and means “oil press.”  How fitting is that? Just as the grapes would be stomped, and pressed, and squeezed to get every drop of blood out of the vine, so Jesus’ life will be pressed, and squeezed, and His blood shed for us.

            Gethsemane is a secluded place and a place where Jesus would frequently go. We know that because Judas knows exactly where to find Him. He knows where to bring the soldiers to arrest Him, even though Jesus has not told him where He was going, so His custom was to go to Gethsemane, it was His place of privacy.

            But I want you to notice the purpose of Gethsemane. Vs 32 says, “He said to His disciples sit here until I have prayed.” Jesus would go to Gethsemane to find a quiet place to get alone with God. He knew He needed to pray. He knew he was getting ready to face the greatest challenge of His life. He knew that His purpose in the world, was to die for the sin of man. But now, He is facing the limitations of His humanity, He is beginning to struggle, and He knows that He needs to pray.

            I can’t help but think to myself if the Son of God needed to spend time alone in prayer, how much more do we need to find our own Gethsemane? How important do you think prayer should be to our life. When we are facing the demands of this world and life begins to become overwhelming, we have a choice to make; we can face it in our own strength, or we can depend on God.

            But we need to understand that depending on God is more than a catch phrase. It is not a clique or an attitude. It is more than a cross that hangs around our neck, or scripture on a refrigerator magnet.

Depending on God means stepping away from the merry go round of life and pouring your heart out to Him in prayer. And you can’t do that when you are running 90 miles an hour through life. You must have a quiet, secluded place like Gethsemane to get alone with God.

            The author of the book of Hebrews describes the way that Jesus prayed in 5:7, it says, “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.” Let me ask you this, is that the way you talk to God?

Does your prayer time involve weeping and pouring out your heart to Him? That tells me that sometimes we need to turn off the cell phones and shut down the computers. That tells me that whatever the distractions are in life, we can’t let them rob us of time spent with God?  Jesus knew that and that was His purpose at Gethsemane.

            Jesus expected Gethsemane to be the final time of communion with the Father and He was preparing His heart for the cross. And even though He has already predicted the disciples were going to fail Him, He takes them with Him to pray. Notice Vs. 33 “And He took with Him Peter and James and John.”

             This was His inner circle. These were His closest friends. They are the ones who were with Him when He raised Jairus daughter from the dead. They were the ones who were with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and it’s these three He wants by His side now.

Maybe He is hoping they will stand strong until the last minute. Maybe He is hoping they will provide Him with a layer of protection from the betrayer. Whatever the case may be, Jesus is counting on communion with the Father and fellowship with His friends. Those are two things that we must have when we are facing trials in life: communion with God and the support of our friends.

            But I want you to notice the order of those things. Jesus is overwhelmed, so He takes His friends with Him to pray. He doesn’t ask their advice. He just asks for their support.  We take the opposite approach. When something is wrong, we go to our friends for advice. We search the internet and read as much information as we can, and when all else fails, we might find time for God.

Jesus knew He needed the support of His friends, but He knew He needed the support of His Father first. That is a great example for us to follow.

            There are two things from this passage I don’t want you to miss; 1. Every believer should have a place of prayer and it should be our habit to spend time there every day. 2. God is the one with the answer to our problems. We ask our friends for support, but we seek God first. What we learn from this passage is to trust God even when our heart is afflicted.

            The next thing I want you to see in this passage is the Pain of Gethsemane, Vs. 33-36. We have never seen Jesus like this before and we will never see Him like this again. He is suffering in a way we cannot understand. I mean this is God in the flesh and yet at the same time He is fully man.

Vs. 33 says, “He began to be very distressed and troubled.” It is as though the weight of what is waiting for Him the next day is closing in, and He is in shock, and He begins to stagger from the horror of it all.

            But it wasn’t the physical pain that He is going to suffer that causes this reaction, I believe there are two reasons; 1. It is the anticipation that He will become sin for us. Jesus is infinitely holy, and has never known sin, and He must have recoiled in horror at the thought of the evil He was going to become. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “He who knew no sin was made to be sin that we might become the righteousness of God.”

            2. For the first time in all of eternity He is going to be separated from the Father. He is going to be cut off and He will be left alone to bear the sin and the judgment of men. And the shock of that separation is setting in. The next day, as Jesus hangs on the cross, The Father will turn His back on the Son, and Jesus will cry out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me.”

            That is the horror that Jesus is facing in His soul. To us God has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” “No one can pluck you from My hand.” But, for Jesus He must face this alone. And the shock and the terror of it all nearly killed Him.

Notice Vs. 34, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death.” He would prefer to die in this moment than to go through this. Have you ever felt that way before? Have you ever been so grieved in your heart that you would rather die than to continue to live?

That is what we see from Jesus. The pressure that was building up inside Him was about to explode. Luke tells us that He was sweating drops of blood and the Father had to send an angel to give Him strength. This is amazing to me; Jesus almost dies at Gethsemane before He made it to the cross. I don’t think we understand that.

I believe we think this was easy for Jesus. After all He was the Son of God. But we have a very different picture painted for us here. Words cannot express what Jesus was going through. He is experiencing incredible physical and emotional agony.

            Notice His prayer, Vs. 35-36. “And He went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.”

He is desperate for relief, and He turns to Father. He leaves Peter, James, and John and He is all alone now. Luke tells us, He went about stone’s throw away. No one could help Him anymore. Matthew says, “He fell on His face.” And at this point He was praying for God to choose another way for the redemption of the world.

            Notice Vs. 36 He says, “Father all things are possible for you.” But if all things were possible for Him then why didn’t He choose another way? Why did Jesus go through this? Because this was the will of God for His life. God’s love and righteousness demanded the cross. (Romans 5:8). God had a greater purpose for His life and Jesus knew that, but He was struggling in His flesh.

            We see something truly amazing take place, the human nature, and the divine will of Jesus on full display in a single sentence. He says, “Let this cup pass from me, yet not what I will, but what You will.” The first statement shows His struggle in the flesh and the second statement shows His divine nature, as He surrenders to the plan of God.

Think about how critical it was that Jesus surrender to the will of God in that moment. It was the only way that His sacrifice would be made perfect and that His righteousness could stand for all men. That is what was at stake.

That is what the author of the book of Hebrews teaches us in 5:8-9, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.” Jesus became perfect through His suffering and if He does not surrender in this moment, there is no forgiveness, no salvation, and heaven for any of us.

The next thing I want you to see in this passage is the disappointment of Gethsemane, Vs. 37-41. How disappointing it must have been for Jesus to return and find His closest friends sleeping when He needed them most.

Look at Vs. 37, “He said to Peter, Simon are you asleep.” Notice He calls Peter, Simon. This is a rebuke because that is his old name. That was his name before he became a follower of Jesus Christ. It represents his old nature.

And remember it was Peter who had spoken up so full of confidence and said, “He would stand with Him even to death.” Yet he couldn’t even stand with Him in prayer. And Jesus question, “Are you asleep,” is not a question but an accusation; why are you asleep?

 In Vs 38 He gives them two imperatives that are imperative for us, He says, “Keep watching and praying.” Why? so they can overcome temptation. There was a crisis coming. They’re going to be tempted to abandon Jesus. And the implication here is that they will fail if  they do not watch and pray.

The same thing is true in our life. That is how we overcome temptation. We stay awake, we stay alert, we stay on offense, we stay aware of our weakness, and we pray. We rely on God.

You see in just a few hours Peter is going to fold in front of a teenage girl. She is going to lob softball questions at him. He is going to take three swings and He strike out before the rooster crows. All because he could not stay awake and pray. His spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak, and we have the same problem. Spiritually, we want to follow God, but physically, and morally our body will not cooperate. We allow sin to rule our will.

Notice He returns three times in this passage to find them sleeping, verses 37, 40, & 41. Their physical condition represents their spiritual condition. They were fatigued and overwhelmed. It had been along day. But you know why they couldn’t stay awake? It just wasn’t that important to them. They didn’t think they needed to stay awake.

They thought they could live the Christian life on auto pilot. They thought that just showing up was enough for God. They didn’t realize how weak they were. Because if they had realized they would have done what Jesus told them to do.

Notice Vs. 40, “They did not know what to answer Him.” They had no excuses.  They are speechless. Even Peter is silent now. What we learn from this passage is it’s not enough o hear the words of Christ. It’s not enough to have a willing spirit. It’s not enough to be a person who is close to Jesus. The disciples were all those things. We need grace. We need to humbly watch ourselves to avoid sin and pray for God’s grace.

The final thing I want to show you in this passage is the resolve of Gethsemane Vs 41-42. He says, “the hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. “Get up, let us be going.”

Jesus is on a divine schedule. He has prayed and He has persevered. He is finished now and He is ready to move forward in the predetermined plan of God. The struggle is over, and He is at peace. He has won the victory through prayer. He is ready to embrace the cross. All because He has accepted the will of God.

One of the reasons we struggle with so much turmoil in life is because we have not won the victory in prayer. We give up prematurely. We want a quick fix. We want someone to just tell us God’s will for our life. We want to by-pass the agony and the perseverance that comes through prayer. Listen, we cannot win the victory if we are not even willing to get in the game.

We cannot understand the cross without first understanding the crucible that took place at Gethsemane. Jesus’ heart was in agony. His soul was desperate to the point of death, but He trusted the Father, and through prayer and persistence He overcame. He trusted God’s plan and He persevered.

We can experience that same victory in life. We can take our pain, worries, and fears to God in prayer. Our heart can be at peace despite our problems. We can understand God’s plan We can understand He has a greater purpose for our life, and we can trust Him and persevere. And that is what we learn from this passage. We learn to trust God even when our heart is afflicted.