Sermon Tone Analysis

Notes

In his commentary on Mark, James R. Edwards calls this passage, “Prelude to the Cross.”

“prelude” = a preliminary action to a work of higher importance

We have prelude music before our services.

It’s music that precedes the more important event of the worship service, but it’s really more than that.

Prelude music announces the start of the worship service.

It sets the tone for the worship service.

And as such, it really is part of the worship service.

Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane announces Jesus’s now very quick journey to the cross.

It is really part of Jesus’s work on the cross as he submits to his Father’s will.

And it sets the strange tone for Jesus’s work on the cross, which is for Jesus a work of willing obedience but also a work of deep sadness.

Before we rush forward to the joy of the resurrection, we should spend some time with Jesus in Gethsemane, sitting with him while he prays before he goes to the cross.

We want to look at this passage in a few different PARTS...

Part #1: vv.

32-34

v. 32, “Gethsemane” -

from the Hebrew, meaning “olive press”

at the foot of the Mount of Lives

familiar place for Jesus and his followers to gather (cf.

and below)

That Jesus chose to meet with his disciples in this usual place when he knew that Judas was looking to betray him shows that Jesus was not trying to dodge the cross.

He was deliberately moving toward the cross.

v. 32, “Sit here while I pray.” -

Mark records Jesus praying alone only twice before - both in times of significance for his ministry

In Jesus prayed because he was pressed to keep healing in one location when he had to go preach in other locations

In Jesus prayed because the disciples didn’t understand the significance of Jesus feeding the five thousand so he came walking on the water as only God could

Here in 14:32 is the most significant time: Will Jesus avoid the cross or will he submit to the will of his Father?

The fact that Jesus finds the time and space to pray during these significant points in his ministry ought to challenge us.

It’s precisely during “significant times” that we are likely to tell ourselves that we don’t have time to pray.

But if the Son of God, very God of God, who had no sin found the time and space to pray when things were at their most significant, so must we.

We must follow the lead of our Master Jesus who teaches us not only how to pray In , but also, to put it simply, that we must pray.

v. 33, “And he took with him Peter and James and John...”

This is the inner circle of disciples.

They were with Jesus on other significant occasions as well.

They were there on other significant occasions as well.

When Jesus raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead, they were with him.

When Jesus was transfigured, they were with him.

When Jesus foretold the destruction of the temple and the signs of the end of the age, they (joined by Andrew) were with him.

But in this case they were not just with him because they had been with him in the past.

They were with him now to learn something about themselves and about Jesus.

Previously Peter boasted in :29-31...

Likewise, James and John had previously boasted in ...

These three had bragged about their faithfulness to Jesus, but they are about to learn that they aren’t even faithful enough to keep watch and pray.

And after Jesus’s death, resurrection, ascension, and the coming of the Spirit, these three will look back on Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane and his willing submission to his Father as an act of perfect faithfulness.

We should never talk about how faithful we are to the Lord.

Perhaps we shouldn’t even let someone else talk about how faithful we are to the Lord.

Ultimately, the very best of us, is totally unfaithful while Jesus is perfectly faithful.

It is a humbling, pride-attacking, painful lesson to learn, but one we must learn as Peter, James, and John did.

We can’t trust in ourselves because we are so utterly faithless.

We must only trust in Jesus because only Jesus is so perfectly faithful.

v. 33, “…and (Jesus) began to be greatly distressed and troubled.”

HCSB / “deeply distressed and horrified”

HCSB / “deeply distressed and horrified”

KJV / “sore amazed, and to be very heavy” - in Gethsemane (the olive press) Jesus is pressed down, squashed under the weight of the sorrow he feels at the thought of becoming sin and experiencing the divine wrath of his Father

v. 34, “And (Jesus) said to (Peter and James and John), ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.

Remain here and watch.’”

or keep awake

NKJV / “exceedingly sorrowful” to the point of death

HCSB / “swallowed up in sorrow” to the point of death

But even here there are whispers of hope.

Jesus’s words are similar to the sorrowful words of and 43.

Jesus’s soul is cast down, even pressed down with grief, but he shall again praise his Father in Heaven.

----

Part #2: vv.

35-36

v. 35, “And going a little farther, he fell on the ground...” v. 35, “...and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.”

He must go to his Father in prayer alone, just as he will go to the cross alone.

Peter, James, and John don’t understand his relationship with the Father.

They don’t understand the cross that awaits him.

They wouldn’t understand the prayer he prays as he is pressed down to the earth.

Here’s how James Edwards describes it...

Nothing in all the Bible compares to Jesus’ agony and anguish in Gethsemane—neither the laments of the Psalms, nor the broken heart of Abraham as he prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen 22:5), nor David’s grief at the death of his son Absalom (2 Sam 18:33).

Luke 22:44 even speaks of Jesus’ “sweat falling to the ground like drops of blood” (so, too, Justin Martyr, Dial.

Trypho 103.8).

The suffering of Gethsemane left an indelible imprint on the early church (Heb 5:7).

Scripture paints an ugly picture of this scene...

Listen to how

…this was agony, to a degree we can’t comprehend.

Jesus quakes with agony because he knows that he will stand before the Father as sin, the very object of God’s wrath.

We will quake if we stand before God without Christ to answer for our sins.

Jesus stood before the Father to answer for the sins of all those who would be redeemed.

We sometimes experience grief so significant it crushes us.

We lose a parent.

We lose a spouse.

We lose a child.

The grief from such things can only be described as ‘agony.’

Here in Gethsemane Jesus felt agony on an infinitely greater scale than we ever will.

Truly, he is able to sympathize with us not only in our weakness but in our agony as well.

And we can be sure that he loves to comfort us in our agony because his agony in Gethsemane was not only to the glory of his Father, but also for our good.

If Jesus endured this agony in Gethsemane and endured the agony of the cross, what would he do for us?

Surely he loves to comfort us.

v. 36, “And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.”

Only in Mark does Jesus call God the Father, “Abba,” a term of intimacy, trust, and affection.

Jesus said that he would send the Spirit to his followers and its by the Spirit that we too are able to address God with intimacy.

Cf. and

Galatians

That Jesus addresses God the Father with such intimacy in the midst of this agony is serious and curious and awe-inspiring.

Jesus knew this was the Father’s will, that’s why he prayed to the Father in the first place.

Jesus knew all things were possible for his Father, that’s why he said to his Father, “Remove this cup from me.”

But Jesus also knew that his Father was Abba, that’s why he trusted his Father enough to say, “Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Concerning this prayer of Jesus, one commentator asked, “Is it possible for Jesus to fulfill God’s will in all ways but this one, or in some other way?

Perhaps, as with Isaac, the sacrifice can be averted even though the arm of Abraham is raised for the dagger’s plunge,” (Edwards, 434).

The answer is, of course, no.