09.04.22 Morning - Mark 14:32-42

Open your Bibles to Mark 14:32-42.  •We are continuing our study of the Gospel of Mark.  •This morning we come to the account of our Lord praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  This passage is a very famous one in the Passion Narrative of our Lord.  •Here we will read the famous prayer of Jesus: “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” •This passage is full of the glory of Christ.  When I read this text, I see two main themes emerge: 1. The necessity of watching and praying so that disciples (us) don’t fall into temptation. Being watchful of ourselves and seeking help from God so we don’t fall into sin.  2. The submission of the Suffering Servant, Jesus Christ.  •Now, I think that I covered the first theme, at least in part, last Lord’s Day as we considered the arrogance and pride of the disciples in the face of temptation.  •And, to be honest, the theme of watching and praying is the secondary theme of this passage.  •So, in light of those things, I’ll be focusing on the main thing.  •And the main theme of our text this morning is the Submission of the Suffering Servant.  Our Lord is truly God and truly Man. He is one Person but has two natures: A human nature. And a divine nature.  •And those natures, though united in the one Person, are distinct from one another. And each nature does that which is proper for it to do at all times.  •This is the great mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God: God became a man without ever ceasing to be God in any way and without making the human nature divine.  •I say all of that to remind you that our Lord Jesus Christ is truly human. He is human in every way that we are, except He is without sin.  And His true and full humanity is on display very clearly in our text this morning.  •It’s on display in such a way that may make some of us a little uncomfortable. We are going to see Jesus be afraid and full of trembling.  •We are going to see Him cry out to God in prayer as the perfect man.  •And we are going to see Him submit to God. He will submit His human will to the will of God. And He will do so perfectly, sweetly, and with full desire to do so.  •Jesus Christ is the Servant of the LORD. He is the Servant that Isaiah prophesied about.  •He is the perfect Man, the Last Adam. And His perfect but true humanity is plain for us to see and marvel at.  In this passage we will be walking on sacred ground.  •We will get something of a front row seat to the agony of the soul of our Lord before His crucifixion.  •We will never fully understand or appreciate His suffering. But I hope that we can get something of a glimpse of what He suffered for us and for our salvation.  •And seeing, may God grant to us growth in our love for the Savior-Servant who submitted Himself to God and gave Himself up for us.  Now, if you would and are able, please stand with me for the reading of the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God.  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) Our God and Father,  We come before you now and humbly ask for you to bless the preaching of your Word.  Bless the preacher as he speaks. And bless the hearers as they hear.  By your Spirit, speak to each of us from your Word this morning. And grant us a glimpse of your Son in His suffering and humiliation on our behalf.  Let us see His humble submission as the perfect man so that we might praise Him, rejoice in His perfect work, be glad in our salvation, and walk in the same manner that He walked.  Give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to believe.  Instruct us and show us something of your glory as we sit under the ministry of your Word.  We ask these things in Jesus’ Name and for His sake.  Amen.  1.) Our passage begins by telling us that Jesus took His disciples “to a place called Gethsemane.” •The parallel in Luke 22:39 says that this was a place that Jesus and His disciples went often.  •Gethsemane is at the foot of the Mount of Olives. It is a garden. Quite possibly it was fenced in and provided a private place for our Lord to teach His disciples and pray.  And as Jesus and the Eleven are there, Jesus instructed eight of them to “Sit here while I pray.” •He probably left them near the entrance of the garden.  •But He takes three of them, “Peter and James and John,” His inner-circle of disciples, further into the garden so that they would be close to Him while He prayed.  •Matthew’s parallel says that Jesus asked the Three to watch with Him. From what He says later, He expected them to “watch and pray.” •Jesus wanted them to pray for themselves that they would remain faithful in light of what was about to take place in His arrest, trial, and crucifixion.  And Jesus has come to pray Himself.  •He wanted to spend His final hours before His arrest, trial, and crucifixion IN PRAYER.  •He was seeking help from God for the task ahead.  •And He was in the fight of His life. This is the moment of truth for Jesus in His earthly ministry.  •Everything hinges on this moment.  •And I say that because in these final hours, our Lord will have to submit to His human will to God and go to the Cross.  •Yes, He has prophesied that He will go to the Cross, die, and be raised. He has said that He has come into the world to do the will of His Father.  •And He has perfectly done so His entire life. But now comes the big moment. His death is on the horizon. It’s just hours away.  •And so, one final time, He must submit Himself to the will of God so that He might die and bring about salvation for the People of God.  •Everything hinges on this moment. And it is hard on the human Jesus.  2.) V33 says that He began to be greatly distressed and troubled. [34] And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death… •Here in the Garden of Gethsemane, His suffering begins. Not His physical suffering. But the anguish of His soul.  •The word here for “very sorrowful” expresses a deep emotional distress. One commentator renders it “burdened with grief.” •Jesus is shaken at the thought of what is to come.  •He is full of fear at what is about to happen to Him.  •And He is so full of anguish and fear that it threatens to kill Him right then in Gethsemane.  Now, why is Jesus so upset? Why is He so afraid? Why is He so distressed in His soul? Why is He so burdened in His heart? •He has been on the march to Jerusalem for some time now. He has been prophesying His death for quite a while.  •So, why now that the time has come for His death, why now is Jesus so afraid?  •Other men in history have faced their deaths with much less fear. Some have even greeted death as a welcomed friend and with full composure and peace.  •So why is Jesus so afraid?  •More than that, He knows He will be raised from the dead in three days.  •So why is He so afraid? •He is so afraid because HE KNOWS IT IS MORE THAN MERE DEATH THAT HE IS FACING.  He knows that something worse than mockery and hatred awaits Him tomorrow.  •He knows that something worse than being torn apart by whips and a crown of thorns awaits Him tomorrow.  •He knows that something worse than being stripped naked and nail to tree awaits Him tomorrow.  •Jesus wasn’t afraid of death. Even the horrible death of crucifixion. At least, that was not the greatest fear He had.  He knows that tomorrow morning He will face down the wrath of Almighty God.  •He knows that the unmitigated, white-hot wrath of a holy, sin-hating, justice-serving, vengeful God awaits Him.  •And He must bear the hatred and wrath of God for sin.  •And He is overwhelmed with grief and fear at the thought of what is to come.  •He is horrified at the thought of what He must soon endure for us.  CAN YOU IMAGINE KNOWING THAT THIS AWAITS YOU IN JUST A FEW HOURS? •The feeling of hopelessness, the feeling of loneliness would be too much to bear.  •Jesus knows that He is about to become God-forsaken in a very real way.  •And, hear me: Jesus has more faith than any man ever has. He actually UNDERSTOOD what He was facing.  •When the Scriptures speak of God being terrifying in His wrath and judgment, Jesus believed it to the full and with better understanding than we do.  •Jesus has the closest relationship to God that any man has ever had. HE KNOWS GOD. And so He really knows what is coming.  •We cannot even begin to imagine how He felt in His soul.  And consider this: This is actually an expression of the holiness and godliness of Jesus Christ.  •It was godly and pious for Jesus to be afraid like this.  •Why? Because He feared God.  •If He just waltzed to the cross like it was no big deal, it would’ve revealed that He did not fear God or take Him seriously.  •But Jesus is the perfect Man. And so, He perfectly feared God. He is afraid and distressed, almost to the point of being killed under the weight of it all.  NOTE: This is the very thing that wicked men and women do no do. They do not fear God at all.  •Occasionally, I’ll meet someone who thinks Christianity is true but doesn’t follow Christ. And they’ll tell me, “I know I’ll go to Hell if I die. But…” •THERE IS NO BUT! •They can’t actually, in their heart, to the core, truly believe that they will suffer the full and eternal wrath of God if they die in that state and still continue to function normally at all.  •They don’t really believe it. Or, at least, they don’t understand what they’re saying.  •Sinners don’t fear God. They do not fear His holy justice or    His righteous wrath.  •And so, they sin as if God will do nothing. They think of death with no true fear of the damnation that awaits.  •And they spend their lives never looking for escape from damnation that is only found through faith in Jesus Christ.  NOTE: At this verse some people will say, “It’s not possible to sorrowful unto death. It’s not possible to so full of anguish that it kills you. That’s made up.” •Such people are fools.  •They aren’t considering the horrors that our Lord foresaw coming for Him at the cross.  •Jesus knew that suffering beyond what no man had ever endured, or would ever endure again, were about to come upon Him.  •We know NOTHING of such anguish of soul that He endured.  •And we can never know it, either. For no one ever suffered as He suffered.  •And, praise God, we Christians will never know it because He endured it for us! 3.) Now we come to Jesus’ prayer in vv35-36.  •Really, it’s a summary of His prayer. He prayed for hours, no doubt. But this is the inspired summary: [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.”  •He goes a little farther away from Peter, James, and John and He begins to pray.  •Mark includes the fact that Jesus fell on the ground. He knelt down and then laid Himself on the ground in humble prayer. Under the weight of what was to come, He falls and prays. (He is staggering under the weight of it all.) Mark says that Jesus “prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him.” •And Jesus prayed “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me…” •Now, there is something we need to try to understand from these sentences.  •Let me pose the difficulty as a question: If God can do anything, as Jesus prayed, why does Mark record that Jesus also prayed “IF IT WERE POSSIBLE, the hour might pass from Him?” •How are we to understand this?  •I would summarize it this way: If there was any way that God’s will could be done, sinners be saved, and the decree of God come to pass THAT DID NOT REQUIRE HIS DEATH, Jesus asks for THAT to happen instead.  Jesus knows that God is able to do anything considered by itself and on its own because God has all power in and of Himself.  •But Jesus is a good theologian. He knows that there are some things that God cannot do because it would be improper, illogical, or go against His nature as God.  •Some examples of this:  1. God cannot lie because that would violate His holy nature.  2. God cannot be wrong wrong about the future because He is omniscient.  3. God cannot go against what He has sovereignly decreed will come to pass because He is all-wise.  4. God cannot make a squared circle because that is contradictory and nonsensical.  This all means that the will of God for Christ to go to the Cross was not going to change.  •God could have saved humanity any way He pleased. But the cross of Christ was the decree of God. God had it recorded in Scripture. It was promised by God.  •And God will not be wrong, lie, or violate His will.  •I personally think that Jesus knew what the answer would be to His prayer. I think He knew, or at least would’ve been pretty sure, that there was no other way.  But remember, Jesus is praying AS A MAN. (He does not pray as God.) •And, as a man, He is NOT omniscient. (He is omniscient as God. But not as man.) •And so, maybe we should understand His prayer like this:  •“Father, maybe I’ve missed something. I am a man and do not know all things. And I know you can do anything because you are Almighty God. So, if there is any other way, please do that instead. But if not, I submit to your will.” Jesus is expressing a desire to avoid the wrath of God, if that is at all possible, while God still accomplishes His holy will.  •And there is godly fear in this prayer.  •Jesus IS NOT, in an absolute sense, saying, “I don’t want to do this.” That would be sin.  •Rather, His motive is the fear of God. And because He loves God, His prayer contains qualifications: “If it is possible…not my will, but yours.” •He is willfully submitting to die if God so wills it of Him.  •This is an incredibly pious prayer and does not even remotely hint at any rebelliousness in Christ or opposition to the will of God.  •This is pure and perfect godliness on display in the midst of fear and severe suffering and trial.  4.) In His prayer, Jesus asks that the cup might pass from Him. That it would be removed from Him.  •So we’re going to consider the cup He spoke of. The cup and what was in it.  In this context of not wanting the cup, we see that it’s not a positive thing. It’s something to be feared.  •And this is fitting because the OT has many places where the cup is a metaphor for the wrath of God: •Isaiah 51:17 says, “Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of His wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bow, the cup of staggering.” •Psalm 75:8 says, “For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and He pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.” •The cup belongs to God. And it is full of His fury and wrath against sin and sinners.  You don’t want to drink this cup.  •This cup can be summarized with a word: Horror.  •Total, complete, utter horror. Hellish horror.  •But let’s try to get a little more specific. What was in this cup for Jesus? •What was in it that made Him recoil at the thought of having to drink it? 1. Sin was in the cup. Becoming sin was in the cup.    •We don’t often consider this because it is such a foreign concept to us as sinners. But the shock of sin to the pure Son of God would’ve been a horrible thing to endure.  •He who had never sinned, was about to take on the sins of all of His People, a whole world of sin, and have it credited to His account.  •He who has no fellowship with sin, who is perfectly pure, who has never sinned, was about to become sin.  This would’ve been awful. More than we can imagine.  •We are so sinful that we don’t even realize how sinful we are.  •Sinning is part of who we are. We were born in sin. And we sin daily.  •We’re like fish who don’t know what “wet” is. Fish don’t know they’re wet because they’ve always been in water.  •We’re so sinful that we don’t even recognize how sinful we actually are and how awful it really is to be a sinner.  •But Jesus, who never even had the desire or inclination to sin, was about to take on a world of sin and be numbered among the transgressors.  One preacher once put it this way: •Imagine a saintly old woman doing ministry to prostitutes. She’s among them in the street and talking to them and praying for them.  •And then the cops come up and start arresting the women for prostitution. And the old woman gets arrested and put in jail for the evening by mistake.  •Imagine how offended and horrified she would be. Her clean reputation is shattered. She has been numbered among whores.  •You can imagine her weeping in the cell. She is clean but has been charged with great sin and wickedness.  •Brothers and sisters, that is NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING compared to what the Son of God endured internally when He was made sin for us.  •He who hates sin and has nothing to do with it, was to become sin for us.  •And the thought brought horrible distress to His soul.  2. Guilt for sin was in the cup.  •Our Lord would feel the guilt for sins that were not His.  •We all know the horrible, sickening, disgusted feeling after we have committed sin. Especially a great and grievous sin.  •But we are often hardened to what we would call a “lesser sin.” And we don’t feel much guilt for that.  •But the sinless One was about to take on the sins of all who had ever or would ever look to Him in faith.  •And ALL THEIR SIN was about to be laid on Him and truly accredited to Him.  •Their guilt, our guilt, would become His guilt.  •And even the smallest sin would’ve brought nearly unbearable shame and disgust to the Son of God.  Jesus would feel the guilt of sin: •He would feel the guilt of child-molestation.  •He would feel the guilt of drug addiction.  •He would feel the guilt of adultery.  •The guilt of lying and deceiving.  •The guilt of laziness and procrastination.  •The guilt of worshipping a false god. •The guilt of hatred and murder.  •The guilt of the pornography user.  •The guilt of the man who beats his wife.  •The guilt of the wife who belittles her husband.  •The guilt of murdering children.  •The guilt of killing the godly.  •The guilt of rape.  •Think of any sin that a man could be forgiven for, and Jesus felt the guilt of it.  •He felt the guilt of it all.  If God were to lay on us, all at once, the guilt of all our sins that we alone have committed or would commit in this life, I believe it would kill us.  •And yet here our Savior stands, with the guilt of all who would ever believe on Him.  •Not with the sin and of guilt of one man. Not for one thousand men. Not for one hundred million men. But for the Elect in all ages.  •He bore the guilt of what Revelation 7:9 calls “a great multitude that no one could number.” •He bore sin and guilt in His soul for sinners.  3. God-forsakenness was in the cup.  •We’ve never experienced this.  •Even at worst, even under the worst discipline or punishment from God, God’s common grace was still ours as His creatures.  •But not for Christ.  •On the cross, He would cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus would be abandoned by God.  •He would be turned over to strict, unbending, unyielding, divine justice.  •There would be no mercy for Him.  •Consider that: God was to be MERCILESS toward Jesus at the Cross.  •God-forsakenness awaited the perfect, righteous Man because He would become sin.  4. The wrath of God was in the cup.  •The hatred of God was in the cup.  •The full penalty and punishment reserved for the wicked was in the cup.  •Our Lord would suffer the full weight of the wrath of God that His People deserve for their sins.  God has a cup that the wicked must drink down to the dregs.  •And Jesus will have to drain that cup on behalf of His People. And He must drink every last drop of it or not one of them will be saved. •He will, in His body and soul, make satisfaction for sinners on their behalf.  Words will not suffice at this point. They cannot. For who among us can imagine the terrors of God in His fury? •We cannot imagine what this would be like.  •But our Lord would not imagine it. He would endure it at the cross.  •He would offer Himself as a substitute and suffer in the place of the wicked.  •Jesus would, in some sense that we cannot fully understand, but that the Word of God declares to us, He would experience HELL at the cross.  Again, we cannot imagine the agony of soul that this caused our Lord.  •To know that this, all of this, lies ahead for Him would be more than we could bear.  •In light of all of this, one commentator wrote, “Gazing into the cup, Jesus saw Hell opened before Him and He staggered.” •Surely, we can begin to somewhat understand why, in His human nature, Jesus cried out to God for another way for sinners to be saved.  5.) But that is not all He prayed. Is it? •See here the submission of the Servant: Yet not what I will, but what you will.”  •Jesus prayed what He teaches us to pray: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) •William Lane wrote, “Jesus’ desire (to have the cup pass from Him) was conditioned upon the will of God, and He resolutely refused to set His will in opposition to the will of the Father. Fully conscious that His mission entrained submission to the horror of the holy earth of God against human sin and rebellion, the will of Jesus clasped the transcendentally lofty and sacred will of God.” Our Lord perfectly and completely submitted all of His human desires to the will of God.  •It’s as if He said, “God’s will be done. Forget what I want. God’s will is better. And I WANT God’s will to be done.” •His desire to obey God and do the work of redemption that the Father sent Him into the world to accomplish is greater than any human desire He had to preserve His own life or avoid the wrath of God.  •Brothers and sisters, this is PERFECT and TOTAL SUBMISSION.  •This is the glory of the incarnate Son of God! This reminds us of the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2:8. “And being found in human form, He (Jesus) humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” •Jesus humbled Himself to death. Why? Because it was the will of God.  •The Servant of the LORD did the will of the LORD. Even though it cost Him everything.  All throughout His life, Jesus had said things like,  •“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49) •“My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.” (John 4:34) •“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me.” (John 6:38) •Jesus wasn’t wasting air when He said those things. He meant them.  •And so, in the final moments before His arrest, He submits one final time to the will of God.  •And with the words, “Yet not what I will, but what you will,” our salvation was secured once and for all. Because with those words, Jesus submitted Himself to the will of God to go to the cross for us.  What holiness and strength and godliness this shows from the perfect Man! •Consider the true temptation Jesus endured that night: •Temptation to run. Temptation to not go to the cross. Temptation to spare Himself such agony.  •All of this is temptation to disobey the will of God. It was temptation to not be true to God.  •It would’ve been more than we can imagine.  •But our Lord did not give in to temptation. He did not give in to the lies of Satan. He did not desire to be unfaithful.  •Like He did earlier in the wilderness, Jesus overcame temptation to sin and disobey God and He remained faithful.  •He is the Perfect Servant of the LORD.  •He conquered temptation for us. He conquered temptation for us who so often do not conquer it.  •He is everything we are not. He is the perfect and submissive Servant of God.  Hear me: He conquered temptation and chose the cup! •He chose the cup! Hear that! He chose the cup!  •And He chose the cup so that would not have to drink it! •As Charles Spurgeon said,  “With Christ’s perfect resignation, there was also His strongest resolve. He had undertaken the work of His people’s redemption, and He would go though with it until He could triumphantly say from the cross, ‘It is finished.’” 6.) Before we end our time together, there is something else I want to point out to you. •The story of redemption can, in one sense, be considered as the story of two gardens: Eden and Gethsemane.  •Hear me: It’s not a coincidence of Scripture or history that the First Adam was in a Garden and the Last Adam was also in a Garden.  •We are supposed to see the parallels between Adam, our first father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam did not submit to the will of God.  •Instead he chose to eat the forbidden fruit and sin against the Lord.  •But the Last Adam, our Lord Jesus, submitted perfectly to the will of God in the Garden of Gethsemane.  •The First Adam, by His disobedience, plunged the world into sin, death, and damnation.  •But the Last Adam, by His obedience, worked salvation and life for all who believe.  •The First Adam broke the Covenant of Works and damned all of humanity.  •The Last Adam kept the Covenant of Redemption and saved all the Elect of God.  The Bible is a story of two gardens, two covenants, and two men.  •It’s a story of failure and victory, sin and salvation, death and life.  •In Adam all die. But in Christ all are made alive.  •Adam failed to obey. Christ obeyed and is victorious.  In Eden, the First Adam said, “Not your will, but mine be done.” •But, praise God, in Gethsemane, the Last Adam said, “Not my will, but yours be done.” •And the difference between the two is the difference between damnation and salvation.  Christ Jesus did what we could not.  •He did what Adam did not.  •He is everything we are not.  •And He is everything we need.  •He is our righteousness.  •He is our atonement.  •He is our salvation.  •He is our life.  •He is everything.  See these things and be amazed: •See the love of God for sinners.  •See the justice of God against sin.  •See the fearful wrath of God against the unbelieving.  •See the example of obedience and submission to God that we are to imitate.  •And see here the Savior of sinners, the Suffering Servant, the Obedient Son, the Last Adam, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Look to Him and live.  •By His submission and suffering, we are saved.  May God grant us all to behold the majesty and glory of the Lord Jesus, the Savior of sinners.  •Amen.