Brent Deedrick 8/25/13 The Beauty of Gethsemane Mark 14:32-42

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1 The Beauty of Gethsemane Mark 14:32-42 Intro: My family moved quite a bit as I was growing up. I was born in Dallas, but we moved to Chicago, Kansas City, back to Chicago, and then to Greenville. At each place, there were 2 pictures that stayed constant on the walls of our home. One was an original painting by a native Texan named Willie Thrasher who was famous for painting Texas bluebonnets. And my parents own one of his original works, a beautiful depiction of a luscious field with weathered, knobby trees and sparkling Texas bluebonnets. But the other constant was a picture of me. I was probably 2 or 3. I m sitting cross- legged with my favorite stuffed animal, a bear named Russ, in my lap. I m sucking my thumb. And what I was wearing was hideous. It was some type of smocked jumper, and a shirt underneath with a large rounded collar. Nothing a male should ever wear. And until college, anytime my friends would come over, I would try to hide the picture. It was embarrassing! Something straight out of awkwardfamilyphotos.com. The scene we come to in Mark is, in my mind, a beautiful painting. The depth, magnitude, horror, and beauty of it take my breath away. It is a scene that should be painted by a Rembrandt. Unfortunately, many people see this scene as the awkward photo. something to be embarrassed about something to hide when unbelieving friends come over. Problem: In the center of our scene we see Jesus, but it s not the Jesus we re used to. We re accustomed to a strong Jesus, full of authority. The bulk of Mark demonstrates the authority of Jesus healing lepers by touch, teaching with authority in the synagogue, granting forgiveness of sin, claiming to be lord of the Sabbath all in the 1 st 2 chapters! He casts out demons, raises Jairus s daughter from the dead, feeds 20,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish, walks on water, explains the intent of the law, show his glory at the transfiguration, enters Jerusalem to the cries of Hosanna ( Lord, save us ), and cleanses the temple with passionate zeal. Is that Jesus this Jesus??? Jesus suffering was not a surprise to him. In 8:31-33, he predicted it, then rebuked Peter for opposing that idea. Get behind me, Satan! Cf., 9:30-32, 10: times! They ve just come from the upper room where they ate Passover, and Jesus used the bread & wine to symbolize his death. It is at Gethsemane that Jesus suffering strikes its first blow. The preview he sees literally knocks him to the ground. I m not sure we can truly understand how fearful he is. No one has ever struggled like this. No one has ever battled Satan and all his powers like this. No one has ever carried a weight as great as this. David Garland: Mark s Gethsemane scene is the darkest of the 4 gospels. He boldly presents Jesus emotion. From the church fathers on, people have struggled w/ it. It seems offensive, almost an embarrassment to later theologians. Was it an 11 th hour failure of nerve? To downplay it is to be unfaithful to the text. What does Mark intend for us to see?

2 Transition: I m going to be simple in my approach. What does Gethsemane mean for you? Not to you, but for you. First 1. You have a Bible you can trust. (This point is about the text, not from it.) In popular culture, from the Furman classroom to Newsweek magazine, people think the gospels were made up. They re myths, propaganda In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Baucham proves they are more than just oral traditions passed down and embellished. The gospels are not oral tradition they re oral history, recounted by eyewitnesses who told their stories years later. For decades, people like Bartimeaus, Mary Magdalene, and the 12 apostles went all over the empire telling what they saw. It s only when they began to die off that they re realized they should write it down. It s eyewitness account things help us see it s an eyewitness account The amount of detail in this passage. If it were oral tradition that got embellished, you would think that details would be lost. V.37 - Jesus calls Peter Simon. No other place. Why? He was acting like the old Simon. V. 51- Pages and pages have been spent on figuring out who the unclothed guy is. It very well may be the way Mark inserts himself into this story. But it doesn t contribute much. Why is it there? It s an eyewitness account. Everyone else had run away, but someone else saw what happened. X took the inner circle of 3 further. The same three experienced the transfiguration. They see glimpses of his glory and glimpses of his suffering. o Remember John- Mark is recounting what he learned from Peter. Hence knows what Christ was praying Peter was mere feet away. 2- No one would make up a story like this. If you were making up a religion, why would you make up a story that makes your hero look so vulnerable? This is totally unique in ancient literature. Greeks & Romans praised those who faced death in a stoic, detached way. In Jewish history during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes before Christ, they recorded stories of heroic martyrdom. Yet Jesus alone died alone, deserted by all his friends. He opens his heart to God and his disciples. He s so overwhelmed, falls to the ground, and asks God to take it away. Emotional wreck. If you were making up a religion, would you make this up? Every Jew, Greek, and Roman would be embarrassed by this. The only reason it s here is that it actually happened. The only people who appreciate it are those who truly understand it.

3 You have in your Bible eyewitness accounts of what actually happened. It s real. So we ve got to deal with the Jesus it presents to us Aside on Jesus internal turmoil statements of inner life Mark greatly distressed and troubled o Distressed: to be amazed. Here denotes a being in the grip of a shuddering horror given the dreadful prospect before him. (Cranfield) Jesus Began to say (continuous) My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death Why? o Heb 5:7 with loud cries and tears o Luke his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground ILL- FlashForward tv show. Everyone on earth loses consciousness for 2 min. 17 secs. Chaos! During the time unconscious, many of them have a vision of their life 6 months in the future. Distressing! We often say we want to know the future, but if we saw the troubles of the next 6 months, we d be terrified. Jonathan Edwards in Christ s agony Thus this was not the first time that Christ had this bitter cup in his view. On the contrary, he seems always to have had it in view. But it seems that at this time God gave him an extraordinary view of it. A sense of that wrath that was to be poured out upon him, and of those amazing sufferings that he was to undergo, was strongly impressed on his mind by the immediate power of God; so that he had far more full and lively apprehensions of the bitterness of the cup which he was to drink than he ever had before, and these apprehensions were so terrible, that his feeble human nature shrunk at the sight, and was ready to sink. This passage also shows us that a deep emotional struggle is not inherently sinful. Christ was the sinless one. The struggle is completely compatible with true faith. In fact, the struggle may be the way you are walking toward a fuller trust in God. Hebrews 5:8 Although He was a son, he [Jesus] learned obedience through what he suffered. The struggle is the result of temptation, not sin. When you give in to the struggle, it s unbelief. APP 1 Are you ok w/ fighting for faith? Contradicts our popular opinion of what a real man is. APP 2 Do you let others endure through the struggle w/out giving them pat answer and expecting them to simply snap out of their emotional distress? Transition: You may say, but Brent, I don t know how to handle the struggle and agony. The way through intense distress is the way of prayer. And Jesus models that for us here. So you not only have a Bible we can trust 2- You have a prayer you can follow o Vv. 36, 39, 41 show us he repeated it. o Luke 22:34 And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly.

4 V.35. Goes out alone in complete solitude. We see an intimate prayer of the eternal Son of God to his eternal Father. 2 Persons of the Trinity in deep communion. Jesus knows this communion is about to be separated in some way for the very 1 st time in history. V. 36. Details of the prayer ---Intimacy, Honesty, Confidence, Surrender--- Intimacy Abba. He sees God as personal and a part of what he is going through. Abba Aramaic (everyday language of Jesus). Used by Jewish children for earthly fathers. Yet also used by adults to address parents, so daddy is probably misleading. Conveys authority, warmth, and intimacy. Prayer of intimacy between God the Father & Son. Jesus taught, Our Father. Would ve used Abba. Rom 8 The Spirit of Adoption helps us cry Abba! ILL Green, smoky liquid. It matters who it s coming from - witch, drug dealer, dad. Honesty (transparency) He doesn t want to go through it. He asked God to accomplish his plan of redemption in some other way. Confidence All things are possible with you. Thus he asks with full confidence for what he wants. o Echoes 10:27 he told this to his disciples. Jesus is praying his own teaching. o This confidence leads to submission. Surrender Jesus accepts that what s possible w/ God is not always in line with the purposes of God. Some things you pray for in faith will not be given. 1 st Mistake: praying for my will only Often in praying for healing (like it s a special category), people say not to tack on not my will but your will. Like it s not real faith. Why? This is how Jesus taught us to pray Thy kingdom done, thy will be done. How is it spiritual to pray for your will only? Jesus didn t. We still have this mindset that prayer is about getting what we want. When you pray and don t receive, you rely that God is weaving a story in your life and that of others that is bigger than the story of your difficulty. Paul Miller in A Praying Life - Ask boldly. Surrender completely. Charlie Boyd: Ask for anything; surrender everything. Desire and surrender are the perfect balance to praying. Ask for what you want and accept what God gives! What good is prayer then? Why pray if I can t get what I want? Listen to what you re saying. Are you following Jesus because he s useful to you, or for the sheer beauty of who he is and what he s already done for you. The point of prayer is to let God work in you to get you to the place he wants. That s what s happening here with Jesus. Miller- You have to surrender your desire to be in control 2 nd Mistake: Not praying for your will at all!

5 If this prayer is not your model, you learned prayer from someone besides Jesus. Perhaps from the disciples who slept and didn t stay the course. The disciples fail to heed Christ s command to watch and pray. Alertness in prayer is commanded as a divine help to avoid temptation. From a human perspective, perhaps they would not have denied Christ had they simple watched and prayed. Yet, they fail. Utterly fail. Good news: Jesus did not only pray as our example. He prayed as our substitute, in our place. Here in Gethsemane he was earning the righteousness that we are now clothed with. So when we fail to pray just like the disciples, we repent and take comfort that our standing w/ God is not based on our performance in prayer, but on the righteousness of Christ. And Christ is still praying for us! Rom 8:34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that, who was raised who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Heb 7:24 He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Transition: The third and final thing you see from Mark s painting of Gethsemane is that 3. You have a Savior who loves you. Remove this cup from me. What is the cup? OT Passages Ps 75:8 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. Isa 51:17 Wake yourself, wake yourself up! Stand up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk the cup of His fury from the hand of the Lord; you who have drunk the goblet to the dregs the cup that causes people to stagger. Also passages in Jer, Lam, Eze, Hab, Zech. Conclusion The cup is a symbol of what holds the furious wrath of God. When it is poured out, it brings devastating judgment. Yet this cup is unique Only Christ could drink full cup of God s fury down to the last drop in the place of sinners. Only he is the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 2:2), who bore the full judgment of God in our place, thereby satisfying God s wrath. Why didn t God just let it happen quickly? Like in the OT with Daniel s 3 friends they were just thrown in. They weren t taken to the furnace to let the hot blasts hit their faces, then given 3 hours to consider it.

6 Jonathan Edwards God first brought him (Jesus) and set him at the mouth of the furnace, that he might look in, and stand and view its fierce and raging flames, and might see where he was going, and might voluntarily enter into it and bear it for sinners, as knowing what it was. That love for us is all the more wonderful and his obedience all the more perfect when we see Jesus chose it. God led him to the furnace, and Jesus walked in. For you. For me. V. 41b- 42 The hour has come the hour of X s impending death. It is time to drink the cup. The Son of Man The figure of authority in Daniel 7 who receives the kingdom is willingly allowing himself to be betrayed. He still possesses all authority, yet he chooses to exercise it by obeying the Father s will, dying a sacrificial death, and reconciling us to God. o X is not simply taken by force as a passive victim. He actively participates in this process. Look at his next command Rise, let us be going. The physical action of the scene tells us something of the mindset of Christ. Yes, Judas and his cronies, the instigators of his suffering and death, are coming toward him. But Jesus doesn t run away. He rises and meets them head- on. Having considered all that he is about to endure, he confidently and purposefully walks down the path of suffering. o Edwards: this moment was the perfect chance for him to walk away. It was as if God asks him to choose. He chose that the will of God should be done. He chose the suffering. He chose to love us. o For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. (John 10:17-18 ESV) That s the beauty of Gethsemane he saw what was coming, and he still chose to go forward, fully knowing what would cost. APP: o Do you feel abandoned by God? Jesus had the opportunity to abandon you here, but he didn t do it. And if he went to the cross for you, he will certainly not leave you now. o Do you feel betrayed? Is there no way you can forgive? When his closest friends disappointed and denied him, he loved them at their worst. Conclusion: So friends, because Jesus endured suffering and faced death as our example and substitute, we must cast ourselves on Him in every trial we face. We have a Bible we can trust. We have a prayer we can follow. We have a Savior who loves us. Gethsemane is beautiful. This Jesus deserves to be loved, honored, and trusted the Jesus of Gethsemane.