Three Dark Moments Of Jesus' Life: The Falling Away, The Garden, And The Betrayal: Sunset, Early Night, And Deep Night Series

What was your darkest moment in life? When did you hit a sort of rock bottom? I can think a few of moments in my life. I remember when I was 17 years old, I was downstairs in my parents basement. My parents had just split up. I had been bullied a lot in school, until I started doing drugs and drinking, and pretty soon I became very cool and popular. But I couldn’t control the pills, they were like a wild bucking bronco that bucked me off. And I made some crazy statements to students, and they brought my statements to the school leadership and I was expelled from school.

The girl I had a big crush on at that time had decided that I was a weirdo and wouldn’t talk to me. And my old friends wouldn’t talk to me because they were afraid of me. It was at that moment in life that I knew everything had fallen apart. It was a moment of great darkness in my life.

I remember during that time I turned in my room one day and looked at a poster on my wall. It was a smashing pumpkins poster from one of their music videos, one of my favorite songs, and God seemed to say to me in that moment: You’re about to go through a long dark tunnel, but I will save you in the future, and everything will be OK. That tunnel lasted ten years.

The Smashing Pumpkins poster I looked at connects with the song titled “Tonight, Tonight” the music video tells the story of a couple on a doomed voyage who get lost and captured by monsters, but escape and find their way to safety in the end. Listening to the song last night was interesting. You hear words and phrases like “Believe in me” repeated over and over.

How about you? Maybe your darkest moment was losing a loved one. Or losing a job. Or a time when you became deeply empty. Perhaps it was a car accident or an angry argument.

In our darkest moments we will grieve and be lost and struggle, and we may even fall away, and scatter, or come to ruin. But if we return to God, he will help us, deliver us, and save us.

Today we’re looking at three dark moments. And they are what they are. They are dark and broken and sad. That is part of life.

It’s not always beautiful. It often is beautiful, even sublime, glorious. Other times, I’m exhausted, everyone is crabby, it smells funny in here, the rain is falling, and we get a phone call of a disaster far away. Someone dies.

For me, friends, it’s so incredibly relieving, it feels really good for me, to just admit that this is true about life. So often we pretend like everything is perfect. And people scold us or give us a pep talk, turn that frown upside down. But to simply affirm, it’s ok, to grieve the trouble of life, that’s freeing, if you ask me.

So let’s jump into a moment in time, late at night, Jesus has just given the disciples so much encouragement, it’s all recorded in John 14.

He said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” -John 14:1-2

So much encouragement! He prayed for them, prayed for believers everywhere, he gave instructions about loving one another. But now Jesus is going to speak some hard truths to the disciples and to the leader of the disciples, Peter.

He says in Mark 14:27, “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’”

Jesus quotes from Zechariah 13:7 in the Old Testament here. It’s a prophecy that comes true in this moment in time.

You will all fall away he says.

Something bad is going to happen, Jesus says.

Jesus often told the disciples: This is what will happen in the future. The temple will be destroyed, he told them. He told them he would be crucified. He told them they would be his witnesses to the ends of the Earth. God tells us the future.

That continued with the Holy Spirit often speaking to Paul in the book of Acts as well, you will go to Jerusalem. You will go to Rome (Acts 23:11).

Yet even immediately after giving the bad news, Jesus gives the good news as well. So which news comes first? Good or bad? According to Jesus, bad news first, then good news.

In verse 28, “But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”