In case you weren’t with us last week, we’ve begun a brand new series of sermons entitled 24, based on the last 24 hours of Jesus Christ. What makes this particular series of sermons so unique is that I will be sharing from the perspective of characters present during the events. These story-like sermons will hopefully be both inspiring and educational as we move toward the cross during this season of Lent.
Today’s story will draw both from the Scripture passage we are about to read along with tradition and speculation. In particular a tradition has existed for many centuries that gives an identity to a character in today’s story who is not identified within the passage and ties that character together very closely with our story from last week. In addition to that tradition I will be drawing from both my own speculation along with that of historians and commentators as to how the events of the night may have unfolded and in particular how it is that we have the words of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when his disciples were supposed to have been asleep while he was speaking them. Please keep in mind that the majority of what I will share with you this morning is either Biblically or historically accurate. There are only a few bridges which have needed to be built in order to bring the story to life.
Would you now turn with me in your Bibles to Mark 14:27-52 for our reading from the Word of God…
Let us pray…
God we cry for out for the lives of the eight teenagers and twelve others across the south that were taken in the storms that hit the south last week. Surely it pains our hearts to see people suffer such as this. Why did you allow that tornado to hit that high school head on? Sometimes we wonder if you care at all. We know you love us, but why is it that at times you seem to be silent?
Why did you make such storms? Did we cause the weather that separated families permanently and snuffed out young lives?
We know our understanding is limited, and we know you have the truth, and who can we turn to but you? But we can’t help but wonder why you allow such things to happen? Forgive us for our questioning – we question because we love you and we’re looking for an explanation for the terrible things that happened. Amen.
While all of us sympathize with the pain that is being experienced this morning by the family members of those high school students who were killed, the fact is, a prayer such as this makes most of us uncomfortable. Such a prayer is a bit too audacious. Perhaps a little too bold for our liking. We’re much more comfortable with prayers that are characterized by timidity. “God,” we pray, “if it’s your will, and we understand if it’s not, if you wouldn’t mind, and please don’t be offended by our asking, would you give us this day our daily bread.” We like to leave a means of escape for ourselves and for God (as if he needs it). We like to leave a way out, a back door if you will, ultimately because when it comes down to it we’re either afraid that God won’t answer our prayers or we really don’t believe in prayer.
If you were to do a search of the Scriptures, you’d have a hard time finding any such faint or timid prayers. The Psalmist prayed “O God, why have you rejected us for so long? Remember that we are the people you chose long ago. Don’t forget your suffering people forever.” Job, a man who had lost everything he had, including his family and his health said, “God, you don’t answer me when I cry. I stand before you, but you don’t even look. You’ve used your power to persecute me!”
Over and over again what we find in the words of Scripture are prayers of passion, intensity, boldness, and tenaciousness. We find prayers that reflect a kind of real, authentic, vulnerable faith in God, the kind of genuine, non-varnished faith we find recorded by the author of the Gospel of Mark in today’s reading.
Let me introduce him to you.
I’m humbled to be with you this morning. To be honest, I’d rather not be here, up front that is, I don’t like to be in the limelight. I’d rather be assisting someone else. I’d rather be behind the scenes serving. That’s what I spent most of my life doing.
I grew up in a God fearing home. More than that, I grew up around the pioneers of Christianity learning from those who laid the very foundations of our faith. They used our home and our garden as a refuge and a place of prayer.
I walked and talked with the giants of our faith, men like Peter, and James and John. In fact my closeness with Peter led to the earliest church in Rome asking me at the age of 30 to write a short Gospel embodying the life and ministry of Jesus as Peter had shared it with me.
I spent several years in Alexandria Egypt as the pastor of a wonderful group of new followers of Christ who eagerly learned the Scriptures and applied them to their lives.
I observed the ministry of the Apostle Paul first hand. In fact I had the opportunity to travel with Paul and my cousin Barnabas on one of their missionary journeys. There’s no other time in history when I would rather have lived.
Enough about me, though. If there’s one thing I learned in life, it was that my story is his story.
I was just a teenager the night that my life was changed. It was the night of the Feast of the Passover. My dad had announced that we were having unexpected company for dinner and that I would have to help with the preparations. Jesus of Nazareth, he said, a teacher who was in town for the festival, was bringing his followers over to eat the Passover that very evening. A little last minute, I thought, but who was I to question my father.
When the meal had been prepared and Jesus and his followers had arrived and were seated my father came down and told me that our family was going to eat with them. We went upstairs to the room, and as I had been instructed, was very quiet. Every other year as part of the celebration I would ask my dad questions about the meaning of the Passover. This is how we had been taught. This is what kids had been doing for years. But that night I figured things would be different, because sometimes adults would fill that role, especially with a guest as important as Jesus present. After all, who wants a kid to mess things up? But then Jesus looked over at me. He made me feel important and right there in front of all his disciples he wanted me to ask those questions.
I’m sure you know what happened at the table that night. Jesus took wine and bread and offered a way for his followers to remember his death in years to come. If you want to read more about it you can look at the story I wrote. He talked about how he would be betrayed, but none of us, including his disciples, really understood, at the time what he was saying. Tragically, many of the disciples didn’t even believe it. They would all learn a valuable lesson soon: when Jesus makes a statement about what is to happen, it will come true.
It was late that evening when they left our house and I finally got to bed after a long day. I needed to get up early the next morning to go out to our Olive Grove to work. My dad probably didn’t tell you about our Garden, did he? Just outside the city opposite the Eastern wall of the Temple was a hill called the Mount of Olives, a gently rounded hill that overlooked the Temple. The hill was characterized by a heavily wooded area and was covered with dense olive groves. At the foot of this hill my family owned a garden for growing and harvesting olive trees, a garden that would come to be known as Gethsemane, a word that meant “oil press.”
Olive oil was one of the leading exports of Jerusalem. We would make this oil by taking an olive branch and using a stick to tap it so that the olives would fall lightly to the ground. We then would remove the pits and place the olives into a large basin and then press them by rolling a large millstone in circles over them. That oil then would be used for lamps, cosmetics, and anointing.
I hadn’t been asleep for long when I heard some commotion out front. I didn’t have any clothes on so I quickly wrapped a sheet around myself and ran out front. There in front of our house on the street was a mob of people. I wasn’t sure what they were upset about but I recognized some of them. There were temple police, a few soldiers, some of the guys from the Sanhedrin, really a strange group to be together. And then off to one side was one of the guys who had been with Jesus at dinner. I would later come to learn his name was Judas. This mob was carrying short swords, knives, and clubs. They were demanding from my father that he tell them where Jesus went.
My dad was reluctant. “What do you want with him?” He had heard Jesus predict he would be betrayed and I think looking back he knew what was going on. Judas, one of the twelve had gone and retrieved this group of angry men to arrest Jesus at night so as to avoid an angry crowd of followers and any resulting riots during the day. The last thing my father wanted to do was to give Jesus up, but they were armed, they had the law on their side and he was afraid for our family, so he finally admitted, “they’ve gone out to our olive grove.”
I couldn’t stand by and let this happen! Maybe I could stop things and so I took off through the streets of Jerusalem wearing nothing but my bed sheet. I knew all the shortcuts to the garden. Maybe I could get there in time to warn him. I ran faster than I’ve ever run before.
I was out of breath when I arrived at Gethsemane. It was dark. I made my way through a secondary entrance in the wall. Judas and his gang had not yet arrived and so I began searching the grove. When I came to one side of the garden I heard a man crying. It was a strange cry. There was nothing ordinary about it. As I moved in behind an olive tree to look I could see Jesus in the glow of the moon. He was all alone and the look that was on his face was one of terror. As if he had seen something horrifying. As if he had stared death in the face and was about to be overcome by it.
He took a few more steps and then he fell to the ground. He got up again all the while weeping violently but he couldn’t stay on his feet. I wanted to step out from behind the shadows and help him but it was as if I were frozen in place. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t speak. It was like one of those nightmares when you try to scream but you can’t.
There on the ground in this place where we crush olives was this man who appeared as if he himself were being crushed by a burden too heavy to bear.
And then he began to pray. He prayed about the hour that was awaiting him that it might pass him by. He called God by the Aramaic name, “Abba” father and cried out, “Everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet not what I myself desire, but what you yourself desire.”
I’d never heard someone pray so passionately and intensely. I’d never heard anyone ask for something so boldly, yet at the same time accepting whatever God’s answer would be. The words from that prayer haunt me even to this day.
When Jesus picked himself up off the ground he started back toward the entrance of the garden. I followed just far enough behind so as not to be heard. Just a few yards from where he had been laying he came across three of his closest disciples, men I would later come to know well: Peter, James and John. But they were all sleeping! I remember thinking some unkind thoughts about these guys in the moment, but over the years I’ve come to understand that I am no better than they. That I am just as likely to be unfaithful as they were.
Peter would tell me in years to come of how earlier in that evening Jesus had predicted that they would all stumble, that they would desert him, and that even though Peter had emphatically denied such a possibility, Jesus insisted that it was true and begged them to watch and pray. But it had been such a long day, and they were so warn out, not just physically, but emotionally, and spiritually that they couldn’t stay awake much less watch and pray. In fact they were so tired that they fell asleep on Jesus, not once but three times that evening.
I had just stepped out of the shadows to warn Jesus about the men that were on their way when I heard the commotion at the gate.
“Get up,” Jesus said to the three disciples, let’s be going. Look my betrayer is here.” Then he did the strangest thing. He didn’t turn the other direction. He didn’t try to escape. He may have been able to. There were other exits from the Garden. It was dark. These disciples could have fought the men off while he ran for it. But instead he stepped toward the mob.
Remember Judas, the man who had been at dinner and then at my door with the mob? He stepped out of the crowd and walked toward Jesus. Apparently he had arranged a signal. You see the customary way to greet a Rabbi was with a kiss. And so he stepped up to Jesus and greeted him loudly so that all could hear, “Rabbi!” And then he kissed him. It was a strange kiss though. I tried to communicate that in my Gospel, but your English language is so limited that it only has one word for kiss. The word I used in the Greek for kiss was a kiss of intensity. When he kissed him I couldn’t tell if he was being a hypocrite or already feeling badly for what he had done. You know, I’m certain, if you have read Luke’s account that Judas eventually committed suicide because of his guilt.
As soon as Judas had kissed him those around him swarmed. But no sooner had they grabbed Jesus to arrest him then Peter pulled out his sword and swung toward one of the men. Thankfully for the man, Peter wasn’t that great a shot or it would have been the man’s skull, instead he only severed an ear.
You know what the strangest thing was – at least at the time – I understand it a little better now – it was as if Jesus were expecting this whole thing because he didn’t once resist the arrest and even though he dismissed the manner of his arrest as ridiculous since he was in the Temple for several days and could have been captured there, he turned this whole thing around and said to the soldiers and the police, what you’re doing will fulfill Scriptures. Like guess what guys, God already knew the stunts you were going to pull. In fact, it’s part of his plan.
I think one of the saddest moments that night was as Jesus was subdued and the men turned to grab those who were with him, all of the disciples turned and ran leaving their teacher.
I stood for a moment and then I too gave way to the same temptation to flee. One of the guards grabbed for me and caught hold of the sheet I had wrapped around me, but I was able to slip out of it and run away naked.
“God will strike the Shepherd,” Jesus said, “and the sheep will be scattered.” “You’ll all stumble.” The disciples did. They ran. They fled the scene as if they were out to save themselves. And then I did the same. And tragically it wouldn’t be the last time I found myself unfaithful.
Watch and pray, Jesus said. I spent the bulk of my life doing just that. It got pretty difficult to be a Christian in the years of the early church. Peter ended up being crucified up side down. James was struck by a blunt object in the head and killed. And John was exiled to an island for many years and later would die at an old age.
They had prayed but rather than delivering them from persecution God’s answer was the strength to face that persecution. The same kind of answer, he gave Jesus that night in the garden.
“Everything is possible for you,” he had prayed. You are the Almighty God. You are the creator of the ends of the earth. What’s I’m about to ask isn’t beyond your ability.
“Please take this cup of suffering away from me.” This is my plea. I’m not going to lie about it, or be bashful. I don’t want to go through this. And since I know you are able I’m not going to hesitate to ask.
“But not what I myself desire, but what you yourself desire.” Whatever you decide, I’m ok with.
Following that weekend I always looked forward to going to the garden. Work took on a whole new meaning. Because there in the midst of the olive grove I found a place of prayer. A place where I could be honest and vulnerable and truly talk to God about what it was that was bothering me. A place where I didn’t have to be pretentious. Where I didn’t have to mince words. A place where I knew I could be real with God and he would be real with me.
That’s the kind of relationship God wants with us. He invites us to come to the Garden alone every day. Early in the morning, in the midday, in the evening, during the night. He doesn’t want us to tip toe around timidly afraid to speak. He’s not concerned with our eloquence. Rather he wants us to come to him with our greatest trials; to approach him in the garden and when you feel like you’re being pressed down heavily with your burdens, boldly bring them to God in faith ready for whatever answer he gives. Because he will answer. If we’re ready to align ourselves with God’s plan for our lives whether the answer is yes or no God will give with the answer the strength and the grace to face the future.
