Mark 14:32-42
The Bitter Cup of Gethsemane
Also; Matthew 26:36-46; Luke 22:39-46; Mark 14:32-42
(LK Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.) They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” 35 Going a little farther, (LK He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”) he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” 37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” 39 Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. 40 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. (LK An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.) 41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” Mark 14:32-42
Introduction – The Boxer Rebellion & Aftermath
In 1899 four newspaper reporters from Denver, CO, set out to tear down the Great Wall of China. They almost succeeded. Literally.
The four met by chance one Saturday night, in a Denver railway depot. Al Stevens, Jack Tournay, John Lewis, Hal Wilshire. They represented the four Denver papers: the Times, the Post, the Republican, the Rocky Mountain News.
Each had been sent by his respective newspaper to dig up a story—any story—for the Sunday editions; so the reporters were in the railroad station, hoping to snag a visiting celebrity should one happen to arrive that evening by train.
None arrived that evening, by train or otherwise. The reporters started commiserating. For them, no news was bad news; all were facing empty-handed return trips to their city desks.
Al declared he was going to make up a story and hand it in. The other three laughed.
Someone suggested they all walk over to the Oxford Hotel and have a beer. They did.
Jack said he liked Al’s idea about faking a story. Why didn’t each of them fake a story and get off the hook?
John said Jack was thinking too small. Four half-baked fakes didn’t cut it. What they needed was one real whopper they could all use.
Another round of beers.
A phony domestic story would be too easy to check on, so they began discussing foreign angles that would be difficult to verify. China was distant enough, it was agreed. They would write about China.
John leaned forward, gesturing dramatically in the dim light of the barroom. Try this one on, he said: Group of American engineers, stopping over in Denver en route to China. The Chinese government is making plans to demolish the Great Wall; our engineers are bidding on the job.
Harold was skeptical. Why would the Chinese want to destroy the Great Wall of China?
John thought for a moment. They’re tearing down the ancient boundary to symbolize international good will, to welcome foreign trade! Another round of beers.
By 11:00 p.m. the four reporters had worked out the details of their preposterous story. After leaving the Oxford Bar, they would go over to the Windsor Hotel. They would sign four fictitious names to the hotel register. They would instruct the desk clerk to tell anyone why asked that four New Yorkers had arrived that evening, had been interviewed by reporters, had left early the next morning for California.
The Denver newspapers carried the story. All four of them. Front page. In fact, the Times headline that Sunday read: GREAT CHINESE WALL DOOMED! PEKING SEEKS WORLD TRADE!
Of course, the story was a phony, a ludicrous fabrication concocted by four capricious newsmen in a hotel bar.
But their story was taken seriously, was picked up and expanded by newspapers in the Eastern U.S. and then by newspapers abroad.
When the Chinese themselves learned that the Americans were sending a demolition crew to tear down their national monument, most were indignant; some were enraged!
Particularly incensed were the members of a secret society, a volatile group of Chinese patriots who were already wary of foreign intervention.
They, inspired by the story, exploded, rampaged against the foreign embassies in Peking, slaughtered hundreds of missionaries.
In two months, 12,000 troops from six countries joined forces, invaded China with the purpose of protecting their own countrymen.
The bloodshed which followed, sparked by a journalistic hoax invented in a barroom in Denver, became the white-hot international conflagration known to every high school history student . . . as the Boxer Rebellion. And that is THE REST OF THE STORY.
—Paul Harvey
Well, not exactly…
Boxer Rebellion Results
In "From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya" (Academie, 1983), Ruth Tucker writes about Dr. Eleanor Chestnut. After arriving in China in 1893 under the American Presbyterian missions board, Dr. Chestnut built a hospital, using her own money to buy bricks and mortar. The need for her services was so great, she performed surgery in her bathroom until the building was completed.
One operation involved the amputation of a common laborer's leg. Complications arose, and skin grafts were needed. A few days later, another doctor asked Chestnut why she was limping. "Oh, it's nothing," was her terse reply.
Finally, a nurse revealed that the skin graft for the patient, a coolie, came from Dr. Chestnut's own leg, taken with only local anesthetic.
During the Boxer Rebellion of 1905, Dr. Chestnut and four other missionaries were killed by a mob that stormed the hospital.
THE MYSTERY OF GETHSEMANE 32
(LK Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.) They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”
The Pursuit
Jesus was headed towards Calvary from the moment He was born. The Bible says that He was slain before the foundation of the earth. 10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
The Place
On the West side of the Mount of Olives. The name Gethsemane comes from 'Gat Shemen'. Gat means press and Shemen means oil, so it means oil press.
The Pressure
The name Gethsemane is Aramaic in origin. The word means “Olive Press”. Gethsemane was, and is, a place where olive trees grew and produced their fruit. The olives were collected, placed in a press and the precious olive oil was extracted from the olives under intense pressure. The olives were crushed, along with the olive seed, totally and completely in order to extract the olive oil for Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
THE AGONY OF GETHSEMANE 33-36
33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” 35 Going a little farther, (LK He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”) he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Jesus was betrayed by a friend, soon to be abandoned by His followers and eventually forsaken by His Father. He became our sin and suffered the fate we so richly deserve!
The Desertion of His friends
There were extremely intense internal pressures at Gethsemane.
The Affliction of our sin
He is “very distressed and troubled,” and his soul is “deeply grieved to the point of death.” The English translation only begins to describe his agony. Jesus is horrified. Jesus knew what was coming, but as He looked into the cup He was about to drink, He was astonished and overcome with horror. No other human has ever experienced such anguish of soul as that which came upon Him. The two verbs that are used here, ‘deeply distressed and troubled’ are rare in the New Testament. They are very disturbing words and they are especially disturbing when they’re taken together. Jesus was surrounded by overwhelming sorrows.
He said Even Unto Death – This phrase means that Jesus was “at the point of death” as He prayed in Gethsemane. It is possible for a person to die of anguish alone.
The Word of God is telling us that Jesus was overwhelmed emotionally and spiritually by what He experienced as He entered the Garden of Gethsemane that night. Think about the pressure the Lord was under.
He knows He is about to suffer intense physical pain. He knows that He is about to become sin on a cross. He knows that He is about to be judged by His Father. He knows that, for the first time in eternity, there will be a breech in the unbroken fellowship He has enjoyed with His Father. He knows that He will be abandoned by His nation, His followers and His Father. He knows that He is about to be tried, rejected and condemned to death by the very people He came to save. He knows that the most powerful human government on earth is about turn its fury upon Him.
The thoughts of what He is about to endure literally overwhelm His mind and heart. It was a time of extreme internal pressure. Thank God that He endured the spiritual and emotional trials and made it to Calvary so that we might be saved.
Source: http://www.sermonnotebook.org/mark/
A press squeezed the oil from olives, bringing forth valuable oil but crushing the fruit in the process. Jesus was crushed—literally and figuratively. He was crushed for the sins of humanity, bringing forth a much more valuable oil: the oil of the Holy Spirit, who was, and is, being poured out to renew both humanity and creation. When creation is completely renewed, John tells us that it will be like a garden (Revelation 21:1-22:5). Because Jesus submitted to the will of the Father in the garden of Gethsemane, those of us who call him Lord will reign with him forever in the garden of God.
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
Hardness, rejection, malice of all unbelievers;
Betrayal, desertion & denial of His followers;
Injustice, condemnation, ridicule & pain of trial & cross;
Wrath of God & departure of the Holy Spirit;
YOUR sin placed on the sinless Son of God. Literally, the weight of the world placed upon Him!
Separation from the Father
When we read Luke’s account of the Lord’s suffering in Gethsemane, he records this: “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground,” Luke 22:44. As He prayed, He did so with such earnestness that the capillaries in his forehead began to burst. Sweat and blood mingled together and dropped to the ground.
While Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, the body He lived in was a frail human body just like ours. His body knew weariness, it felt pain, it got hungry, sleepy and tired. It was just a body. As Jesus prayed that night, the emotional and spiritual pressures that came upon Jesus were almost more than His body could handle. But, He did handle it! He survived the agony of Gethsemane and He made it to Calvary where He died for our sins!
Think about it, Jesus is about to become sin on the cross, 2 Cor. 5:21. For the first time in eternity, He will be separated from His Father, Mark 15:34. He will be forsaken, abandoned and judged by His Father. Thoughts of drinking that most bitter of cups must have overwhelmed the mind of the sinless Son of God! That “cup” represented all the wrath and hatred of God against sin. That “cup” symbolized the full, undiluted wrath of God that was about to be poured out on Jesus.
The cup contains a poisonous concoction of suffering and judgment (Psalm 75:8, Isaiah 51:17, Jeremiah 25:15-16, Mark 10:38-39).
The “Cup” of God’s Wrath
For not from the east, nor from the west, Nor from the desert comes exaltation; But God is the Judge; He puts down one, and exalts another. For a cup is in the hand of the LORD, and the wine foams; It is well mixed, and He pours out of this; Surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs. But as for me, I will declare it forever, I will sing praised to the God of Jacob. And all the horns of the wicked He will cut off, But the horns of the righteous will be lifted up Psalm 75:6-10.
Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself! Arise, O Jerusalem, You who have drunk from the LORD’s hand the cup of His anger; The chalice of reeling you have drained to the dregs Isaiah 51:17.
Then I took the cup from the LORD’s hand, and made all the nations drink, to whom the LORD sent me: Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, and its kings and its princes, to make them a ruin, a horror, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his princes, and all his people; and all the foreign people, … Jeremiah 25:15-20a.
But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They said to Him, "We are able." So Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized; but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared." Mark 10:38-40
And another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If any one worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or upon his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name” Revelation 14:9-11.
THE VICTORY OF GETHSEMANE 37-42
Isaiah 11:1-5
1 There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. 3 His delight is in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; 4 But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, And faithfulness the belt of His waist.
His Prayers were answered.
There was NO OTHER WAY!
His Priorities were ordered.
To save humanity, Jesus must go to the cross and pay for our sin.
His Purpose was complete.
Jesus completed His task in obedience to the father
Luke 19:10
10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
