Finding Endurance for the Long Haul
Mark 14:32-42
January 23, 2005
The scene for the gospel lesson this morning is set on Thursday evening of Holy Week. It had been an incredibly busy and eventful week for Jesus and the disciples. It had started with the triumphant ride down the Mount of Olives the previous Sunday. After having spent the night in Bethany, Jesus was back in the Temple on Monday confronting the money changers and the merchants there. On Tuesday, Jesus was met with more conflict, this time from the elders and the chief priests as they questioned his authority.
He then began a long day of teaching. He told the parable of the tenants, addressed the issue of the payment of civil taxes, answered questions about marriage in the resurrection, reminded the Sadducees of the two greatest commandments, lifted up the widow’s offering as an example of faith, and spoke about the end of the age.
Then he went to Bethany again and had dinner at the home of Simon the Leper. Mark is a little unclear as to when this happened. It could have been Tuesday evening or Wednesday. At Simon’s house, a woman came and anointed his head with expensive perfume to the indignant protests of those present. This set the stage for Judas to approach the chief priests with his offer to betray Jesus.
Thursday was Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Jesus and the twelve joined together in the Upper Room over the Passover lamb and the traditional Passover Supper.
It was following this dinner that they made their way to Gethsemane. Jesus instructed the bulk of the disciples to stay there and wait. Taking Peter, James, and John, he continued up the hillside for a time. Instructing them to stay and keep watch, he went on a little farther and prayed that the time of trial might be passed, that the cup from which he was about to drink might not be necessary. He came back to the three and found them fast asleep. Waking them up, he exhorted them to watch. Twice more he would come back and find them asleep. The feeling I get when I read this account is that Jesus was not so much angry with the three, just terribly disappointed. All he asked them to do was to sit and wait for a while, but they couldn’t. They fell asleep.
Can I take the side of the disciples for a minute? Realize that this comes from a guy who gets really cranky without a nap on Sunday afternoons. Sunday, for me, is different than all the other days of the week. I don’t need to stop in the middle of the day on Monday or Tuesday. I can make it all the way through Wednesday and Thursday without stopping. Friday and Saturday are no problem. But on Sunday afternoon, I shut down and need a nap. The disciples had been through an incredible week. Can you blame them for being tired?
Have you ever been around people who are on the go all the time? There are some people who never seem to get tired, seldom have to stop for a rest. Those sorts of folks exhaust me. Jesus was one of those people. Yes, he took rest periods, but when he was on the go, he was always busy. I doubt that I would have been able to keep up with Jesus either. I’m not sure I blame the disciples all that much for falling asleep. They probably did what most of us would have done in similar circumstances.
However, even though we would be inclined to excuse them for being tired, the fact remains that they fell asleep on the job. They came to a point at which they could endure or give up. They gave up. They came to a point when they needed to confirm their devotion and commitment to Jesus, and they gave up. They had a chance to prove their willingness to endure. They had a chance to display their will power. They had a chance to prove that they had control over their situations, but they failed. Jesus told them, The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.
The theme of the day is will power, endurance, and overcoming in spite of difficulty. Every one of us comes to a point at times when we want to give up and quit. I want to talk about what to do when we reach those points.
As I look back on my adult life, there are some things in which I wish I would have displayed a little more will power. When I left Huntington Trinity church, the UMW gave me as a going away present, a baby-grand piano. Now before you get all excited, this piano was about 70 years old, the sound board was cracked, and it really wasn’t in that good of shape. I think they were looking for a way to get rid of it and I happened to be crazy enough to take it. We carted that old piano around for four more appointments until we finally deposited it in the Elkhart County landfill.
For Christmas, Toni bought me six months of piano lessons with the expectation that I would continue on after that. In Valparaiso, we became very close personal friends with our family physician. Their kids were the same age as ours and we spent a lot of time together. They were a very musical family and had, in their living room a baby grand piano, a harpsichord, a harp, and assorted violins, violas, and wind instruments.
I was listening to James play a Bach piece one day, and asked him when I would be able to do that. He told me that with an hour of practice every day, I would be able to do that in five years or so. I wanted nothing more than to be able to play Bach and Chopin.
I used my six months of piano lessons, but in the end, just didn’t have the will power and discipline to practice every day. In the beginning, it was easy. I set aside an hour a day to practice, but that didn’t last. I wanted to learn to play, but didn’t have the will power and the endurance to do the hard work that was necessary.
I still regret that. I regret that I gave up so easily. And I’m still not giving up hope that one day; I will take lessons again and succeed. But the truth of the matter is that it is almost always easier to quit than persevere.
It is always easier to watch television in the evening than to practice scales. It is always easier to walk away from a conflict with my wife than it is to stay and iron out the trouble. It is always easier to try to get on with my life by myself than it is to turn everything over to God and allow him to take control.
It is easier for some to read the paper and drink coffee in their bathrobes on Sunday morning than it is to get our and come to worship. It is easier for some to descend into the pit of alcohol or drug abuse instead of confronting one’s problems and solving them in a healthy way. It is sometimes easier to quit following Jesus than to go through the painful process of surrendering everything to him. It is almost always easier to quit than it is to endure. It is almost always easier to allow weakened will power to win than it is to stay for the long haul.
James 1:12 says, Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. We expend an awful lot of energy sometimes avoiding difficulty and trials. Endurance is something that is sometimes in short supply.
My first Nikon camera was the Nikon One Step. All you had to do was drop the film in, aim, and push the button. With a camera like that, you don’t have to worry about anything because the camera automatically adjusts for light and conditions.
Then I bought a Nikon FE. This was a single lens reflex camera that doesn’t do anything by itself. You have to set aperture, film speed and focus. You have to figure out when to use flash. You have to remember to turn it off so that you don’t waste your batteries. It is a lot of work to use that camera.
A few years ago, I started complaining that my eyes were getting bad and it was getting harder and harder for me to focus. So Toni bought me an auto focus Nikon N80 for my birthday. This camera has just about all the bells and whistles that you could want in a camera. But if you are lazy, you can still use it like I used my first point and shoot.
There are days when I don’t want to be bothered by all that fancy stuff. There are days when I’m too lazy or in too much of a hurry when I want to fall back on the old instamatic. But you know what? My best photographs come when I take the time to do the work myself, not just let the camera do it. My motto is, Blessed is the photographer who perseveres under the pressure of time and want of ease because when he has stood the test, he will receive wonderful photographs as his reward.
We are the instamatic generation. We want quick fixes, overnight successes, fast solutions, and instant gratification. If our expectations are not met right away, we have a real tendency to quit and go somewhere else.
We even seek overnight spiritual maturity. We have a lot in common with the disciples who couldn’t stay awake and watch with Jesus that evening in the garden. When the going got tough, they took a nap. When the going gets tough for us, we often wimp out.
I remember reading a book a few years ago in which the author talked about quitting points. There are so many different quitting points in life. Sometimes we can come to the point when it is easier to give up than it is to persevere. It is easier to check out than it is to stay awake. It is easier to let our minds drift from our purpose in life than it is to stay focused.
But let me quote some Scripture for you. Listen again to James. Blessed is the man who endures… Listen to Matthew 24:13. He who endures to the end will be saved.
We have no way of knowing what Peter, James, and John felt that night. But I have a feeling that they regretted for the rest of their lives that they fell asleep while watching for Jesus. I have a feeling that after the resurrection, they finally realized that quitting is not glamorous. Quitting doesn’t develop one’s character. Quitting doesn’t help one to build endurance.
As I look back on our marriage of twenty nine years, I remember the days that it has been very hard. One of the things that I tell couples when I am doing pre-marital counseling is that they will have days when it seems next-to-impossible to keep the promises they make to each other. Toni and I have had those days. You have too.
I remember days when we have stayed angry with each other all day long. I remember the days when we disagreed about everything including the color of the grass. There have been days in our marriage when romance was a long-forgotten memory. There have been days when I had enough of marriage and children and family life. There have been days when I wanted to quit.
Those are the days that I remember the promises that we made to each other at our wedding. Those are the days that I remember God’s will for husbands, wives, and children. Those are the days when I remember that I am in this for the long haul, that my love for my wife transcends all those tough times. Those are the days when I buttress my will power with the knowledge that my vows to my wife are sacred.
I don’t want to gloss over real problems. I know there are abusive marriages. I know there are unfaithful spouses. I know that some marriages are wracked by alcoholism and drug abuse, by distrust, by fear, by immaturity, and by a thousand other factors that, by the grace of God, I have not experienced. But I hurt when I see people come to a quitting point and give in rather than summoning the will power to see the tough times through and develop the character that comes with endurance.
No matter what quitting point you are faced with today, take a lesson from Jesus. No matter what your own personal struggles with will power are today, remember Jesus as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that evening. Remember that he wanted out. He didn’t want to have to face the coming day. He didn’t want to go through the ordeal that awaited him. He prayed that God might take the cup from him. But he was in it for the long haul. He realized that he was part of a larger picture. He realized that he had been called for a special task, an important task, a holy task. He could have slipped up over the Mount of Olives and disappeared into the wilderness. But he didn’t. He persevered. He summoned his will power and faced the coming day. He was a Savior, who for the joy that we set before him endured the cross (Heb. 12:20).
We are all faced with those times when we want to quit. Maybe one of them will be today. But my prayer is that when faced with such a time, we might summon our will power and endure. I pray that we all might see our lives within the divine love of God and understand that the crown of life waits for those who are faithful.
