Preparing for Easter (Matthew 26:36-46)
If Easter were to have a logo – it would be most associated with bunny rabbits, and chocolate eggs, chocolate coins, in fact chocolate anything. And for many chocoholics after 4 months of famine since the Christmas gluttony, Easter comes as a welcome reprieve. Yet how often do we think about preparing for Easter – and what does this mean. Are you expecting some advice on physical fitness to prepare you for the ability to consume 5 chocolate eggs in 24 hours, are you expecting advice on what to pack for trips to the relatives over the Easter period. Well if so I fear you will be sorely disappointed.
Even within churches Easter is seen as a high point, a time of celebration where we remember Jesus Christ risen today. A time for joy, happiness and triumph both within and outside the church. Again if you are 3expceting this you will be disappointed.
Today I want us to spend some time looking at how 1 character in the Bible prepared for Easter. I want us to consider what they did, what they said, and the circumstances that surrounded them, and from that I hope we may draw some lessons for our lives.
The passage is Matthew 26:36-46 –read passage
There was once a small girl who had never seen her father anything but cheerful.
As long as she could remember, he seemed to have been smiling at her. He had smiled when she was born, the daughter he had longed for. He had smiled as he held her in his arms and helped her to learn to eat and drink. He had laughed as he played with her, encouraged her with games and toys as she learned to walk, chatted brightly as he took her to school. If she hurt herself, his smile and gentle kiss helped her to relaxand get over it. If she was in difficulties or trouble, the shadow that would cross his face was like a small cloud which hardly succeeded in hiding the sun; soon the smile would come out again, the eager interest in some new project, something to distract, to move on to new worlds.And then one day it happened.
To begin with she wasn’t told why. He came back home from a visit, and with a look she’d never seen before went straight to his room. Ever afterwards she would remember the sounds she then heard, the sounds she never thought to hear.
The sound of a healthy, strapping 30-year-old man weeping for a dead sister.
It was of course a necessary part of growing up. In most families, grief would have struck sooner. Looking back, she remained grateful for the years when smiles and laughter were all she could remember. But the shock of his sudden vulnerability, far more than the fact of the death of her aunt and all that it meant, were what made the deepest impression.
I think Gethsemane was the equivalent moment for the disciples.
Let us pray – Lord open our eyes that we may see you and ourselves more clearly this morning. Amen
Friends this morning we stand on holy ground. Up to this point in the gospels Christ has been surrounded by 100’s – so many different characters, so much activity, so many healings, so many miracles, tax collectors, publicans, prostitutes, divorcees, soldiers, priests, Pharisees, fisherman. The gospels paint a picture of a Jesus who interacts, cares and loves the world, yes spending time on his own. But we se a picture of a man full of faces surrounding him. Here in this story, we begin to see the characters surrounding Jesus melt away into the background. Vs 36 (The disciples are told to stand aside) – 3 are left (Peter, James and John). Then he shares with them these astonishing words “My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death.” Jesus wept, Jesus embraced others, Jesus healed, but nowhere have we read before such sentiment as this. Something is different, in this story we are entering into new territory, and just as the crowds around him peel way, almost the layers upon Jesus are peeling away, and we are invited in to an even greater depth of who he is than ever before.
Even then he leaves a distance between them. Asking them to “stay and keep watch with me”. And then he prays alone. This is the first picture I want us to hold on to – The Christ who goes on alone.” And we see in the later verses how even the disciples fall asleep. The hour is late – this follows the Last Supper, and the disciples are tired, and here in the depths of the night Jesus is alone – poring out his heart to the Father.
Why is he alone – in virtually all his other ministry he has invited his disciples alongside to get involved to share the work. Yet here he is alone
Why is this so important??
Only he can take up the Cross and die for the world, only the Son of God can be hung on the cross for the sins of the world. No other can walk this path, no other can go this way. Only him. Some have said that Christ is in sorrow because he will die. Yet how foolish there are many times he has been in danger for his life, and yet showed no fear, surrounded by Pharisees who wanted to stone him and yet we read of no frightened man. Yet here alone we see a man frightened and troubled. There can but be only one reason – because he knows that his life mission has come to save each one of us by dying on a cross and suffering for our sins, that we might be forgiven.
Let us never forget this picture of the lonely Christ. At every stage of life – we can feel that we are alone. As a teenager – we can feel no-one understands. As a 20 something we can sense people don’t know the pressures that confront us, as a married couple – we can feel alone in times of pain and trouble, as a family we can feel the weight of burden to provide, or to care and look after the household, and as we get older – there is that very real sense that we are alone – when others are no longer there. At each stage of life and in the different circumstances we can see “they don’t understand, others cannot fathom what this is like, to bear this burden, to face this problem”.
Yet here we have a Christ who stood alone in the knowledge that he bore the sins of he world. Christ went this alone –that we might never be alone from him. The Christian promise is that when we become Christians Christ promises to live in us, by His Holy Spirit – that “I am with you always to the very end of the age.”
Isn’t it remarkable that people can ask the question “Where is God?”, here in Gethsemane – we have a Christ who stood alone for us – that he might be with us always.
In Christianity we can proclaim of a God who stood alone – that we might never be alone – whatever our circumstance in life. Yes I would hope was a church we would stand together with each other in the circumstances and situations that we face, but the reality of it all is that may not be the case, and
The hymn Abide with me reminds us “when other helpers fail and comforts flee. Help of the helpless, O abide with me”. This Easter this is the kind of God we can proclaim.
So this is the first picture I want you to carry with you – that of the The loneliness of Christ (that we may not be alone).
Secondly I want us to consider the prayer of Christ “thy will be done”,
STORY -
Look at the 2 prayers in between v39 & v42. By looking at the contrast between these 2 prayers, you can see how Christ moves from “if it is possible” to the realization “if it is not possible”. This phrase “your will be done” should sound familiar – as it comes straight from Matthew 5 where Jesus is teaching the disciples how to pray. So here if you want not only do we have Christ living out the Lord’s prayer as he faces death. How different to our prayers – “Lord thy will be done” can become “Lord if it’s really need then OK” to “Lord I don’t think it’s really necessary” to “Lord I don’t want to do this and here are 10 good reasons” to “I don’t want to do this because of these logical rational reasons”. Here we see a process of “prayer transformation”.
But here at the very heart of Easter – at the place where the battle was fought – will the Son submit to the will of the Father – we see this prayer “thy will be done” –
Do you remember the Lord’s prayer “your kingdom come, your will be done”.
In a very real way God’s kingdom could not have come unless Jesus was willing to do the will of the Father. But also we should not expect God’s kingdom to come, to transform our lives, our neighbors lives, we shouldn’t expect to see healings, and answered prayer unless we are willing to seek the Lord’s will. I fear that far too often we expect God’s kingdom to come and great things to happen to us in our church and our lives without submitting to the will of God. Yet often we run our lives as if God doesn’t exist – so often I will get up and decide to do this and that – and Jayne will helpfully remind me “have you sought the Father’s will”.
Let me give you an example of how this could work out XXXXX
One of the integral steps of preparing for Easter is to pray “thy will be done”.
The way of Jesus was the way of obedience to the Father’s will (the way of the cross)
Finally the last picture I want us to consider is that of the sleeping disciples and the words of Christ “Lead us not into temptation”.
Now as a new Father – sleep is a word which is very sweet to my ears – and in some ways I have much sympathy with the disciples – the hour was late, they had shared a meal together so would likely have full stomachs, and Jesus is calling them to watch and pray. There are many occasions when Grace has not been able to sleep and needed feeding and Jayne could have asked me these same words “keep watch with me” – but she has been very gracious – and allowed my weary eyes to close. So why here if I have a wife that allows me to sleep does Jesus tell his disciples in v41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” In the gospel of Matthew these are the last request that Christ makes to his disciples before he is taken, and the trial and the journey to the cross commences.
And I believe they have both a near range and a long range meaning for the disciples. Clearly was we have thought about earlier Christ wanted others to stand with him as he faced the cross, to watch and pray, but the disciples show their humanness – by failing to do so. In his moment of need he wanted them to stand with him, to pray with him. But he was to tread a path that only he could tread. By sleeping they revealed their own sinfulness and it stands as a picture of the uniqueness of Christ to stand in our place. So in these words – there is a very real short term meaning. It was here in Gethsemane, without the Holy Spirit – when asked to keep watch that they failed.
But I also believe there was a longer term meaning. Jesus knew that they would face beatings, persecution, that their faith would be tested after he had gone (Matthew 24: 9-13). Vs 42. Again in the Lord’s prayer he told them to pray “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
The one thing that the disciples failed in before the Spirit came – was the thing the church was marked out by after the Spirit had come.
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation”
Acts 2:42 – They devoted themselves to prayer
Acts 12: Peter was in prison and what was happening “the church was earnestly praying to God for him”- all night.
Christ knew what was needed. If anyone dare say that Christianity is a man made religion – I would challenge them to look at the disciples before and after the resurrection. Here in Gethsemane – we see a Christ pleading with them to stay with him, to pray with him, that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and yet they fail him. Just a few weeks later we see a Spirit filled people who can’t stop praying.
As we see Gethsemane – we can see the picture of Christ standing alone, praying thy will be done – but urging the disciples to “Stay awake and pray.” That they might be a people who did not fall asleep and become self reliant, but would be committed to prayer – How true it is that though the flesh is weak – we have a Spirit that is more than willing to help us in our prayer. I believe we live in an age where these words of Christ are more relevant than ever. Temptation is around every corner. Temptation to be unfaithful to one’s partner, temptation to put one’s job above all else, temptation to strive after the bigger and better, temptation to hide Christ from those who need him. Yet the words of Christ come back to speak to us “Watch and pray, Watch and pray” – Every day we should let these words of Christ ring out -watch how you live, watch what you do, watch who you are copying, watch your lives and commit them in prayer to me. “Watch and pray”, “Watch and pray” Will we listen to these last words of Jesus to us. Yes – the body is weak – but how good it is that the Spirit is stronger.
Christ died to rescue us from the penalty and consequence of sin and temptation, and urges us to watch and pray so that we will not fall.
One night an Arab had settled in for the night and had just fallen asleep when his camel stuck his head in his tent and explained that it was awful cold and asked permission to just stick his legs inside the tent to keep them warm. Granting him permission the Arab went back to sleep. A little while later the camel woke him up a second time and asked permission to stick his head in. Again permission was granted. This continued on throughout the night until finally the Arab woke up to find the entire camel in the tent with him. When he told the camel that there just was not enough room in the tent for the both of them the camel suggested that the Arab might want to leave.
This is exactly the same with temptation it can slips into our lives a little at a time and one day we wake up and find there is no room for Jesus in our lives.
Are you letting any camels into your tent
So as we prepare for Easter there are 3 pictures that I want you to take with you – contemplate and own for yourself. One may be more relevant than another. But each of them require an action
We have looked at The loneliness of Christ (that we may not be alone). I don’t know if you have accepted Jesus Christ into your life. Well the offer of Christ is here for you today. He prayed alone on a garden, and hung alone on a cross, that you might be forgiven, and not be alone from God. But you may feel alone in a situation and a circumstance. Christ has stood alone in a garden for you to bear your sins and that of the world, come to him in your aloneness.
We have looked at the submission of Christ to the Fathers will – maybe there is a situation or a circumstance where you are trying to do it on your own – or a situation you are struggling with – Christ’s example calls us to pray thy will be done
Finally we have looked at the command of Christ to “watch and pray – so that you will not fall into temptation.” Maybe there is a temptation upon you at the moment that you are finding hard to bear. Maybe the flesh is weak – Christ calls us to pray with him.
Is there a situation you feel alone in
- Is there a situation you may fall in
- Are you willing to pray “thy will be done”.
May you know the words of Christ for you a this time. I would like to give you a few moments know to reflect upon these words and discern how God is speaking to you this morning. I will then close in prayer
If you would like prayer after the service
Hebrews 4:14-16
