Topographical - Gethsemane Pressure

Okay.

I, there was a sound I heard this morning

that I was like, oh, it's one of my favorite sounds. Three little

kids right here in the front row just giggling with each other. I'm gonna

miss that a bit because Treehouse is gonna be starting up here in about six or seven

weeks. If that's something that you're interested in being a part of, let us know. But it's

usually during the summer we have just family

services, but then during the school year, most of the school year we have Treehouse. So,

I love having the little kids in here and hearing them giggle and just explore

and I love the nature of having a community that just kind of

parents all the kids and just supports all the kids.

That's not related to the message at all, I just wanted to say that. From the

beginning of this series I have been looking forward to doing

this particular location and for a couple reasons.

I mean, for one, it's because it's directly connected to something that we do

every week as a congregation. Every week

we share something we call communion or the table or the Eucharist

and every week we say something along the lines of

on the night that Jesus was betrayed and handed over to death on a cross.

Today's location is where that happened. It's

where Jesus was betrayed and handed over.

Second, I wanted to talk about this location because I've been there

in 2019. I was able to go to Israel and spent time

in Jerusalem and so today's location

happens to be a place that I was able to go to and take pictures of. So, Liam, if you'll put up that

first picture, this is what we're going to be talking about today. It is

the Garden of Gethsemane or just

Gethsemane. It is on a place called the Mount of Olives.

I sat and I prayed in a place that Jesus

presumably sat and prayed. And so, I thought

that we could look at this location and consider what we might learn

from what we see happen at this location. So, if

you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Matthew 26, if you want to go ahead

and open that up.

And it's going to be Matthew 26. If you have a digital Bible, it's easy to find.

If you have a physical Bible, it's the very first book in what's called the New Testament

or the Newer Testament. If you don't have a Bible and you would like one, they are

out on the bookshelf out in the lobby. You're welcome to take one, take it home.

It's yours. It's free. Otherwise, download one from any of the digital app

stores. Today, I'm going to be reading from the new international

readers version, the NIRV. The NIRV

is a very easy version to read. It also changes some words

that make it kind of a little more modern to make it easier to understand.

So, we have a tradition of giving the Scriptures a full attention here at the house.

One of the ways we do that is by standing as we read the Scriptures. If you are able

or would like to join me as I read from Matthew

26, starting in verse

36, it says this, then Jesus went with his disciples to a place

called Gethsemane and he said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray.

He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him and he began

to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed

with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed,

my father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will,

but as you will. Then he returned to his disciples and found them

sleeping. Couldn't you men keep watch with me for an hour? He asked

Peter, watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. He went away a second time

and prayed, my father, if it is not possible for you to take, for this cup to be taken

away unless I drink it, may your will be done. When he came back

again he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy.

So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time

saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, are you still

sleeping in resting? Look, the hour has come and the Son of Man

is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. Here comes

my betrayer. Let us pray. God of every

tribe, every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank you

for the scriptures that we have them, that they have persisted

throughout the millennia and I pray that today whatever you have for us to learn

pray that it would stick, pray that it would become a part of the framework of our faith,

that our faith would become stronger and that we would become

more like your son Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thanks all.

You can have a seat. Okay, before we get into the context of this passage a little bit

and some of the things that actually happened in the passage I want to ask the

question, was I really praying where Jesus

prayed? Is the current garden of

Gethsemane really where the garden was? The easy answer is

maybe.

We don't really know for sure. Let's put up this next picture of the

city. Tradition tells us that this is the spot where the red

circle is with the little red arrow. The garden, that garden

is directly across the Kidron Valley. You can see how

there's a separation between it and that blue rectangle is where the temple

is. That is the entire temple mount. The little

globe you see there is an Islamic temple that is on the mount now.

But the entire blue thing is the actual mount that is built up

that things could be built on. And that is, that mount

goes all the way back to the day of Jesus. It was never destroyed. It was never knocked

down. And so this is on the east side

of where the temple is. Let's put up the next picture.

I took this picture of the temple

wall. That's the east temple wall. I took this from the garden.

If you've heard of the wailing wall

where many Jews go religiously to pray,

that is on the far other side. And the reason that they go there is because

it's the only full wall that's actually accessible. Like that you can just walk

up to and there's a courtyard that's outside of it.

When you look at this, when you stand in that place, obviously there wouldn't have been

a cement wall with an iron rod gate right there. But you can imagine

that it's not that bad of a place to pray from.

A place where you're surrounded by trees that you can look up at the temple

that in your religion and Judaism that you've been taught

and you've known that this is the place that all of God's people are meant to come

and worship God in the different times

of the year. You can imagine that Jesus is standing there at night

only the moon illuminating anything. It wouldn't have

looked like that. You would have just seen a bit of moonlight outlining

the line of that temple wall.

It's a good story.

But we can't be sure. That's the truth.

I can romanticize this location but the truth

is that we don't know for sure.

That the Armenian church, the Greek church, the Latin church

and the Russian church all accept that this

olive grove is the most likely place of

Gethsemane. Well why? Because in the year 326

about less than 300 years after the ministry

death and resurrection of Jesus, Empress Helena

also later known as Saint Helena, the mother of

Saint Helena in the year 327, the first Christian

Roman emperor, she goes on what's called a pilgrimage.

She goes on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem intentionally

to find religious relics and to locate

the holy places that had been mentioned in

the gospels. So on that pilgrimage with the help of

local guides, with people, with Jewish individuals that had roots

throughout the century, this spot was determined to be the most

likely. Okay, why isn't that enough for us to know for sure?

Olive trees lived for thousands of years. How hard can it be

to find an olive grove near the temple that's on

a mount, right? But we have to remember that at least two different times

between the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and when

Saint Helena was there, at least two different times Rome had come through

and completely destroyed most of Jerusalem. Josephus, the historian

actually writes that one of those times that Rome intentionally

raised, burned and destroyed all vegetation in the city

because they didn't want anyone to have anything to eat or to live

off in the city because they were forcing and pushing all of the

Jews out of their city.

So we can't be sure because the trees that are there only

come back to at the oldest, the 12th century, when they had been

replanted. But this location,

based on Saint Helena's pilgrimage, tradition and

consensus of many different branches of the church is what we might call the most

probable location.

Also, it's important in the life of many Christians

and many traditions because according to Acts 1, this is also the location

that Jesus ascended to heaven from. You read Acts 1,

it says that he's talking to his disciples, he sends them to heaven, and then the angels

say, what are you looking for? He will return just as he is left.

And then it says, and then they left the Mount of Olives. So let's

this next photo, let's look at this. So on your left

is the garden, on your right is the temple mount, and

in front of you is a hill that's completely covered with what?

Those are

tombs. Every one of those boxes

has somebody in it. And the reason is because

it dates back to the, let's see, the 1700s

when in particular, because of the belief that Jesus would return,

some people interpret it as not just in the same way, but to the same

place, and because Christians believe that

when Christ returns that the dead in Christ shall rise and see him

and be with him, these people wanted to be the first

to rise and the first to see him. So they

painstakingly figured out how to be

buried basically on the east side

of the Kidron Valley, looking, facing

the temple. It's pretty

amazing. One sage wrote this about this

phenomenon. And they will sprout out of the city like

the grass of the field. How beautiful is that?

Alright, so other than the historical context of the location and

why it's probably, probably the right spot, what can we learn

from what we see happen at this location?

Right, so one, the first thing I want to point out, and I've brought this up

a number of times just very momentarily at the end of services when we're talking

about communion, the first thing I want to point out is the trust

that Jesus had for his Father. Today we sing

two different songs connected to the concept

of trusting the Father. We sing Good Plans, we sing a new song

Fear is Not My Future. Both are pointing us

to trust in God the same way that Jesus

trusted the Father. And we're not just singing our good intentions.

Christianity and singing and worship isn't trying

to brainwash ourselves into unrealistically being

optimistic. Why? Because the God

that we serve, we know, suffered and died on a cross.

No Christian should be under the delusion about whether

life includes some disappointment and pain.

But when we read the Gospels and the pages

that lead to this moment in the garden over and over

Jesus affirms the positive and healthy relationship

that he had with the Father.

That God had good plans.

That fear was never his motivating emotion.

Over and over Jesus talks about

the love that the Father had for him.

And then eventually Jesus turns that conversation in the book of John

in chapters 15 and 16 about how the Father loves him and turns it and says

and as the Father loves me, the Father loves you.

Jesus and the

Gospel writers want us to know that the relational

dynamic between God the Son and God the Father

is the same dynamic that can exist

between each of us and the Father.

Guys, this is huge.

This is so important for us to understand.

Jesus is telling us the dynamic between him and the Father

is what we can experience between us and God.

There will be moments

that we ask the Father to remove a challenge.

I mean no show of hands but I'm sure it would be every single hand.

You ever ask God to take away a challenge? Remove a challenge? Resolve a challenge?

There's gonna be moments where we ask God

to remove a challenge. To provide a different option.

An alternative path.

We may literally say, God

let this cup pass

and he won't.

But because of the example of Jesus

we're meant to learn that we can still trust him.

Because the situation does not

define God's character.

And as

the scriptures say and as we sum today, God can turn anything

for good. Jesus knew this as he was asking.

Jesus knew that even as he was asking that if the Father did not

provide a different path. So think about this.

Who might this remind us of elsewhere in the Bible?

Somebody being asked to

sacrifice something extremely important hoping that maybe there's gonna be

an alternative provided. Anyone?

I'm thinking of Abraham.

Abraham waiting and waiting and waiting to have his own

son from his wife right? And then there's the passage that

the Father says that God says I want you to go and offer your own son as a sacrifice

and our minds are blown because God has never asked for human sacrifice

before. So this is extremely odd. What in the world is going on? But what we're told

is that Abraham walked in faith believing that the Father would

offer a solution. Would offer something else.

And now he's gone up a mount. Now Jesus is on a mount

praying, hoping that the Father will offer a different solution.

Maybe we are meant to think oh of course God will offer

a different solution. Imagine you're reading the gospel for the first time you don't know how the story

is. There's these videos online.

These like video memes I guess where a guy standing in the circle or sitting in a circle for a Bible

study and he's never read the Bible before and people keep on like ruining the story.

They keep on going well we know you know like later Jesus is gonna die and they're like

ahhhh. They don't know any of the stories.

But if you're reading this especially in the early

church you're reading this for the very first time you don't know any of the story but you know

if you heard about Abraham you knew that story you're like oh yeah God's gonna make a different way.

And then he doesn't.

And Jesus still trusts him. Jesus still walks through it

and Jesus still trusts because he knows

that God can take anything and turn it

for good. Which brings me to the second thing

I see in this story. In the same place that we see

Jesus completely trusting his Father we also see him

offering trust to people that keep on

breaking it.

Hey guys a little bit ago we were at dinner

and I told you hey you know I'm gonna die.

One of you is gonna betray me. It's the one who drinks from the cup.

Why don't we go out

and pray. I'm under a lot of pressure. Let's go pray. You three

in particular come with me over here and pray with me.

What you can't, you guys can't stay awake?

Alright just stay awake. I'm gonna go pray. You guys stay awake. Pray for me.

I need it. Come back. Guys!

What is going on?

You didn't drink enough coffee earlier. What's going on? Come back a third time.

Alright guys my betrayer is right there. It's time to go.

We see Jesus trust the Father and then continue to

trust people that fail him.

Jesus knew that the Father would never

fail him while he knew that every one

of his followers would. And understood that though

everyone else around him would fail that because of

his trust for the Father he could continue to offer trust to the

people that would fail.

Those of you that are very like math equation minded

that all made perfect sense to you.

We should be realistic.

We should be honest and we should be realistic that every person

sitting in this room right now, we're all sitting going

to fail. Every person in this room will

at one point or another fail. Maybe even

fail you directly.

You may fail them.

If we give up on our community when that happens.

When? Everybody say when. This isn't an if.

It is when we fail each other.

If we give up on community and give up on each other when

we fail then we might be missing one of the messages of Jesus

in this passage. Because it wasn't the trust Jesus had for his disciples

that kept him from kicking them out when they failed.

It was the trust Jesus had for his Father.

That the Father would never fail him.

That shaped how Jesus treated the disciples.

When they failed.

I think there are plenty of people

that are really disappointed in God when what they're really

actually upset about is that the friends around them didn't live

up to their expectations or needs.

Which sometimes is fair.

They're probably right. Because we're human.

And we're flawed. Our friends are not going to be perfect all the time.

Jesus, listen to this one.

Jesus never puts the failures of his friends onto his Father.

Jesus never puts the failures of his friends.

He never projects those onto his Father.

Jesus had hopes for his disciples.

Jesus more than once throughout the gospels if you read

all the accounts of the gospels more than once he expressed

frustration towards them. But Jesus never lost

sight that they were only humans.

Jesus didn't withhold what was good from broken humans

because they were broken. Instead because they were broken

Jesus gave them what was good.

Maybe it's hard to

catch the scope of this. Right?

Somebody in this room at one point or another has felt like absolutely everyone has betrayed me.

Absolutely everyone has abandoned me.

Right?

And then there's Jesus who could actually say

everyone has abandoned me.

Everyone he trusted.

Everyone he trusted.

Left him and abandoned him to die but he didn't die

Listen, because of them

he died for them.

So what do we do

with any of this? How do we practice? How do we

participate? Well

there's a little secret that's hidden in the garden.

The word

Gethsemane means oil press.

It's one of the reasons that they felt confident that it was on the

Mount of Olives that the garden of Gethsemane had olive trees.

Part of the reason they knew what to be looking for, to be thinking about the history,

to asking people of where this might be. The word Gethsemane means

oil press. And when Luke tells this

same story of Jesus praying in the garden as

his disciples keep falling asleep, Luke being someone that

believed to be by tradition having been a medical doctor, he says

that Jesus, his sweat was like drops of blood.

The metaphor here, the illusion

that's being pointed at here, the connection

is almost sure that Luke is trying to get us

to connect to the idea that he is in the place called oil press

and that he is under so much pressure that his very life is being squeezed

out of him.

It's one of the best things that we can do, one of the best

ways that we can participate with this practice and participate

with this passage is for us to remember. Just look around for a

second. Just make eye contact with at least one other person that's

in this room. Ready? Yeah.

Everyone here, everyone you

need, every person is under some

kind of pressure.

Did they slip up?

Okay, well olive oil is slippery.

It's hard to stand firm

when you're standing on oil.

When it feels like your very life is being squeezed out the bottom of your feet.

It's hard to be perfect

and to make all the right decisions when the person in front of you doesn't know all the

pressures that you're under.

And it's also difficult to have the expectations of the person you're

looking at to be perfect when

you have not asked what pressures

that they currently feel.

Very few people that I know or have ever met

wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say to themselves, man I really

hope I let someone down today.

I'm gonna bullet journal my day and that's the first thing on my to do list.

As long as I get to the end of the day

I've let someone down I'll feel like I accomplished something.

It's not what anyone does.

Most of the people

that are currently or have failed us, they're just not

doing it on purpose. They're just under

a lot of pressure.

I've said it before and I'll say it probably

a hundred or a thousand more times that one of my favorite

things about the scriptures, one of my favorite things about

the Bible is that it spends zero time

trying to hide how flawed humans are.

And even more,

it spends zero time trying to hide the flawed humanity

of the people in the Bible that we turn into heroes of the faith.

The three that

were closest to Jesus, Peter, James and John. John was the one that in the book

John that he wrote, he's always describing himself as the one whom Jesus

loved. He's the one that fell asleep.

Couldn't stay awake for the one who loved him.

Peter. Peter was the one

who first said that you are the Messiah and Jesus said you are right.

You are the rock and on this rock I will build my kingdom.

The rock

fell asleep.

These are the people

that could not stay awake for an hour

and pray with the one they believed was

the answer.

But Jesus didn't write them off.

And we are going to be like Jesus. We have to keep

in mind that everyone is under pressure.

We can give them the same benefit of the doubt that we would want them

to give to us when we fail.

When we are under pressure

we can turn to the Father and I think that we're

meant to bring our friends along

and we're meant to remember that while those friends

may fail us in our moment of need

the Father has good plans.

His love will never fail. Even the failure

of our friends will be turned

into something good. Amen?

Let's pray.

God some of us have felt under pressure to the point that

life was pouring out of our skin.

We have felt that there are no more

options.

There is no possible way that this is still going to end up good.

Today we confess

that we sometimes if not often believe

a lie.

And instead today we choose to believe the truth.

That you

can turn all things together for good for those

who are true and are called according to your purpose.

I pray that you help us remember that every moment of every day.

That you help us to be

pressure informed, trauma informed when we are interacting with other people

that are failing. Maybe we don't take it so

personally. We think of what they might need.

How we might be a part of

turning something difficult to something good.

Amen.