S1 E35: The Hour Has Come

Hey, as you're being seated, if you would take out your copy of God's Word and join me in the Gospel of Mark this morning, Mark chapter 14.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

We come to the passage in Mark that is familiar to many of us as Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and he begins to pray.

Pray earnestly.

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We're going to be on page 913 in that pew Bible.

If you don't own a Bible, please take that one.

That is our gift to you.

We would love for you to keep that and use it as you walk with the Lord.

When we think about the Garden of Gethsemane, we often think that it was a quiet place of tranquility for Jesus.

And while that may have been true on many occasions, it was not so on this particular evening.

On the evening that Mark records, the Garden of Gethsemane turns into a place of great agony for Jesus.

It turns into a place of a cosmic struggle.

In that garden with him are his disciples, some of whom are allowed to go further into the garden and observe what Jesus is experiencing, but they can hardly understand the agony that he is going through, and they certainly can't imitate the obedience that he was about to display.

Some theologians refer to this text as sacred ground.

They do so because in this text is a decisive moment in God's redemptive plan.

Even before we get to the cross and Jesus lays down his life on a cross, he must first lay down his will before the Father, and that is what we experience in the garden.

We see Jesus in a time of unusual turmoil.

We experience Jesus as he pleads with God, let this cup pass from me.

And we struggle to understand exactly what Jesus was going through in those moments.

As his sinless soul and sinless life recoiled from the cup that he was about to face, and yet determinedly moved forward in obedience to his father's will.

In the garden, we are going to see that Jesus is the suffering servant who came to take on the sin of the world upon himself, and we're going to see that Jesus is also the chief high priest who has come to care for those who are weak.

Jesus is the suffering servant who shoulders our sin, and Jesus is the high priest who strengthens those who fail.

This is sacred ground that we're walking on today as we read from Mark's gospel.

If you're willing and able, would you stand with me?

Mark chapter 14.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

We're going to begin in verse 32 this morning and read through verse 42.

They came to a place named Gethsemane.

And he said to his disciples, Sit here until I have prayed.

And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled.

And he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death.

Remain here and keep watch.

And he went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray, that if it were possible the hour might pass him by.

And he was saying, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

And he came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep?

Could you not keep watch for one hour?

Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Again he went away and prayed, saying the same words, and again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him.

And he came a third time and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting?

It is enough.

The hour has come.

Behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Get up, let us be going.

Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand.

Heavenly Father, as we open your word today, we open to a text that quite honestly is so deep that we need your help.

Father, we always need the illumination of the Spirit to properly understand your word, but when we come to a text where we see the Son of God struggling with the wrath of his Father against sin that he is going to bear on upon himself, Father, help us.

Open our minds, open our hearts to understand.

Lord, let us walk away even more confident in our Savior than when we came in.

For somebody who trusted in your will beyond anything else.

Father, let us learn, as the disciples needed to learn, to not be self-confident and be lazy, but to be more dependent upon you.

That if our Savior needed to pray for strength and temptation, how much more do we?

So, Father, as we open your word, open our hearts, open our lives, change what needs to be changed in our lives today, be magnified and glorified in all that we say and do when we pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you.

We often want to hurry from the upper room where Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper to the cross where Jesus laid down his life for our sin.

We kind of want to just rush from one event to the next event, but Mark does not allow us to do that in his gospel.

He slows us down in this time.

Even though his gospel is one of rapid-fire action all the way through, this last week, Mark really just slows us down.

And in this instant, he slows us down one more time because he doesn't want us to run straight to the crucifixion.

He needs us to see what Jesus experienced here in Gethsemane.

Before we can see the nails driven into his hands, we need to see him falling on his face before God.

Before we can hear Jesus cry out, it is finished, we need to hear him cry out, not my will, but your will be done.

And so Mark slows us down.

He wants us to see the cost of our salvation.

Because that is what Jesus was experiencing in the garden on this night.

Jesus was looking into the cup and seeing the price that he was going to pay.

He wants us to see the cost of our salvation, and he wants us to see that in spite of all that, Jesus still willingly and resolutely went to the cross and drank the cup that was before him.

The events of this evening have unfolded in this chapter.

It's Thursday of Passion Week.

Jesus will die on Friday.

He will be crucified on Friday.

But Thursday, he has gathered his disciples into an upper room.

They have observed one last Passover meal together.

He has revealed to them that one of them will betray him.

That betrayer, Judas, then goes out to betray Jesus.

And then Jesus institutes what we now call the Lord's Supper.

He institutes what we now understand to be not the old covenant, but the new covenant in his blood.

After completing the institution of the Lord's Supper, they left the upper room and they went through the Mount of Olives on their way to Gethsemane, where Jesus would spend the evening in prayer.

But along the way, Jesus pauses and he tells the rest of the disciples who are still with him, you guys need to understand, you may not betray me for money, but each one of you, every one of you, all of you are going to desert me.

And one of you is going to deny you even know me.

Jesus has been preparing them for what is about to happen.

He is helping them to see that they do not need to have such self-confidence, but they need to be dependent upon God.

You remember Simon cries out, not me, Lord.

They might desert you, but I never will.

Jesus told him, hey, Simon, tonight, before tomorrow morning when the rooster crows, you're going to not just desert me, you're going to deny knowing me three times.

You need to know what's coming, and you cannot handle what's ahead on your own.

Jesus now goes to this place called the Garden of Gethsemane.

It was a place that he would frequent regularly while he was in Jerusalem.

It was a place of solitude for him, a place where he would go and pray and meditate upon the Father.

Judas the betrayer knew this to be true.

It was a perfect location for him to bring the religious leaders and the Roman cohort in order to arrest Jesus privately.

But before we get there, Jesus prays.

The name Gethsemane means wine press.

In ancient times, wine was olive press.

Would I say wine press?

I meant olive press.

Hear what I mean, not what I say, okay?

It was, it meant olive press, and in the ancient practice they would take olives, and an increasing weight would put on those olives until it would flow out with the oil that was required.

It's a fitting picture of what takes place this night.

It doesn't tell us all of what happened in Jesus' encounter that night, but here we have Jesus being crushed under a weight, and what flows out of him is not rebellion.

What flows out of him is obedience.

So Jesus is in the garden.

And Mark sets the scene for us with three scenes, three waves.

The first is simply just that Jesus enters the garden in verses 32 through 34.

And he takes eight of his disciples and he tells them here, stay out here while I go pray.

And then he took three other disciples, three of his inner circle, those that were closer to Jesus, that Jesus tended to allow them to see things that the other disciples didn't get to see.

He took Peter and James and John and they went farther into the garden and he said, I want you to wait here and pray.

Watch and pray.

And then Jesus went in just a little bit further and he fell on his face before the Father and began to pray.

Jesus took the three inner circle with them because they needed to learn a lesson.

Even to the very end, Jesus was discipling his disciples.

Even to the very end, he was helping them to be prepared for what was going to take place.

And so he took them in in order for them to learn something new, something greater.

Something that would impact them.

And so Jesus enters the garden in verses 35 through verse 40.

Jesus communed with the Father.

He prayed with the Father.

And this was not just a casual conversation.

This was a cosmic struggle.

Luke chapter 22.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

All the gospels, by the way, record this event.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all record it.

It's that important.

In Luke's recording, it tells us, and you learned this probably when you were a child, that Jesus prayed so earnestly that what happened?

He sweat drops of blood.

Jesus comes back to the disciples and he says, I am distressed to the point of death.

This conversation, what took place in this garden, was not just a simple, hi God, how are you doing?

God help me with my weakness.

This was a prayer that almost killed Jesus.

He's sweating blood.

This is a deep, deep conversation.

And in it we again see a contrast between the faithfulness of Jesus, where he recognizes what's ahead and recognizes he needs to pray in order to be prepared for what is about to take place.

And the disciples who think we've got whatever comes down the road, we can handle it.

And instead of preparing themselves in prayer, go to sleep.

So Jesus enters the garden, verses 32 through 34.

He communes with the Father, verses 35 through verses 40, and then he rose to meet his betrayer in verses 41 through 42.

After praying, Jesus gets up and he says, the hours come.

Let's go.

As we go back through the text, I just I want you to see the suffering servant who died for our sins, and the great high priest who compassionately cares about our weaknesses.

As we walk back through this, I want us to see that we need to trust in the saving grace of God, and we need to depend on the sustaining grace of God.

Let's talk about the suffering servant who submitted to the Father's will.

A suffering servant who provides saving grace for us.

We see his anguish in his statements.

Jesus said, My soul is deeply grieved.

Peter, James, and John were allowed to go in further into the garden, and Jesus tells them, guys, I'm about to go pray.

I need you to stay here.

Watch and pray.

My soul is deeply, deeply grieved.

James and John and Peter had seen the Mount of Transfiguration.

They'd seen the glory of God shining through the face of Jesus, and now they were about to experience sorrow in his soul.

They had seen Jesus raise people from the dead, and now they were going to see Jesus at the point of death.

This agony.

It means to be amazed.

It means to be overwhelmed by what one experiences, by what one sees.

Jesus says, I am overwhelmed by this.

This is nearly killing me.

Why was Jesus overwhelmed?

This isn't language that I'm used to hearing when it talks about Jesus.

When I hear Jesus in the scriptures, I don't see someone who is overwhelmed.

I don't see somebody who is put under stress.

I see somebody who calms storms, not one who is in the midst of a storm.

And yet Jesus openly tells his disciples, guys, this is killing me.

What I am seeing is greatly distressing me.

What in the world was he seeing?

What in the world was it that paused Jesus in his tracks, that caused him such agony, that caused him to sweat blood?

Jesus prayed to the Father.

If it's possible, would you remove this cup from me?

Jesus looked into the cup that was before him and he says, I don't want it.

Is it possible that I could have it removed?

Now, what was in that cup that Jesus didn't want?

What was in that cup that caused him to recoil?

Some have said that Jesus knew that he was about to be arrested and abused.

He knew that he would be beaten within an inch of his life.

He knew that they would drive nails into his hands and into his feet.

He knew the excruciating pain.

He had seen other people crucified.

He knew what he was about to face, and they said that was the cup.

He was scared of that, but yet lesser people than Jesus faced crucifixion.

Lesser people than Jesus faced the pain of martyrdom with a stiff back and glory to God.

I don't believe for a minute that Jesus was recoiling from the pain that he was about to experience.

I don't think he was looking forward to it.

But he was not recoiling from the pain.

When the Bible talks about a cup, in the Old Testament, when it refers to a cup, it is referring to the judgment of God against sin.

And when he saw the cup, it was God's righteous and rightful wrath against the sin of mankind.

And that was the cup that Jesus was about to drink.

And his sinless, spotless self recoiled because by drinking that cup, he was going to experience something he could not be prepared for.

Nothing in his experience had ever prepared him for it.

The one thing he had never experienced, the consequence of sin, which is separation from a holy God.

Jesus had left heaven, came to earth.

He never left communion with God.

He never left having a conversation with God.

He never left that union with God, that relationship with God.

But when God took our sin and placed it on Jesus, he turned away from his son so that he would never have to turn away from you and I.

When you and I are tempted, it's typically that we are tempted because we can be tempted by evil things, by bad things.

Jesus could not be tempted by evil things.

Jesus could not be tempted by bad things.

His struggle here was not him trying to deny those things.

His struggle here wasn't because he was tempted by evil.

His struggle here was his holiness, his purity.

Jesus was so pure.

And yet, don't hear sorrow is reluctance.

Jesus was sorrowful that he was going to have to experience these things.

It hurt him that he was going to experience these things, but He was not reluctant to do so.

He knew this was why he came.

He knew this was the plan before the foundation of the world.

He knew that in order to make you and I right with a holy God, he would have to go through the experience, and he willfully laid down his life.

He did it not reluctantly.

He did it willfully.

The theory of atonement was not a theory for Jesus on this day.

It was a flesh and blood reality.

Jesus, we see his anguish.

My soul is deeply grieved.

I don't want to be separated from the Father.

I don't want to face the wrath of God against the sin of man.

And then he pleased Father, is there any other way?

Can you remove this cup from me?

And in this we see just the honesty of Jesus as he teaches us even to pray and bring our requests to the Father.

It's not wrong to tell God what we desire.

It's not wrong to tell God what we feel.

As long as we recognize that there is something more important than what we think we need or what we feel.

And that which is more important, that which is more vital is not what we think we need.

It is what God knows we need.

And it is his will.

We see his anguish, we see his honest plea, and we see his submission.

He says, Father, if there's any other way, then can that be the way?

Can this cup pass?

Can this hour pass?

Nevertheless, not my will.

Let your will be done.

Jesus could be obedient because he knew God's perfect plan.

He knew God's perfect will.

And he trusted his Father.

He trusted him.

And he willingly submitted.

He practiced what he taught his disciples to do.

He taught his disciples to pray.

When you pray, pray like this.

Our Father who is art in heaven, how to be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That's an easy thing to say.

It's a hard thing to do, isn't it?

God, I want your will, which is done perfectly in heaven, to be done here on earth perfectly.

And Jesus said, if there's any way I don't have to go through this, nevertheless, Father, your perfect will.

Jesus recognized that the best place for him to be was not in a place of comfort.

The best place for him to be was in the center of God's will.

Doing what God had called him to do.

Being who God had called him to be.

Now, I don't think this is the main point of the text, but it's certainly a model for our prayer lives.

Telling God honestly what we desire, telling God honestly what we need, and yet trusting God's will and then submitting to God's will regardless of where it leads.

How often we just pray for our wants and forget to ask for God's will.

How often we just jump to the request and forget that God has a plan.

And Jesus sets a model for us.

So we see a suffering servant who saves us from our sin, who takes upon himself that which we deserve.

But we also see a sympathetic high priest who strengthens the weak.

Our Savior is amazing.

Our Savior is marvelous.

He's gone into the garden and he is agonizing in prayer.

Agonizing in prayer.

Feeling the weight of redemption on his shoulders.

Seeing every sin that everyone in all the universe would ever commit coming his way.

Feeling the weight of God's wrath against that sin, his righteous wrath against that sin was bearing down on his shoulders in this moment.

And yet, three times he pauses that conversation with God, he gets up and goes checks on his disciples.

I'm so self-absorbed sometimes.

I can't get up from the TV to go check on my wife to see how she's doing.

And many of us are so self-absorbed that we can't see others around us.

But here is our Savior in the midst of the greatest agony in all of human history, just stopping because he cares for his disciples and he knows they're not prepared for what's about to happen.

He had given them a compassionate warning.

Remember, they were there to learn a lesson.

He brought them in so that they could see what was taking place.

He brought them in so they could see how he prepared himself for what was about to happen.

And his compassionate warning was watch and pray.

Watch and pray.

So that you do not fall into temptation.

When we preach through the gospel with this way, when we read through the gospel with this way, we sometimes forget what happened last time we were together.

And last time we were together, as we're reading, the text wasn't a week earlier, it was moments earlier in their lifetimes.

And you remember what just happened as they were walking through the Mount of Olives on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane?

Jesus tells them, You are all going to desert me.

One of you is going to deny me.

And what does Peter say?

Not going to happen.

I won't do it.

Even if all of them let you down, I won't.

And Jesus says, Peter, hey, you need to sit here, you need to watch, you need to pray, because the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Peter, I don't doubt your motivation.

Peter, I don't doubt your sincerity.

I think you genuinely don't want to deny me.

I believe that, but you are not prepared for the battle that's about to come.

So watch and pray.

So that you do not fall into temptation.

How many of us have fallen into temptation because we didn't heed the words of Jesus to watch and pray?

Simon Peter eventually learns his lesson in 1 Peter 5, verse 8.

1 Peter 5:8

He tells us to be alert.

Because your adversary, the devil, is prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking lion, seeking someone to devour.

Peter said, I get it.

Three times Jesus prayed, three times he stopped and found his disciples sleeping.

Jesus was preparing himself for what he was about to face.

They thought they were already ready, so they did not prepare themselves.

You know, rarely do we fall into sin suddenly.

Rarely do we mess up in a moment.

Usually, public failure is a result of private neglect.

You know what I'm talking about?

Usually when I fail publicly, it's because I haven't been preparing privately.

And Jesus was telling these men, hey, you got to get prepared.

You're not ready.

You need to spend time with the Father.

I just want you to see Jesus' prayer just for a moment.

How he prayed and what a model it is for us.

He prayed intimately.

He began his prayer, Abba, Father.

No practicing Jew of that time would refer to God in such a familial way.

This was too comfortable.

This was too normal.

It was too close.

And yet this was the relationship that Jesus had with the Heavenly Father.

He recognized I'm talking to my Father.

That sets up, by the way, the rest of the prayer.

Understanding his relationship with God, understanding that God is faithful and God will not abandon him, sets up his obedience.

It sets up his trust.

It sets up his faithfulness.

What an awesome privilege we have to have an audience with the creator of the universe.

And we get to talk to him.

And we get to tell him what troubles us, and we get to tell him what's going on in our lives, and we get to ask him for things, and we get to tell him and plead with him.

Oh, that we would see that we have this relationship, the same relationship with Jesus had with the Father, we can have as adopted children.

He prayed intimately, he prayed confidently, excuse me, in confidence.

God, all things are possible for you.

Jesus isn't doubting God here.

Jesus is saying, I trust you.

God, all things are possible for you.

Faith isn't believing that God can do anything.

Faith is believing that God will do the right thing.

And then trusting Him to do it.

Jesus says, You're my Father.

You can do anything.

I trust you.

He prayed in confidence.

He prayed honestly.

Father, can you take this cup?

Is there any other way?

Man, when we go to the Father, we need to recognize the relationship we've had we have with him through Jesus Christ.

We can boldly go into the throne room of God, not because we deserve it, but because Jesus Christ died and covered us with his blood so that we're welcomed in.

And when we go, we stand confidently before a God who can do anything and we trust his will.

And then he says, Tell me what you need, my child.

Tell me what you want.

And we can tell him about the pain we have because we have a broken relationship with a child.

We can tell him about the addiction we're struggling with.

We can tell him about the temptation we can't overcome.

And we can boldly go to him with all of these things and just be honest.

Jesus was not performing for God.

He was not telling God the things he thinks God wanted to hear.

He was just being honest with God.

He prayed intimately, he prayed confidently, he prayed honestly, and he prayed submissively.

Father, this is what I want, but what's more important than what I want is your will.

Oh, that I would pray that way more consistently.

Oh, that I would get to the point where all of my prayers were just, God, not my wants, your will.

If we're honest, most of our prayers we try to take God's will and we bend it to our wants.

God, I know what your will is.

This is what I want.

Our prayers ought to be the other way around.

God, that's your will.

Bend my wants to match your will.

We see his compassionate warning, and then finally we see his resolute declaration.

After praying earnestly three times, after coming and encouraging his disciples, guys, you don't know what's about to happen.

Get up and pray, get up and pray, get up and pray.

The third time he returns, he says to them, the hour has come.

Now, if you're familiar with gospel writers, if you're familiar with the gospel narrative, there were times when Jesus said the exact opposite.

There were times when he told his disciples, in fact, he told his own mother one time, My hour has not yet come.

The time has not yet arrived.

The hour was now.

He understood.

The hour has arrived.

The reason why he came to earth, the appointed time is here.

It is now.

It didn't sneak up on him.

He knew exactly when the appointed hour was.

He would be crucified like the lamb on the Passover the next day.

He knew exactly what time it was.

And he says, the hour has come.

And then he says this: get up, boys, let's go.

That's my translation of what Jesus said.

Jesus is not being dragged out of the garden by a Roman soldier.

Jesus is standing up.

He said, It is done.

My choice has been made.

My father's will is right.

We are going to the cross.

Let's go.

I'm not running away.

I'm not being scattered like anybody else.

Here I am.

Oh, his agony in the garden is our victory.

Do you know that?

His agony in the garden is our victory.

Him drinking the cup that we deserved brings us victory.

This is the gospel.

This is the good news.

Jesus paid a price he didn't deserve.

He paid a price we deserved.

He drank a cup he didn't deserve so that he could give us grace.

He was condemned so that we might be set free.

He was abandoned so that we might be forgiven.

He was crushed so that we might be lifted up.

And before he went to the cross and gave his body, he went to the garden and gave his will.

This is the gospel.

His struggle is our victory.

The garden is just a prelude to the cross.

There was another garden in Scripture.

You've got to go all the way back to Genesis chapter 1 to find it.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And in that garden there was a man named Adam, the first Adam.

And he said, Father, not your will be done, but mine.

And he doesn't say, Father, not your will be done, but mine.

He says, Father, not my will be done, but yours.

So what do we do with this?

What do we do with this sacred ground of text?

I go back to this.

Have you trusted in the saving grace of God?

And are you resting in the sustaining grace of our Savior?

Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath so that you and I wouldn't have to.

He paid the penalty for us.

The Bible says it this way: He became sin so that you and I might become the righteousness of God.

That was the cup that he agonized over.

But he did it for the joy that was set before him.

And do you know what the joy was that was set before him?

It was glorifying God by saving you and me.

And if you've never trusted in this Savior who loves you that much, then today is the day that you needed to hear this message from this text from a Savior who loves you so much he paid your price for you.

And the throne of God's grace is not locked by a door that only strong people can earn their way into.

The throne of God's grace is opened through the door of Jesus Christ, and you open it through faith in his finished work for you.

And I pray today, if you've never trusted in the saving grace of Jesus Christ, that today you would say, God, thank you for sending a Savior who died for me.

Some of us, if we were in the garden that night, probably all of us would have been like Peter, James, and John.

I was trying to watch a baseball game last night and a football game and a hockey game.

And I kept falling asleep watching those three games.

If I'd have been in the garden that night with Jesus, my eyes probably would have been heavy too.

And he would have had to call me on the carpet and say, Bob, you have no idea what's ahead of you.

You need to get up and pray.

Because you're not prepared.

And I wonder how many of us have fallen asleep.

We may not have fallen publicly yet, but we certainly aren't doing what we need to do privately.

And maybe there's an area in your life that you've stopped praying about, that you've stopped calling out to God about.

And today might just be the reminder.

I need to get back on my knees.

I need to get back on my face before God and say, God, help me.

I'm losing this battle.

I need your help.

And here's the amazing thing.

We have a chief high priest who is compassionate on us.

In fact, he understands.

He understands what it's like to be tempted, except he never gave in to sin.

And when he confronts us in our sin, he does so in compassion.

He cares.

He knows.

He loves.

He does not abandon.

And so whatever it is that you are struggling with today, be honest to take it for before the Heavenly Father.

And say, God, help me.

Let your will be done.

Trust Him.

Be honest with Him.

I promise you'll find compassion in love.

What do we do with this?

We see God saving grace in a suffering servant who died for us, and we see God's sustaining grace in a high priest who cares for us.