Well, it might seem odd, I think I said this last week too, that we're heading towards the cross in Christmas season. I do plan on taking a break next week as the Lord leads to bring more of a Christmas message for Christmas Day. But we're going to go to Gethsemane today. And we're in Mark. And we're in chapter 14, and I'm gonna read from verse 32 to 42. So it's Mark 14, 32 to 42. And let me pray. Our Father and our God, we pause before the reading of your word, Lord, to remind ourselves that we're handling reverently the very word of God. And Lord, your word is strong and mighty, Lord, but we need your help. I pray that you would open ears, open hearts, open our minds, Lord, enable us to understand the depths of the glory of what we're reading here today. And Lord, I thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen. Then they came to the place which was named Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. And he took Peter, James, and John with him, and he began to be troubled and deeply distressed. Then he said to them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death. Stay here and watch. He went a little farther and fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will. Then he came and found them sleeping and said to Peter, Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Again, he went away and prayed and spoke the same words. And when he returned, he found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. Then 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. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand." R.T. France in his commentary, actually his commentary on Matthew, Talking about Gethsemane says, only as we're allowed to share Jesus's deep distress, are we enabled to grasp the seriousness of the settled purpose of God, which calls for his son to be rejected and killed in Jerusalem. But even so, the will of God is not imposed on an unwitting victim. but is deliberately faced and shared by the son himself. D.A. Carson says, as his death was unique, so also was his anguish. And our best response is hushed worship. The place, Gethsemane, we've all read these passages before. This is the fourth gospel I've preached through. I was going to look up and see how many years it took me to get this far along in Mark and through the other gospels that we've studied together. Years, years we've gone through the gospels. But here, Gethsemane, the place itself, you probably have heard this before, but Gethsemane means oil press in the Aramaic. So it's a place that was where they would press out the oil. It would have been owned by somebody. A lot of the commentators assume that it was a follower of Jesus, had permission from Jesus to use this place. But it's appropriate, probably, that it is a place of pressing because the Son of God if you will, was pressed at Gethsemane that evening. John describes it in John 18.1 as a garden. It says, when Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples over the brook Kidron, where there was a garden. which he and his disciples entered. Luke tells us that it was a frequent meeting place for them. So there was other times when Jesus had taken his disciples there to teach. It says in Luke 22, 39, it says, coming out he went to the Mount of Olives as he was accustomed and his disciples followed him. So it was a place that they frequented. If you look at the scene, and I always like to try to just paint a picture in my thinking, in my mind, when I read through the Gospels. And if you can see the scene with three stations, if you will, if I can use that word. First, you have the eight. Judas has gone to do his evil bidding, and he's gone. So you have the eight, and he does tell them in the other Gospels that he wants them all to be praying. But he has the eight, and then a little further, he takes the three, right? Peter, James, and John, and he takes them a little farther, and he specifically asks them to watch and to pray, to be on a prayer vigil for Jesus. And he couches that in the phrase that his soul is exceedingly sorrowful to death. Stay here and pray. And Jesus, now the third station, if you will, Jesus goes a little farther. So Jesus wants to be alone with his Heavenly Father to pray. He tells his disciples that they're to pray that they shouldn't enter into temptation. Right? Because it's going to be a difficult night. And Jesus had already said, when the shepherd struck, the sheep are going to flee. And he says, you need to be strong. You need to be in prayer. And maybe Jesus is even saying, pray for me at this hour. And of course they fail. Somebody wrote, Samuel Chadwick wrote, the one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. I guess I'd have to challenge you at this point and say, how's your prayer life? Do you have a daily time, maybe a couple times a day, where you have your prayer time with the Lord? I told my wife, I made my daily walks. I try to walk two or three miles every day just to stay somewhat in shape. And that's usually where I do my praying. I'll pray while I walk. I'm sure the neighbors think I'm insane because I pray out loud when I'm walking. But he says, the one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil. He mocks our wisdom. But he trembles when we pray. And I think that's true. Charles Finney had said, prayer bathes the soul in an atmosphere of the divine presence. And we can be carried along in our daily routines and really not have a thought towards God at all. We get so wrapped up in what's going on around us, especially at this time of year, Christmas, wrapping presents, and not even have a thought for God. But you set aside some time just to go to your quiet place, wherever you like to be to pray, and you get with the Lord, and you're doing spiritual business with God, you're going to feel the divine presence. It lifts us up out of the daily routine, out of this world. But here the Lord asks these three, his inner three, the leaders that will be in the church to watch and pray, and they fell in miserably. Somebody wrote a hymn, says, the garden of Gethsemane that often gathered there, the Christ and his disciple friends, the sheep beneath his care. But when the shepherd needed them, come watch and pray with me. Their heavy hearts and eyes prevailed in dark Gethsemane. So we have Jesus here alone. Mark tells us that he went a little farther and he fell on the ground. Matthew tells us he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed. Prostrate probably. Luke tells us he was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw. That helps me a little bit. Figure out how far can you lob a stone. That's about how far away Jesus went to be by himself. And Luke tells us that he knelt down and prayed alone in his travail, alone with the Father. Joy is a partnership. Grief weeps alone. Many guests had Cana, Gethsemane, but one. And we've all, nobody has gone through what Jesus has gone through here, but we've all had those times of grief where we feel like, you know, even if we share what's going on in our lives, there's a sense in which we kind of go through it by ourselves, alone. But he's alone with God, which is beautiful. W.B. Judefind wrote a hymn that says, Gethsemane, Gethsemane, within thy shades, my Lord, I see, with burdened soul unbended knee, alone in fervent prayer. Gethsemane, Gethsemane, the place of trial and agony, but where the soul finds victory, alone with God in prayer. And our Lord is truly alone with the Father. And His burden, it's striking the way the Gospels phrase it. It's probably a good translation, and some of your Bibles will translate it this way, that His soul is overwhelmed. He says, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death. Literally, in the right word sequence, he said, overwhelmed is my soul to the point of death. And if you know anything about the original language, the first word is the emphasis. And Jesus here is emphasizing the overwhelmingness of what he's going through as he begins to think through what he's about to walk into and endure for the salvation of his own. Hendrickson wrote, hell, as it were, came to him in Gethsemane and on Golgotha, and he descended into it, experiencing to the fool its terrors. I don't think we can fully comprehend what Jesus endured in the garden or on the cross completely. But Jesus knew exhaustively what he was about to go through. And this is kind of tough for us. And I don't want to get too theological here. But we'll never understand what Jesus is enduring here with this exceeding weight of sorrow about what he's going to yield himself to do. If we don't understand what the theologians would say is the two natures of Jesus. There was church squabbles early on in Christendom about what exactly is the nature of Jesus? Is he God? that somehow deified his humanity? Or is he a man that's sort of, you know, a little bit less than the fullness of God? And the church wrangled through that. There was a church council of Chalcedon where they wrangled through that. And I'm not going to read what they came out with, but basically the understanding of the church has always been, since and thereafter, that Jesus, and the way that they'll phrase it, Jesus is truly man. and truly God without mixture or confusion. He's fully man. I usually use that language. He's fully man. And here we see him in the garden as a man. He's still truly God, but we see him as a man who is about to take upon himself the sin of the world and all the consequences and punishment for that sin. And as a man, he's overwhelmed by it. Right? He's not Superman. He's truly man. Right? Truly man, truly God. So his burden is overwhelming. And he speaks of the impending hour in verse 35. It says, he went a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. that the hour might pass from him. We looked at that, I think, a week or so ago, that Jesus in his earthly ministry at the wedding in Cana is asked to do something. They ran out of wine. And Jesus said his hour had not yet come. And he wrestled with the Father before. So am I supposed to try to escape this hour? No, it's for this hour that I've come. But now the hour is upon him. As truly man, the hour is upon him. And as a man, he looks to his father and says, is there any other way? Is there some way we can advert this? I have to enter into this exceeding pain, into this incredible weight of the wrath of God Almighty. Is there a way for me to avoid this hour and accomplish the purposes of Almighty God? He speaks of it as a cup. If you can think of it this way, that the Father, if you will, is extending the cup to them. And instead of reaching for the cup, Jesus says, is there a way that perhaps this cup could pass from me? I don't want to take hold of this cup, necessarily, but I want the Father's will to be done. You have to understand that Jesus, fully and truly man, wrestles with this. And at the same time, Jesus, truly God, truly deity, is in perfect union with the Father, perfect union with the Spirit, and in perfect agreement of what the chore is that He has to accomplish. So it's very hard for us to wrap our mind around this, but we have to see Jesus here as He pleads with the Father. And look at how He pleads. Look at the intimacy of the prayer. Mark captures this beautifully for us, because Jesus prays to the Father, and He says, Abba, Abba. I always loved Dr. Farmer. We saw one time a preacher, and he helped me with that. He always re-translated that when he was preaching to Papa. Do you see the intimacy of that? Of a child with their father? The Jews would never use that language when talking to God. But Jesus, who is the eternal son, turns at the moment of his intensity of his pain and his sorrow, and he cries out to God, and if you will, if this isn't wrong for me to say, he says, Papa, Papa God, Abba Father, Abba Father. And look at how he acknowledges that even in this, that God's in complete control, because he says, all things are possible for you. In other words, you could make the cup pass, you could take away the hour. Everything is possible with you. You're in complete control. And then he asks specifically, take this cup away from me. Take this cup away from me, Papa God. Everything's possible with you. Take this cup away from me." But as he models for us and as our prayers should follow, he says, nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will. Because God's will is always perfect. God's will is always perfect. Carson, looking at this prayer, says, Not your will, but mine, changed paradise to a desert, and brought man from Eden to Gethsemane. Now not my will, but yours, brings anguish to the man who prays it, but transforms the desert into the kingdom, and brings man from Gethsemane to the gates of glory. What is it that Jesus sees here? What is it? We can't fully wrap our minds around. I mean, the physical pain, I understand. I've seen people go through physical pain. And Jesus went through excruciating physical pain. I mean, the Old Testament says his beard was plucked out. I can't imagine what that would feel like, that he was beaten with charred little pieces of clay on the end of whip straps. And when we could look at the horrors of what he went through physically, But he says here, take the cup away from me. Now the Bible has a lot to say about that cup. And let me read you a few passages of what Jesus is looking at here. Psalm 75 verse 8 says, For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup. And the wine is red, it is fully mixed, and he pours it out. Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth drain and drink down. In Isaiah 51 verse 17, awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury. You have drunk the dregs of a cup of trembling and drained it out. But then just a couple of verses later, Isaiah 51, 22, thus says your Lord, the Lord, and your God, who pleads the cause of His people, see, I've taken out of your hand the cup of trembling, the dregs of the cup of my fury, you shall no longer drink it." Because Jesus drank it. That cup was held out and preserved for you and me. And Jesus took it and drank it down to the very last of the dregs. Jeremiah 25.15 says, for thus says the Lord God of Israel to me, take this wine cup of fury from my hand and cause all the nations to whom I send it to drink it. It's a picture of the wrath of God against sin, against sinners. The intensity of his travail is recorded in Luke. Luke 22, 43 says, Then an angel appeared to him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. Then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Do you see the travail of his soul? He looks at the cup. Hendrickson says, there are those who say that for Jesus to realize that an angel had to descend from heaven to strengthen him, must have added to his feeling of deep humiliation. Granted, but should we not immediately add that in this dark hour the ministry of an angel must also have reconfirmed him in the belief that at this moment the Father had not forsaken him? Was it not, after all, the Father who sent the angel? The writer of Hebrews describes this travail that Jesus is going through, this tribulation, In Hebrews 5 verse 7, speaking of Jesus, it says, "...who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to Him, who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear." You could also translate that maybe more appropriately, His reverent submission. Because of Jesus' reverent submission, His prayers were heard of the Father. Michael D. Schultz, I found this great hymn. I'm gonna read some of the stanzas of it. But he writes in this hymn, Gethsemane's serenity, so pleasant in the past, was shattered by a piercing cry. Our savior stood aghast to see the curse inside the cup, to sense what soon would be unleashed against his sinless soul. beyond Gethsemane. Hendrickson again says, Jesus, as the sin bearer, faced the wrath of God against us. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. And because of our sins, Christ stood before God as the most wicked of all transgressors. He stood alone as our substitute. The words of Ben H. Price capture this thought poetically. It was alone the Savior prayed in dark Gethsemane. Alone he drained the bitter cup and suffered there for me. Alone, alone, he bore it all alone. He gave himself to save his own. He suffered, bled, and died alone, alone. Galatians 3.13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." Again, Hendrickson says, because of Christ's atoning work and victory over death in the grave, we shall never know the weight of sin, the severity of the curse, the penalty of judgment, or the meaning of eternal death in hell. We have been acquitted and set free because of Jesus, a high priest. What Jesus endured at Gethsemane was never experienced by anyone else. But why Gethsemane at all? Why could not God have arranged it such that at the very entrance of the garden Jesus would immediately have been arrested? Why all this agony, the wrestlings, the prayers, the bloody sweat? Could not the answer be as follows? To establish for all time that the obedience, both as active and passive, which Jesus rendered was not forced upon Him, against His will, but was voluntary? He was actually laying down His life for the sheep. That wholehearted sacrifice in total obedience to the Father's will was the only kind of death. capable of saving the sinner. And Philippians 2.8 underscores that. It says, being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. I told you I was reading through Max Likado's, and the angels were silent again. And a little quote from that book, Max Likado writes, At some moment during that midnight hour, an angel of mercy comes over the weary body of the man in the garden. As he stands, the anguish is gone from his eyes. His fist will clench no more. His heart will fight no more. The battle is won. You may have thought that it was won at Golgotha. It wasn't. You might have thought that the sign of victory is the empty tomb. It isn't. The final battle was won in Gethsemane. And the sign of conquest is Jesus at peace in the olive trees. For it was in the garden that he made his decision that he would rather go to hell for you than to go to heaven without you." Jesus' arrest, we'll pick up in Mark, verse 43 of chapter 14. It says, and immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, with a great multitude with swords and clubs, came from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now his betrayer had given them a signal, saying, Whomever I kiss, he is the one. Seize him and lead him away, away safely. As soon as he had come, immediately he went up to him and said to him, Rabbi, Rabbi, and kissed him. Then they laid their hands on him and took him. And one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus answered and said to them, Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But the scriptures must be fulfilled. Then they all forsook him and fled. Betrayed with a kiss. We talked about that last week. It makes the crime of Judas's betrayal all the more heinous. To come as a friend, to call him rabbi, my rabbi, and even in that is just a signal to the thugs to come and grab Jesus. Why do they need a signal? Well, it's obviously night. It's dark. They can't see. They knew what Jesus looked like. They just couldn't tell who's who in this darkness. They have torches and whatnot, but it's hard to see. So he comes up with that signal. The other gospel writer tells us that Jesus said, friend, what have you come here for? Friend, what are you doing? And Jesus knew what he was doing. But he called him friend. You don't think that hurt the Lord? I guarantee you it hurt the Lord. But Jesus here, even now, is in absolute, complete control. And Jesus who I've been expounding upon in the garden as fully man, truly man, is also truly God. And when you read John's gospel, we see that Jesus here is controlling the whole situation. John 18 verse 4 says, Jesus therefore knowing all things that will come upon him. Now think about that. He knew everything he was going to face, including the wrath of God Almighty. Therefore, knowing all things that would come upon him, went forward and said to them, Whom are you seeking? And they answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said to them, I am he. Now you have to understand, in the original language, Jesus said, I am. He's at it for us to understand. It's another of these great I am statements of Jesus. God revealed himself as I am who I am. I am that I am. He's here saying, I am. It says, they answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, I am he. And Judas, who betrayed him, also stood with them. Now, when he said to them, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground. Do you see the power of God here? They drew back and they fell to the ground. Now, do they get back up and say, well, grab them? No, they don't. Jesus has to call out to them again. So they fall to the ground. Verse 7 says, Then he asked them again, Whom are you seeking? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he. Therefore, if you seek me, let these go their way. He's talking about his disciples who obviously flee, but they're not chased down because Jesus is in complete control of the situation. Even in his arrest, After he goes through the travail of his soul, and he's set like Flint to go to the cross, he's made his decision, he's accepting the Father's will, he will go and drink that cup, he still cares about his disciples in his arrest. You can see that at the cross, when Jesus is entrusting his own mother to John, at the cross, as he's dying. The heart of our Savior, the love of our Savior, Mark tells us that one of them, somebody, drew a sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Well, John in John 18 helps us to find out that that's Simon Peter who did that. John 18.10 says, then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. So Jesus said to Peter, put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which my father has given me? How hard would that have been? Peter put the sword away. This is the will of the father. Am I not to drink the cup? I already made my mind up and now it's time for me to go to the cross. Luke's the one that tells us in Luke 22, 51, that he says, permit even this, permit even this arrest, permit this. And then it says, and he touched his ear and healed him. Jesus healed him on the spot, the great healer, and they arrest him anyway. Interestingly, and only found in Mark is verse 51 and 52. where it says, now a certain young man followed him, having a linen cloth thrown around his naked body. And the young men laid hold of him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked. I can't remember where I was. I think I was at the art gallery, the rather famous art gallery in Chicago. Believe it or not, odd me, I love going to art galleries. And if you look at, especially paintings from the Renaissance time, most of them are biblical. And I just love, without looking down below to see what they entitled the painting, I just love looking at the scene and trying to figure out what it is. Oh, it's John the Baptist with his head on a platter. That was a popular painting in the Renaissance time. But I remember seeing a painting of this scene. And way down in the corner of the painting, I mean, there's all this going on. And the main thrust of what we were supposed to look at in the painting was Christ and his arrest. But way down in the corner, you saw this naked man running. And I just thought that's so apropos to capture that in this painting and make it what it is, which is just a little brief detail that's given to us by Mark. Who's the man? Who is he? Did the disciples know who he was? They must have. I mean, he was there. Who is he? Some like to say it was John Mark himself. You ever heard that? They say, well, that was Mark. He was putting his own signature, if you will, in his gospel. And he told that humiliating story of how he ran off naked. Maybe, if you look at the church fathers, I'm talking like the first couple hundred years of the church and see who they thought it was, they're all over the place with it. So I don't think we can really definitively say who it is. I'm not sure that's even the point of why it's recorded for us. James Brooks in his commentary said, Mark may also have wanted to associate nakedness, which is an image of shame with anyone who would abandon Jesus. Jesus has said that. If you're ashamed of me before men, I'll be ashamed of you before my father when the holy angels come. That's not a direct quote, but that's basically what he said. And it's a picture of shame. I mean, we'd all feel a sense of shame if we were out in a crowd and all of a sudden we had no clothes on. It's a picture of shame. They all ran. They all abandoned him at the point of persecution and need. Well, I'm going to end with three stanzas that I'm going to read and not sing from Michael D. Schultz's hymn that I discovered yesterday, and I really like it. Gethsemane's intensity, revealed in blood-like sweat, led Christ to pray, for he would pay sin's awful crushing debt. My father, find another way to set the sinner free. Your will, not mine, be done," he said, and sad Gethsemane. Gethsemane's immensity can still be seen today. The father's will was crystal clear. There is no other way. Move on, my son. Your death alone can save humanity. So bound and destined for the cross, Christ left Gethsemane. Gethsemane's tranquility returned again that night. The conflict moved to Calvary, where Jesus won the fight. There is no cup for us to drink, no curse, no penalty. To know the lavish love of God, recall Gethsemane. Our father, those are hard words for me to read, very emotional. Lord, thank you. Lord Jesus, thank you. Thank you. I don't understand all the struggle you went through, but I do know very clearly that you yielded to the will of the Godhead. And Lord, you did take that cup and you drank it all down. And Lord, there's not a drop left for us. You paid it all. We're free. We've received the acquittal. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Go in the peace of Christ Jesus to a world that desperately