And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch. And going a little farther, he 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. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. And he came and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And 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 the third time and said to them, are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough, the hour has come. The son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. We read that far from God's word. You certainly recognize that tonight's passage reports to us about a sacred event, the event we summarize with a simple word, a single word, Gethsemane. It's about Jesus accepting the cup of suffering for our sins. I would say that nothing else in the Bible compares to the agony of Jesus, the anguish described here, paralleled only by his anguish on the cross itself. Not the laments of the Psalms, not the broken heart of Abraham as he prepared to sacrifice his own son Isaac, not David's grief at the death of his son Absalom. This is truly a sacred passage. In verse 31, as I mentioned, Peter had just expressed a willingness to die with Jesus. It seems imminent. I mean, we as readers, when we go from verse 31 to verse 32, you might expect that tonight's passage would begin with that exact violence, that some would die and Peter would be in the mix somehow. But instead, we get this whole passage. We get an unexpected pause of this movement and push towards the cross. We get this pause at night. for prayer on a quiet hillside garden. Jesus and his disciples were not in this sleepy hillside garden very long because a lot more would yet happen that same night before you get to chapter 15, verse one, which Mark reported was when morning finally came. What a night. We're just pausing on this. pause that Mark puts into his passage, the prayer time, the break from what had been so imminent, the push toward the cross of Christ. So it brings us to our main point I've put in your bulletin. Rather than God the Father removing the cup, God the Son drank it, enduring the separation from his Father that our sins deserve. so that we get to drink the cup of salvation. First, we'll see the amazement of Jesus at his required suffering, verses 32 to 35. 36, probably the most famous verse, a submission of Jesus to his father. And then 37 to 42 is the third point, the disappointment of Jesus in his So let's look at the amazement. Verse 32, it's this third time in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus took decisive measures to get away from his disciples in order to pray alone. So this third time is certainly the most significant of those three. Verse 33, then, it's noticeable that on this occasion that Jesus brought three of his disciples to join him. for part of his experience. He was praying alone and yet they could come closer, come along with him on the mini trip. How did our author find out about this? Since Mark isn't named and he's not one of the three, well it's really not a problem because any one of those three disciples could have reported this to Mark. He probably interviewed all of them. But likely they also all discussed it with Jesus. After He rose from the dead, like Luke chapter 24 tells us. He did a lot of teaching at that time, and he probably covered this most important sacred event, told them all about his experience praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. But as the attention now shifted to Jesus, we are told that Jesus began to be, in English here, greatly distressed, which in Greek is the word for being astonished. being amazed, he's distressed at what he's realizing. He's realizing the extent to which he'll have to suffer, and he began to be amazed. He began to be distressed about it. It came home to him, just what's being asked of him. And for Jesus, being faithful to his calling to be the Messiah, being faithful to the end was becoming costly. Mark began to stack up here powerful verbs of deep emotional turmoil to describe the cost for Jesus. I already said he began to be greatly distressed or astonished or amazed, and then here Mark adds the verb troubled. He began to be greatly distressed and troubled, verse 33. It's not for fear of death. Don't get distracted by that. Maybe some butterflies, and he certainly knew that death was imminent, but this is pointing to an awareness of the cup. What's in the cup? If I had time tonight and you wanted to stay a couple hours, I'd preach a whole sermon on Jeremiah 25 because it's the cup of wrath. It's exactly what it is. Jesus is not becoming amazed or distressed or troubled because he's going to die. He's becoming distressed, amazed, and troubled because the wrath of God will soon be turned loose on him. There's a sense building in Jesus of an awareness of the enormous load of human guilt from others. that will be pressing upon him in a more and more peculiar way. He knew, for example, from reading the prophets, isn't it one of the most famous passages in all the prophets, Isaiah 53? He knew from that passage and many others that he's going to suffer. He knew he was going to be made a curse for our sins. He was already beginning to carry the sorrows, see? He was already beginning to bear our griefs. He was feeling grief, trouble, distress, amazement. He was already beginning to be made sin for us, even though he knew no sin. And in his personal holiness of heart and holiness of mind, he's troubled. about the hideous burden now heading toward him to be soon fully placed upon him. He's troubled at his father's displeasure at these sins, the sins that are now coming on him, so that the father's displeasure would turn to him. because of our sins, he's taking our sins upon himself. This is what Mark is referencing already in verse 33, and then verse 34, there's supplied yet another word that showed Jesus was being stretched to his limit. The word now spoken by Jesus himself and translated for us in our English is very sorrowful. Jesus revealed to his three closest disciples this full, honest statement, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. And then the son of David is sounding more like David himself, who had written 1,100 years earlier in Psalm 42, verse five. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God. Psalm 42, five. Here, Jesus is describing that exact same kind of sorrow, very deep sorrowfulness. It would eventually give way to a calm trust in God as Father, but not yet, not in this garden. Here in verse 34, the turmoil for Jesus had not yet been relieved. He's just now describing it. My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. He's asked his disciples, therefore, remain here and watch. I'm going ahead a bit to pray because of his impending suffering and his impending death and receiving the wrath of God because he's received the sins of us, which all of this Jesus had been predicting and now is bearing down on him in this moment. So in verse 35, he does go a few paces ahead and falling to the ground. What is that? Where in the Bible do you find people falling on the ground to pray? It's not the posture of falling. maybe prostate on the ground, but falling down, it tells us something. It's not the posture of ordinarily daily prayers. Only when there's a supernatural event in the scriptures, such as the appearance of an angel from God with a special message, then with the appearance of the angel, the persons receiving this get scared and they're overcome with fear and they fall down. Things like that, they fall on the ground. So this posture of Jesus on the ground here is a different indicator It's along the same lines of what we've already been seeing. The depth of the emotions to Jesus, the realization of what he must now do is draining to him. It's heavy with suffering. And as verse 35 continued, our narrator Mark now summarized the prayer of Jesus, but he summarizes it differently than when he quotes Jesus in a moment in verse 36. Look at verse 35, he summarizes it without the imagery of the cup yet. Instead, here Mark wrote about Jesus asking for the passing of the hour. It's the same thing, the hour, the cup, but it's fascinating that Mark is summarizing it as the hour when Jesus is falling down on the ground to pray. And then, three times over, we get what Jesus actually prayed in reference to the cup. So the amazement of Jesus at his required suffering, we're getting the sense of what the motion is. This is all the access we have to what Jesus was going through. Brings us to our second point, verse 36, the most famous of the verses here, submission of Jesus to his father. Now first, in verse 36, the word father should stand out. The Jews at that time didn't have an established practice of referring to the God of heaven as father. It would be far too intimate, almost disrespectful. They thought of God as so high and transcendent they wouldn't use the word Father, but Jesus had the word Father as his normal practice in prayer. In fact, Jesus here added yet another word before the word Father, the word Abba. It's a word of intimacy unparalleled in Jewish literature and therefore authentically showed the unique sense of intimacy that Jesus alone as the Son of God had with God the Father. And please know, modern American listeners, there's nothing childish about this word Abba and the special relationship that was implied by it from an adult son to his father. For example, it was a word, this word Abba, that students would often use to address their own rabbi. Adult students who are following a rabbi would address him as Abba or rabbi in other terms. Perhaps the most important thing to remember, I haven't said it this way yet, but I hope you got the message, that the word Abba is not the same as our word daddy. Not in how we use the word. because it's usually only young children that refer to their father as daddy, and when they get older, they stop using that term. So it can't be the equivalent term here. Rather, it's a term for the respectful, grown-up closeness of an adult son in a family in which the father was the highest living authority figure. So the fact that Jesus chose this word Abba at this suffering moment and said, Abba, Father, was striking and unparalleled because no one thought of themselves as being that close to God in heaven. Later, the phrase, of course, became common for us. It's taken over by the followers of Jesus. We, who are Christians, love this truth. We adore and are benefited, blessed by this truth. It's wonderful, but at this point, it was new. The new relationship of the individual believer with the God of heaven is only possible because Jesus came, because Jesus prayed this, and because he went farther and died and rose again to give us that close access. So it's maybe a bit too common for us to appreciate this passage. On this is then built what Paul writes, for example, Romans 8, 15, you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father, so we can go ahead and pray it. And again, Galatians 4, verse 6, because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So it's wonderful, absolutely wonderful. But my job tonight is to show you this passage. And in this passage, it should shock you that Jesus would say that. Why would Jesus introduce this phrase with two words, Abba, Father, and what did that mean? The fact that Jesus appealed to the God of heaven as his father in this intimate way was based on two assumptions. The first assumption was that since all things were possible for God his father, which he then goes on to say here in verse 36, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. He literally says that. That's how I know that that's what he means. All things are possible for God the Father. All things being what? For example. How about the thing he mentions next? That the cup could be taken from him. Is that possible? He just said all things are possible. It is possible for him to be spared the hour, to use a language from verse 35. It is possible for the cup to be taken from him, to use the language of Jesus' prayer in verse 36. It is possible for Jesus to be spared the cross. That's an assumption here. It's just that you wouldn't have any redemption. No sinners would be saved then. But the second assumption in verse 36 that tells us why Jesus chose the words Abba, Father, that leads us to understand Jesus' introduction to this phrase was that this God in heaven had a will for God the Son on earth to accomplish, and the will of God the Father was to be accepted by prayer rather than altered by prayer. So one way for the Father and the Son to be aligned would be for God the Father to bend to the request of the Son and have the cup be removed. Okay, Son, I'll remove the cup. However, What ought to happen in the universe, what ought to happen in every home and every institution, is that the people follow the highest authority, and the highest authority here is God the Father. So the Son ought to follow the Father. The Son ought to submit to the will of the Father. Jesus ought to bend to the Father and drink the cup instead of the Father bending to the Son and take the cup away. Is there any other way for sinners to be redeemed besides Jesus drinking this cup? Remember Genesis 22, while Abraham had the knife over Isaac? Isaac the son was spared because the Lord promised to provide an alternative sacrifice. Another way was found. The ram was provided, remember? Isaac was spared. How about Gethsemane this night? Heaven's silent. There's no other way. There's no alternative sacrifice waiting in the thicket. In fact, the only way that Isaac was spared is not the ram, but the ram pointed ahead to the actual sacrifice was yet needed. Jesus is the substitute by which Isaac could be preserved so many years prior. Jesus is the only sacrifice by which Isaac could be preserved. Jesus is the only sacrifice by which anyone could be preserved. The ram and the thicket didn't cleanse the sin of Isaac. It pointed ahead to the lamb that would. The only lamb that cleanses any of our sins. So when Jesus finally came, And then the hour came for Jesus to undertake what it takes to cleanse us of our sins. There is no substitute for Jesus to do this. No one else can drink this cup. There's no other way for redemption to be accomplished other than Him to go through with it. There's no other way. This cup, drunk by this Savior, This cross endured by this obedient son of God. There's no other way, son. Jesus didn't want to just take the easy way out to serve himself, preserve himself, and not accomplish the mission of redemption. Therefore, he's willing to drink the cup. The worst ordeal that any human has ever had to go through. And Jesus, in this prayer, more and more accepting the cup of suffering. And it wasn't easy. Fully accepting the cup of wrath, wrath of God the Father for the sins of others. How am I supposed to stand here and do justice to what he's facing? How can I even explain it to you? How can I understand it myself? Jesus was in complete agreement with God the Father to redeem these sinners in this manner because it's the only way we could be redeemed from our sins. and from our own deaths. Submission of Jesus to his father. We move to our third point, the disappointment of his companions. From this point forward, there's a shift in the passage and emphasis from Jesus now to the failure of the three disciples. Jesus walks back three times from his prayer spot to where the disciples were. Why did he come back? To wake them, to warn them. He's still their shepherd, their rabbi. He wants them to do well, up against danger, spiritual danger, so he wants to wake them and warn them of spiritual danger. In verse 37, Jesus rebuked Peter specifically, and this was because of Peter's recent promise of loyalty to death. Remember, verses 29 to 31? Already, Peter had not done well in fulfilling the promise that he made there, so in verse 37, Jesus asked Peter, could you not? and here he uses the word for strength, were you not able? Knowing that Peter didn't lack the strength, Peter didn't lack the stamina, he could have physically stayed awake and prayed, that wasn't the problem, but Peter just didn't. He didn't follow through and he didn't actually do it. He didn't pray, he didn't stay awake. Peter lacked the sheer loyalty. Peter lacked the sheer commitment, the very things that Peter had just vowed emphatically to provide. In verse 31, it's a test and he failed. Verse 38, all of his disciples then failed. Failed to stay awake, failed in staying watchful. The other two that are here and all the disciples back farther, the disciples had fallen in temptation when they literally fell asleep on the job. It was a test of prayer and they failed. Later they'll be tempted to run away. How do you think they'll do in the second test if they failed the first test? Because they failed this test of prayer, they'll also fail their next test. I'll tell you the secret. Look ahead, verse 50. It's another sermon. They all left him and fled. They failed the next test because they failed this test. Jesus now implicating not merely one failure, Peter, but also all of the failed disciples said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. We all lack follow through. We're unable to actually perform in real time the loyalty that we said we would do, the loyalty that we said we would follow through on, the loyalty that we think we have, that we think we can provide. We all mess it up. The Apostle Peter, or Paul, later wrote a lot more about the Spirit and the flesh. But Mark only mentioned it here this once. It always gets passed over because we're focused on, not my will, thy will be done. But in this passage is also this amazing statement, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. The spirit is that part inside of us that wants to do right, wants to be noble. I think there's a noble person inside of each of us, right? I want to be heroic. I want to aspire someone to be the best human being. that they can be, but there's also that flesh part inside of us that's too easily content to take the easy way out, to prefer my own comfort over standing for a principle, doing what's best for Christ and for others, instead of doing what's best for self. That whole spirit-flesh battle is just right there in a nutshell and fleshed out in the New Testament epistles. We move on to verse 39, where Jesus again went and prayed, saying the same words. What words, what same words? From verse 36, it goes like this. Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. The same words from verse 36 were prayed again in verse 39. Let that be a lesson to us. something to learn from prayer. Jesus is starting all over again in his praying in order to keep overcoming his desire to bypass this. He wants to stay on task, stay on what the Father wants him to do. He needs to keep praying about it. Meanwhile, the disciples are starting all over again, succumbing to prayerlessness and literal sleepiness. Nap number two. In verse 40, we have it confirmed that after their eyes were heavy, the disciples were not involved in spiritual warfare, which was the need of the hour. If there ever was an hour where spiritual warfare was the situation, that was it, and they missed it. Mark wrote in verse 40 that those three disciples did not know what to answer Jesus. Right. He came and found them sleeping a second time. What are they supposed to say? There's nothing to be said. Verse 41, for a third time. Same sequence, happened all over again a third time. Mark just presents it with less words here. We understand that the disciples had gone to sleep a third time, the response of Jesus was recorded, but there's a difference now, a third time around. It seems that Jesus, who was awake, may have heard the sounds of an approaching or resting group, you know, they come with swords and they sort of make a little noise. The difference this third time around is now Jesus knows he's finished praying. It's not the hour of prayer anymore. Now it's the hour of being arrested. No longer requested his disciples to stay awake with him in prayer now. Rather, the time of prayer is over. The sudden hour for his cup. The sudden hour for his betrayal. The sudden hour for his arrest. Leading to his crucifixion. It's time. It's time. Verse 42, Jesus said they must get up and get going. Get going where? Wouldn't you expect them to get up and run away from the arresting group? Oh, they're coming this way, let's go this way. No, just the opposite. Jesus has fortified himself in prayer in order to go through with it. He's moving toward the arrest. He's intended to get up and get going towards the arrest. He's fortified in prayer. He had every intention to now drink this cup. He's in agreement with his father. There's no turning back now. He's determined to go through with the events just as the scriptures have predicted, just as he himself has predicted three times to his disciples. He will get going. He will meet the arrest. He will allow himself to be arrested. He will allow himself to be betrayed. He will allow himself to be spat upon and even killed. And on the third day, he will rise. Third time Jesus comes back to the disciples is different because Jesus had fully accepted the Father's will to drink the cup of suffering, the cup of wrath for your sins and mine. He had been strengthened in prayer in his human nature to go ahead and fulfill this most arduous of tasks. He was ready to fulfill all of scripture. He soon courageously would face death in order to cleanse our sins, including the sins just committed by the disloyal, sleeping, prayerless three disciples succumbing to the weakness in the flesh. Those sins too will be covered in his blood. The disappointment in the disciples wasn't even the worst part of Gethsemane. The worst part of Gethsemane was Jesus being forsaken by God the Father, as it had to be. God the Father knew it had to be this way to redeem sinners. God the Son knew it had to be this way to redeem sinners. Still hurts. All his life, whenever Jesus turned to God the Father in prayer, the father met him there and flooded Jesus with love through the Holy Spirit. For Jesus to pray to God his father was like a replay of the scene of his baptism when a voice from heaven, which is the father's voice, says, you're my beloved son, with you I'm well pleased, Mark 111. All through his life, whenever Jesus turned to God the father in prayer, it was a repeat of the scene of his transfiguration. Mark 9, where by the way, Jesus took the exact same three disciples up the mountain and they're the ones who heard the voice of the Father come out of the cloud and say, this is my beloved Son, listen to him. All his life when he prayed, that's his reception from the Father in heaven. They're like this, Father and Son. But not in Gethsemane. In Gethsemane, when Jesus turned to God the Father in prayer, all he could see was the needful poisonous cup and the sturdy will of God the Father holding it out to him. Take this cup. And that the Father insists that Jesus drink it all down to the dregs, the prophets tell us. In the quiet of Gethsemane, increasingly alone, Jesus was already beginning to experience the spiritual disintegration that soon would happen in full, when Jesus would really be separated from his Father on the cross in full darkness. Soon, Jesus would express it this way in Mark 15, 34, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The hardest part of Gethsemane was not the disappointment of the disciples. It was the anticipation of the tidal wave of God's wrath against our sins coming towards Jesus. Galatians 3.13, Paul puts it so succinctly, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. The curse began in Gethsemane. Our Savior was forsaken by all and prayed alone. That's what Gethsemane means. Two concluding applications to us. Number one, pray for God to help you face your own suffering as his will for you. Pray for God to help you face your own suffering as his will for you. We do not repeat Gethsemane. You don't have your own mini-Gethsemane. That's not what I'm saying. That's not what the Bible says. That's not this application point. But we do follow and imitate the Savior who went to Gethsemane and there accepted the cup. In 1 Peter 2.21 we're told in scripture, Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that what? So that you might follow in his steps. One thing we're learning from Gethsemane is to stop shrinking back from the prospect of your own suffering. face it head on and say, I can't do this without you, Father. Equip me, strengthen me, help me. How do you do that? By persistent praying. You don't pray once. You come right back to it and say the whole thing all over again. As soon as you lose steam, go right back to it and say it all over again. Jesus prayed three times here to stay aligned with the will of the Heavenly Father for His suffering. We need to keep praying in order to stay aligned with the will of the Heavenly Father for our suffering. You don't always need to pray new, fresh things. Pray the exact same thing you prayed before and keep on praying it. when it's real and it's from our hearts. I mean, faithful in prayer when your heart is breaking and you feel alone. Jesus prayed faithfully in Gethsemane for us when his soul was very sorrowful unto death, which prepared for him then to be faithful at Calvary, where he actually was put to death. Remain faithful when your heart is breaking, you feel alone, pray for God to help you face your own suffering as his will for you. Second last application, become more thankful for the cup of salvation. We will never have to drink the cup of wrath. That alone should make you praise and sing from your heart. But on top of that, we get the cup of salvation, the cup of blessing. One good thing after another. Is your life not filled with blessings already? The best is yet to come. Christ submitted to the Father and accepted the cup of suffering so that you can drink the cup of salvation and blessing. Drink it and be thankful. When the judgment of God comes to all persons and the cup of wrath gets passed around to all nations and to every single human being, when the cup is handed to you, the cup of wrath will be empty. He drank it to the dregs. There's not a single drop or frown from God the Father left for you. It will be full instead of sweet, rich flavor of God's love, his blessings that will never end. I think we need to be more thankful for the cup of salvation because Jesus was praying and accepting the cup of suffering for us. Psalm 116, 12, and 13 says, what shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I'll lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for sending your son.