The Book of Mark #92 chapter 14:32-42, pt 3
The Book of Mark
The Agony of the Cup, pt 2
Mark 14:32-42
 
 
We began last week a look at the experience of the Lord and His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane on the evening of His arrest.  Let’s read it again and let it sink into our hearts. 
 
Mark 14:32-42
 
We looked first of all at
 
  1. The Affliction
 
I don’t think we have any way to fully comprehend the intensity of what happens in this garden prayer time.  In fact, Scripture tells us that Jesus is already felling the pangs of death.  Luke tells us that an angel comes to minister to Him as His body reacts to the horrific thought of becoming sin and experiencing what He has never experienced before. 
 
Mark them moves to the actual words Jesus speaks.  Let’s call it
 
2.  The Petition
 
Verses 35-36
 
He was saying, “Abba, Father,” Abba meaning papa or daddy. It’s a term of familiarity. No Jew would ever even call God Father, let alone call Him Abba. But that’s exactly what Jesus calls Him. 
There is this affectionate, intimate, personal relationship with God that is expressed in that term.  It is as if He is pleading for that intimate love to rescue Him.
 
And notice, He says, “All things are possible for You”.  And theoretically that is true.  That is an absolute fact. All things are possible for God. There is nothing that God doesn’t have the power to do, and the privilege to do, and the prerogative to do. He can do whatever He wants in all the earth.  We believe that.  Scripture teaches that.
 
But while that is true theoretically, it is not true actually. God couldn’t allow Him to miss the cross. When He says, “All things are possible for You, remove this cup from Me”, that is a problem. If He doesn’t go to the cross, then we have some big problems. Satan wins. Heaven is empty. Hell is full. The Bible isn’t true. The promises of God are lies. There is no salvation.
 
Theoretically, God can do anything He wants, but way back in eternity, God put Himself on record that salvation will come through blood sacrifice. “Without the shedding of blood, there’s no forgiveness of sins.” God can’t go back on His Word. And while God can do anything He wants to do, one thing He cannot do and will not do is do what He says He would never do or not do what He said He would do. He is never inconsistent with His promises.
 
And yet, Jesus makes this request, and there is no mistaking what He is asking for. “Remove this cup from Me” carried an unmistakable message.  The “cup” is a symbol from the Old Testament of divine wrath, the cup of wrath.
You see that in Psalm 11; Psalm 75; Isaiah 51; Jeremiah 25; Isaiah 51; Jeremiah 25; Jeremiah 49; Lamentations chapter 4, other places. “Let this cup of wrath pass from Me, remove it.”
 
Our Lord referred to it earlier.  Back in Matthew 20:22, as Jesus was talking to the disciples who wanted to be elevated. He said, “Can you drink the cup that I’m about to drink?”
 
In John 18:11, He said, “The cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?” All three references are to the same “cup” and it is not dying.  He’s not asking to not have to die.  He is asking if there is any way to die and not have to experience the wrath of God.  As we saw last week, that was something He had never experienced and didn’t want to experience.   
 
And as I pondered that, I tried to wrap my head around the fact that He had perfect knowledge so He, better than anyone could, understood the intensity of that wrath.  He had perfect holiness, so He better than anyone could understand the justification for the wrath.  And He yet in perfect humanity, fully man, everything within Him resisted what He knew was coming. 
 
And He did know it was coming. in John 12:27, He said, “My soul is troubled.” Why is the Lord troubled?  He’s thinking about what is coming.  He continues, “And what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour. But for this purpose I came into this world.”
 
He knew what was coming and now He ponders the thought of asking that it not happen.  He said, “Am I going to ask that?” And guess what? He did!
That’s exactly what He requests.  But then He answers His own question. 
 
“Yet not what I will, but what You will.” Not what I will, but what You will.”  In the end, that’s what He always said. He said over and over, “I only do what the Father tells Me, shows Me, desires of Me, and what I see the Father do, I follow only His direction.” It’s because, as He said when He was twelve years old, “I must be about My Father’s business.”
 
Well, in the horrors of that agonizing struggle, He starts to think about the disciples. Amazing. And that takes us to a third scene.  We see affliction, petition, and now,
 
3. The Exhortation
 
 Verse 37
 
It’s interesting, isn’t it that He calls Peter by his old name of Simon.  Why is that?  I think it’s because he’s acting like his old self. He always called him his old name when he acted like his old self. It’s the equivalent of your momma using your middle name!
 
And even though we can’t be completely sure of the tone of voice He uses, you get the idea there is something of a rebuke in his question and comments regarding their sleeping. 
 
And I think there is a temptation for us to take the side of the disciples.  After all, it had been long day, it’s in the middle of the night. They’ve just had a big meal and walked up the hill, and after all, they’re just waiting on Him.  They don’t know what’s going on. 
And Luke adds a little detail that often goes unnoticed, when he says in 22:45, they were sleeping “from sorrow”.
 
Things were not going the way they wanted them to go. Where was the Kingdom? Where was all the glory they anticipated? And now there’s a betrayer among them and he’s gone off to do his dirty deed and they’ve been told that they’re going to stumble and deny Him. 
 
It just doesn’t make any sense.  This is not what was supposed to happen.  And to make matters worse, Jesus keeps talking about dying and everybody knows the Jewish leaders want to be rid of Him. 
This is not what they expected.
 
And so to escape all that, they lay down and go to sleep.  Sleep becomes their tranquilizer. 
 
So in verse 38, the Lord gives them a warning. 
 
Verse 38
 
Don’t you understand the danger you are in? Keep alert and praying. Again, that’s an old message.  That’s already been covered in the lesson plan. Early in His ministry, He instructed them to pray that they would not be “led into temptation”.  They knew the Lord expected them to watch and pray and be alert and be on their guard. 
 
Peter must have eventually learned that lesson because he wrote in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be on the alert, because your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
Nobody knew that better than did Peter!  He had been devoured, turned into a sniveling denier because he stayed alert and watched and prayed.  Instead, he trusted in his own strength.
 
But good intentions and human willpower aren’t enough. So the Lord adds this simple lesson, “The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.”
 
The new man, the regenerate nature, the inner man has noble aspirations, but the flesh is weak. That means the old man can never accomplish spiritual victories. We have to depend on a power from beyond ourselves.  What did Paul say in Galatians 2:20?  The life why I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
 
The flesh can never do what God demands and desires. That’s why God gave us the Ten Commandments.  If you need any evidence that the flesh is weak, then just try to keep the Ten Commandments.  It is impossible.  The Law was given to remind us that the flesh is weak.  That’s what lead paul to declare, “O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from this body of death?”
 
The old man wants one thing and the new man wants another and there is this war and turmoil and angst between the two.  And even though the Spirit, the new man, the converted life, is willing and wants to do right, it is impossible outside of the Spirit of God taking over our lives and doing in and through us what we can never do ourselves. 
 
 
And isn’t it amazing that in the midst of the most horrific experience He’s ever experienced, He is concerned about these guys and how they are dealing with the pressures of the experience. 
 
And yet, that is exactly what we would expect from a sympathetic, merciful, compassionate High Priest.  In the middle of a supernatural struggle of epic proportions, incomprehensible to us, He interrupts His prayer time and goes out to His followers because he’s concerned about their spiritual vulnerability. 
 
By the way, that is a reminder to those of us who may be wondering whether in the busyness of Jesus’ activities in life He forgets you, don’t worry!  He’s got you covered!  No matter how intense the struggle, He has you in His heart.
 
In verse 39, He returns to His prayer, and notice He prays repetitiously. It is not vain repetition, but according to verse 39, when He continues praying, He uses the same words He spoke back in verse 36.
 
Now I am confident it wasn’t just a one-time casual repeating of the phrases as though they were being read from a prayer book.  He repeated those words.  He agonized over the request.  This is an extended time of beseeching the Heavenly Father in an intimate, personal, heart-wrenching time of prayer that is only interrupted as He checks on and ministers to His followers. 
 
And in verse 40, He stops again and returns a second time. 
 
Verse 40
What could they say?
 
And reading between the lines, He went a third time to pray, and returned in verse 41 to them a final time.
 
Verse 41
 
And there we see the final scene.  We’ve seen His affliction, His petition, His exhortation and finally ,
 
4.  The Submission
 
The temptation and struggle is over.  It’s all been settled as He yields to the will of the Father.  He is resolved triumphantly, majestically, unhesitatingly to do what His Father has asked Him to do, He’s going to go to the cross.
 
And notice, right in the middle of verse 41, He says, “It is enough.” That is very akin to the declaration form the cross, “It is finished.”
 
The temptation is over, the struggle is finished, the prayer is completed and the hour has come. And the proof is, Behold!  Look!  The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.”
 
What did He mean by that? And even as He spoke up there on the Mount of Olives, down in Jerusalem, they were putting a coalition of forces together.  It was made up of the religious leaders, the Sanhedrin of Israel, and assorted other dignitaries and followers of Judaism religion, the temple police and a troop of Roman soldiers numbering perhaps as many as 600.  Perhaps altogether, there were as many as 1,000 men who came for the Lord. 
So how did they know when and where to look? How would they know Jesus would be in this obscure garden in the middle of the night?  Jesus tells us in
 
Verse 42
 
The cup is now in His hands and He is not trembling. He stands, bloody sweat coursing down His exhausted face, soaking His clothes.  He is bloodied but unbowed and He gives the triumphant order, “Get up. Let’s be going.”
 
Now the rest of the story, beginning at verse 43, is very important and we’re going to look at that another time. 
 
Tonight I want to close with this:
 
What is it that would cause Jesus to face death as He did?  Why would He get up from this very emotional prayer time and then intentionally greet His captors and voluntarily to His death? 
 
For the answer, let’s look at
 
Hebrews 5:7
 
What does that mean? He entrusted Himself to God who was able to save Him from death and would do so because He was holy. In other words, Jesus trusted the promise of resurrection. God would save Him from death. He wouldn’t prevent the death.  He would save Him out of it. This is a reflection of Psalm 16:10, a prophetic statement concerning Christ that says this, “You will not let Your holy one see corruption, but will show Him the path of life.”
The promise of the resurrection, that His body would not corrupt in a grave, but it would be raised. So with supplications and loud crying and tears, He prayed to the one able to save Him from death who heard Him because He was the Holy One.
 
And on that Sunday morning, raised Him from the death. Romans 1:3 and 4 says, “The Father raised Him, thus declaring Him to be the Son of God with power through the resurrection.”
 
God would raise Him because He was the Holy One. It was our Lord’s trust in the Father’s promise of resurrection, Psalm 16, and the Father’s power of resurrection that enabled Him to accept this from His Father, go to the cross and look past it to His own resurrection.
 
And that is our promise as well.
 
Let’s pray.