The Loneliness of Jesus - Mark 14:32-42
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Copyright November 5, 2023 by Rev. Bruce Goettsche
This morning we look at a text that will likely leave us feeling sad and perhaps convicted. It is the account of the loneliness of Jesus as He prayed in the Garden.. It is also one of several accounts where we see the disciples' failure. This will likely leave us feeling convicted about our own shallow spiritual lives.
The events of the last number of weeks of messages have all focused on the last night of Jesus’ life. It was the night of the Passover meal. It was the night He was betrayed by Judas and arrested by what may have a combination of the religious leaders and a contingent of soldiers. (John is the only writer who mentioned soldiers). This was when the crucifixion story was hitting its crescendo.
Jesus had warned about this day for some time. The disciples didn’t seem to be able to comprehend what Jesus was saying because it was so foreign to everything they believed about the Messiah. Sometimes our brain cannot assimilate what it already believes cannot be true. It is a form of filtering out information you don’t believe (even when it is true).
Jesus announced he would be betrayed, then he told Peter that he would deny him three times before the night ended. He also said all the disciples would desert him. Jesus knew what was ahead. In the Garden, He prepared to face the next 24 hours.
With this context, let’s again read today’s text from Mark 14:32-42.
32 They went to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, “Sit here while I go and pray.” 33 He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became deeply troubled and distressed. 34 He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
35 He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. 36 “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
37 Then he returned and found the disciples asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? 38 Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
39 Then Jesus left them again and prayed the same prayer as before. 40 When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open. And they didn’t know what to say.
41 When he returned to them the third time, he said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But no—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”
Jesus is feeling the pressure. We see the struggle of the human part of the Lord. He knows that His strength will be found, as it always has been, in spending time with the Father in prayer. He really wants some company. I suspect, at this point, he felt very much alone. He asked the disciples to wait for Him while he prayed. He took Peter, James, and John, the leaders Jesus had poured His life into, and asked them to “keep watch with Him.”
Some Theological Issues
Before we go further in the text there are a couple of theological issues to look at. First, some would ask, “If Jesus was God, how could he be afraid?” The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus was fully God and fully man. Even saying this, seems like a contradiction. How can you possibly be two vastly different things at the same time?
This is what makes Jesus unique. He was the eternal God, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, yet, here He is asking them for help. What gives?
We know Jesus sometimes shared divine knowledge (like knowing Peter would deny Him but return). He had supernatural power and taught like a man with divine authority. Yet at the same time, Jesus is submissive to the Father. He at times, confesses there are things he does not know. (Like the time of the Second Coming). How could He (of all people) not know this if He is God?
The Philippians 2 passage tells us,
Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)
The passage tells us that Jesus “emptied himself and humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.” Jesus never stopped being the second person of the Trinity. However, he set aside those divine traits so He could become like us so He could sufficiently represent us and the sin we have committed.
I think the best way to sort of grasp this is as if Jesus took His godly prerogatives and placed them aside (or in trust) for a short period of time, so He could fully identify with us and qualify to serve as our just substitute. He never stopped being God, but He set aside those godly traits for this holy purpose. Another analogy would be playing basketball with your young children and you choose to play on your knees to level the playing field. You have not lost any height, you have chosen to limit your use of that height.
In this Garden account, we see the fully human part of Jesus wrestling with the reality that the eternal divine unity that existed between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will briefly involve the Father turning His wrath upon the Son to save those who had rebelled against God’s reign and rule.
The second theological question comes with Jesus asking for the cup to pass from Him. How could the divine Son of God want to abandon the plan of redemption that was put into place before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4)?
Again, Jesus who is fully human, is speaking as a human. Since Jesus walked the earth for three years with his rag-tag group of followers,
· He probably was not eager to face the torture that lay ahead at the cross.
· He may have felt the disciples were not ready.
· He may not want to leave them knowing the anguish they will go through.
· He may not want the pain of seeing them leave Him in the Garden.
These would be very human responses. I imagine, even at the end of life, when our body may be filled with disease and pain, I have to think there is still a part of us that will not want to die, because we don’t want to leave the people we love.
I think it is much more likely that Jesus is in agony because He did not want to face the loss of fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit for even three hours. The agony of that separation is something we can never fathom. There is nothing close to approximating that intimacy in our own lives.
The bottom line though is that each time Jesus prayed He concluded with “yet not my will, but yours be done.” He surrendered in perfect obedience. Being apprehensive about something is not sin unless it keeps you from obeying the Lord.
A Study in Contrasts
This text is a study in contrasts
· Jesus is agonizing to align His will with the Father; the disciples were content to mumble a few words while falling asleep.
· Jesus ends with submission to the Father; The disciples ran away.
· Jesus emphasized strengthening the Spirit; the disciples sought to rest the body.
I am not giving the disciples a hard time. What is embarrassing about their behavior is that it is so much like what I, based on present experience, would have been like.
Someone will ask, if the disciples were asleep, how did they know what Jesus said? Jesus prayed for a much longer time than we read about in the words of Mark. My guess? The disciples stayed awake just long enough to hear the beginning of Jesus’ prayer three different times! I would like to know what else Jesus said.
Stop for a second and think about how lonely Jesus must have felt in the Garden. He was agonizing over what was ahead. For what might have been the only time in His life, He asked the disciples to pray for Him and with Him. And they fell asleep. He was left to agonize alone.
How many of our friends have asked for our prayer support but we forget, fall asleep, or get preoccupied? They too are left to do battle alone.
Notice a couple of things. First, Jesus prayed with intensity. The Greek word here means “to be distressed, amazed.” Luke tells us that the sweat of Jesus was like drops of blood. It is the only time this phrase is used of Jesus in the New Testament.
When was the last time we prayed with real emotion? Perhaps it was in a deep crisis we desperately wanted to be fixed. When was the last time we prayed with deep emotion that our will would line up with that of the Father . . . even if it meant we wouldn’t necessarily get what we wanted?
Sometimes we consider intensity as the same as volume or theatrics. It is neither of these things. Intensity is our resolve to sit before the Lord until we have come to hear His will for our lives . . . and then until we are sure it is His will and not ours masquerading as His will.
The victory in this prayer time was getting to a place of submission . . . not getting what Jesus initially desired. This is important! We tend to see victory in prayer when God appears to give us what we want. We need to ask ourselves: Would we want to get what we want, even if it was not what God wanted for us? Would we call it a glorious answer to prayer if what we wanted was actually a detriment to our growth in Christ?
Some people say we should never pray, “Not my will, but yours be done.” They say it is a “weak prayer”. They point out that we are to come boldly to the throne of grace. May I point out that coming boldly is not the same thing as coming arrogantly, insisting God do what we want. We come boldly because God has invited us to come and reason with Him. However, there is no stronger prayer than “not my will but yours be done” IF WE MEAN IT! It is the highest expression of trust there is. It is in essence saying, “Lord, I trust you more than I trust me, or my understanding, or my feelings, or the circumstances. I don’t want to feel better as much as I want to be right where you want me to be.”
These are hard words to pray honestly. It is to walk away in a time of crisis and be able to say, “I trust Him no matter what happens.” This is not some hyperspiritual thing to say, it is the settled resolve of a heart that has wrestled with God and surrendered.
The Sleepy Disciples
I hope we want to be like Jesus. The reality is that we are much more like the disciples. Isn’t their experience your experience? You begin to talk to God in prayer,
· Your mind starts to drift to all kinds of stupid and unspiritual things.
· You are out of words in just a few minutes.
· You feel like your prayers are not getting even to the ceiling.
· You hate to admit it, but you get bored.
· You fall asleep.
There are times I can hear the Savior say, “Could you not watch with me for even ten minutes?” It sounds brutal, but isn’t it the truth?
We can make good excuses for the disciples: it had been a long night and was likely later in the evening. They had just had the Passover meal with the 4 glasses of wine, and we all like naps after we eat. And there is more: it had been an emotional roller coaster with all the talk of betrayal and bodies being broken. Such times are draining, and they were probably as mentally exhausted as they were physically exhausted.
But do you remember the example of Jesus? It seemed like every time Jesus finished a draining time of ministry or had a major decision, He went and spoke to the Father. He seemed to understand that when He was most depleted, He was also most vulnerable and needed to strengthen Himself by spending time with the Father.
I read the stories of people like Martin Luther, who would get up hours before his day to pray. And on the days when he knew it would be really busy, he got up a couple of hours even earlier. He knew and believed his strength was from the Lord . . . more than from a good night’s sleep.
We are faced with an even more focused question than last week: How do we learn how to pray so we are not bored, falling asleep, or repeating the same petitions day after day?
First, we must ask the Lord to help us pray and not faint. To think we can do this simply by coming up with some gimmicks is to underestimate the spiritual battleground of prayer. The first thing Satan does not want us to do is talk with the Father. He will throw up every barrier. No matter how creative our approach is, we are still fighting the Father of Lies with mere trinkets.
Early with Jesus, the disciples knew He went and talked to the Father often. I suspect they saw a change in Jesus when He returned. He was focused, clear on the task, and strengthened to do the job. That is why they asked Him to teach them to pray.
When Jesus rebuked Peter, James, and John for sleeping, I wonder what would have happened if the boys had said, “Lord, teach us to pray without falling asleep.” Wouldn’t you have loved to have received that instruction? We still can, but we have to ask.
Second, we need to want to be people who pray and not fizzle. We can ask the Lord all the questions we want, but His answers won’t do us any good if we have no real interest in putting them into practice.
1. Do we see the value of being persistent in prayer; and determined to get on the same page as our Father in Heaven?
2. Are we willing to work hard to be this kind of person?
3. Do we believe the Holy Spirit can, working in us, teach us how to talk with God in such a way that we hear Him and can talk things out with Him?
Third, we must see prayer as a discipline to be developed rather than a chore to endure. Praying well is not something that will happen naturally. Have you ever tried to start exercising? Your mind says “yes,” and your body says, “Nope.” We must pursue prayer so that the NO does not shake us. We must discipline ourselves to pray. Set a time each day. Have a list. Don’t leave the room until the time is up. This is not about how much time you spend . . . it is about what kind of honesty and intensity we bring to prayer.
We will not be good at this initially (think of early piano lessons). We have to keep practicing until we finally break out with a heartfelt and honest prayer. I remember those early lessons on the piano, my fingers were never where they were supposed to be. And that is the way prayer seems at times.
Again, this needs to be in the proper order: we need to ask the Lord to help us pray and not faint, and then we need to really want Him to change us so that we are hungry to talk with Him. Then, and only then, do we come at this in a disciplined way. It would be wise to confess, “Lord, here I am. There is so much to talk about. I want to walk on the path you have set for me. Help me to pay attention so I can find that path. Free my mind from distractions so I can focus on you.”
There are some simple and practical things we can do to help our prayer lives.
1. Keep a prayer list. Write down not only the people who have asked for prayer but write down the issues in your life that need the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. Bring that list with you into prayer. You don’t need to go through the whole list daily, but this will help us focus on the issues that must be addressed.
2. Keep some note paper nearby. When something pops into your head that could draw you away from prayer . . . jot it down. That way, you can address the issue when you are finished. Random thoughts or names that pop into your head may not be random . . . they may be the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Commit those things to prayer or write it down after you have finished talking with the Father.
3. When you drift or lose interest, confess that fact before the Lord (He already knows anyway!)
4. Tell God what you are feeling about life right now!
I have talked a lot about prayer these last two weeks. Like you, I want to be a better person at prayer. I do believe God will do amazing things if we ask and listen. I want His will in my life because I know it is best. But I confess it is a struggle. Perhaps we need to stop pretending we are good at this area of our lives so we can ask each other to support us as we learn how to pray and not faint (or fall asleep).