Mark 14:26-52
In tonight’s passage we will see that we (people) want to be strong, wish we were strong – but we are weak. Often we know the right thing to do, we want to do the right thing, but we don’t do it. It’s too hard, too costly, and so we chicken out, take the easy road.
We are weak.
And Jesus knows this. And still loves us.
Our weakness, our failure is not something we have to try to hide from him. Christianity is not about pretending you’re better than you are!
Because Jesus is strong. Although he was “greatly distressed and troubled” he still went through with his suffering and death on the cross, bearing the sins of the world – in order that he, the strong, can lift us, the weak, up.
And we can trust this message because the Scripture (the Bible) is true. What the Bible says will happen, happens. This is true truth.
Last week we saw why Jesus is strong enough to achieve this exodus, this rescue of weak people in slavery to sin. Jesus is the Christ (which means “anointed one”), because he is being anointed (by the woman pouring the perfume on his head). And he’s being anointed for his burial because he is the Passover Lamb, who dies to take away the sins of the people, so that they can be rescued from slavery to sin, and brought into right relationship with God.
Last week was probably a bit complicated and a bit dense - I got a bit excited and wanted you to see with me how all the threads of the Old Testament are coming together in Jesus at this moment! But instead of being exciting it may have sounded more like a textbook with 15 subpoints than a rousing call to praise and wonder! So let me sum it up by saying Jesus is the fulfilment of everything good in the Old Testament! Or as the Spirit Himself simply puts it in 2 Cor 1:20: In Jesus all of God’s promises are YES!
Jesus the King. Jesus the Passover Lamb. Jesus the Christ. He is strong. We are weak.
1. We are weak (27-32)
Our spirit is willing, but our flesh is weak. No matter how brave you are in other areas of life, when it comes to Jesus we are all weak. Our sinful nature rises up in us, fear takes hold, and we fall away. And Jesus knows this. God the Father knows this. The Spirit knows this.
27 And Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ 28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” 29 Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” 30 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” 31 But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.
How often do we see ourselves as better than we are? Especially us guys – we always want to do it alone, in our own strength. That’s the disciples, confidently asserting that they would rather die than deny Jesus. But a few hours later “50 And they all left him and fled.”.
I thank God for the disciples. Because they are real people like you and me. They make mistakes, they get things so wrong, they don’t understand, they are foolish, they are cowards – these are no super-spiritual giants, ticking all the right religious boxes! I mean Peter even tells Jesus off at one point, telling him he’s wrong. Oops.
And Jesus still loves them, still accepts them, still allows them to follow him – and uses them, makes them part of his great glorious work of salvation! And builds the church upon their weak and frail backs!
I heard someone tell a story about Jesus returning to Heaven after his resurrection. The angels are standing there singing praise, congratulating Jesus about his great work of salvation, his great achievement. All glory to the King!
But then one angel comes up to him and says
“uh, Jesus, I’ve got a question....”
“Yes?”
“Um, how are you, you know, going to get the message out? About what you’ve done? How are people going to hear about it”
Jesus points to the little band of weak and small disciples.
“Ah, hahaha, hmmm, yes, yes, them, yes. Do you, um, have any other plan?”
“No, no other plan.”
Don’t you love our God, who chooses the weak to shame the strong, who reveals truth to children and conceals it from the “wise”, who loves the unlovable and forgives the unforgiveable – even at the cost of his own life. Who builds his unstoppable church through people like you and me!
The God who is strong in our weakness.
“No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me. From life’s first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.”
What is it that you feel guilty about? Have you let Jesus down? Have you some secret sin which you could never reveal to anyone, certainly not Him? Do you sit awake sometimes in the dark watches of the night, your room closing in about you, as your thoughts accuse you “guilty! Guilty! Weak! You are no Christian! How dare you call yourself a Christian! Failure!”. Are you ashamed of boldly claiming to stand for Jesus “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” – only to shrink away in denial when the time came?
Well, welcome to the human race! This is us. We are not righteous. We do not seek God.
But, thankfully he seeks us. He knows our weakness. He knows our shame. He knows our guilt. And he has covered it with his blood.
It is gone.
No guilt in life, no fear in death!
Confess your sins with joy, not fear, for he knows and has forgiven you!
Jesus knew hundreds of years before that the disciples would fail him. Through his Spirit he wrote the words that he quoted in v27 ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ from Zechariah 13:7. The last time we heard a quote from Zechariah was during the triumphal entry, Jesus, the King, riding in on a donkey. Rejoice O Zion! But now the King, the Shepherd, will be struck and the sheep scattered. This is all part of God’s plan (“I will strike” is God speaking) to bring about his purposes: the big themes in Zechariah are the LORD returning to his Temple, and blessing the whole world through “Jerusalem” – the new people of God.
And here is the King, ready to be struck, the sheep, bleating their cries of “we will not be scattered” – but He will be struck and they scattered. But have no fear, for Jesus will bring them together again in Galilee “28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”, where he began his ministry, this time the risen, victorious Christ, giving them power to enable them to do the works he has given them to do: to spread the word about Jesus, his victory over sin and death, and forgiveness for all who come to him. No guilt, no shame, but forgiveness, acceptance, and a new way of living, a new purpose, a new goal: the glory of God Almighty.
We may not be the best Christian in the world – but we have the best Christ! Where we are weak, he is strong. So trust him. He will hang on to you. His grip will not fail. You are secure in him.
2. Jesus is strong
33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 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.”
The night in the garden was the worst of Jesus’ life. Here before him lay the final choice: to go through with torture and death, and worse, face the anger, the wrath, of the Father as he carries our sins to the cross; or to turn aside, to call down myriads of angels to fight for him, to be carried up in glory to his rightful place in the throne room of heaven. What would you have chosen?
Like Jesus, greatly distressed and troubled – what would you have done?
Like Jesus, saying “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” – so deeply full of sorrow you feel like you’re going to die, simply because of sorrow, of dread of what is to come – what would you have done?
Like Jesus, throwing yourself before God Almighty in prayer, begging him to get you out of this, open another way “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me.” – what would you have done?
Well, we know what Jesus DID. He did not fall away. He did not yield to temptation. He did not fall asleep but prayed for strength. He did not turn back. Instead he prays the most remarkable prayer in the Bible, and the prayer that should be echoed in the heart of everyone who follows Jesus, everyone who calls themselves a Christian, in every area of our lives because we belong to him: “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (v36)
Not my will, but yours be done. That is the cry of a heart yielded up to God. Jesus here is the perfect human being, willing to do whatever the Father asks in order to glorify him. We were created to bring him glory – that is our purpose and our destiny. We are to reflect back to God his beauty, his splendour, his majesty, crying out with every action, every thought, every prayer, every word spoken, at work, at home, in the garden, up on the mountain: you are glorious, you are holy, you are amazing. Your will be done.
We pray that in the Lord’s Prayer, don’t we? “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.” That doesn’t mean out there somewhere, distant from us – no we’re praying that his will is done in our lives, we’re praying that we would yield to his will, praying that we would not fall into temptation and follow Satan along the path of comfort and death, but Jesus along the hard path – but glorious and fulfilling and the path of life eternal.
But what we will face will never be anything near what Jesus faced. And we never face it alone, but our great high priest, who knows our weakness, is always with us.
Jesus, though, was alone. His sheep were about to be scattered, which he knew. He was about to be arrested, which he knew “the hour has come”. And he was about to drink the Cup. In the Old Testament the Cup was often used as a symbol of God’s judgement on sin. For example Jer 25:15-29 says Thus the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. 16 They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them...You shall not go unpunished, for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the LORD of hosts. Similarly Jer 49, Isaiah 51, and Psalm 75:8.
Set before Jesus was that cup. A foaming cup of poisonous punishment. Anger upon anger, wrath upon wrath, poured out for the sins of the world from all of time and space all gathered into one concentrated poisonous dose. Like a witches’ brew – but a thousand, a million, a trillion times worse. We will never know what Jesus knew he was facing.
But he faced it.
Three times he prayed for steely resolve to drink this cup to its last drop. And he did not falter, did not stop. Arise, he says, my betrayer is at hand. He did not run, did not call down legions of angels to defend him, did not use his awesome power to simply swat away the soldiers who had come to arrest him. He had prayed. He was at peace. Not my will, but yours, Father.
We may be weak, but Jesus is strong.
3. Scripture is truth
It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” 43 And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. 44 Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man. Seize him and lead him away under guard.” 45 And when he came, he went up to him at once and said, “Rabbi!” And he kissed him. 46 And they laid hands on him and seized him. 47 But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. 48 And Jesus said to them, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.” 50 And they all left him and fled. 51 And a young man followed him, with nothing but a long linen shirt about his body. And they seized him, 52 but he left the shirt and ran away naked.
Jesus offers no resistance to his arrest - in fact he goes out to meet them. No playing hide and seek amongst the trees. No fighting. No running. One of the disciples gets it wrong – hacking off someone’s ear. He should have prayed – he’s totally on the wrong page! And then when Jesus simply gives himself up, terror grips them all and, just as Jesus prophesied in v27, quoting Zechariah’s prophecy from hundreds of years before, the sheep do indeed scatter: v50“they all left him and fled”. One disciple, a “young man” who is probably Mark, the writer of this gospel, was so frightened that when the soldiers grabbed him by his long shirt he just tore it off and fled away naked into the night.
They all abandon Jesus. The spirit was willing “I will die for you Jesus!” – but the flesh was weak. But Jesus, the perfect man, prayed, was strengthened, and did not fall away. Where we are weak, he is strong.
Friends, let me remind you that this is true. This is true truth, Rock solid. Dependable. Listen to verse 49 again Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.
All this is happening according to Scripture. This was written down hundreds of years before so that we would KNOW that it is true. We would KNOW that Jesus is truly the Messiah, the Christ, the Rescuer – and our King. The Bible is not one book written by some old dude in a tower. It’s a library (so the name “Bible” from the Latin biblia meaning library): 66 books written by 40 authors, written over 1500 years. So hundreds of years before Jesus, men were writing, inspired by the Holy Spirit, about what he would be doing and what he would be saying. Isn’t that amazing?
Last week I showed you how all the different promises of God all come together in Christ. The Temple is Christ, the Passover Lamb is Christ. He does what the Servant in Isaiah does. He does what the King in Zecahriah does. He is the LORD coming to his Temple from Malachi. Again and again we see that Jesus fulfils Scripture. Someone counted up all the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled – somewhere between 300 and 400, depending on how you count (some people count one verse saying two things as two prophecies, others one)! And Jesus fulfilled all of them. Every single one. Statistically impossible to do by random chance – the only way to fulfill these prophecies is if you are the one who was prophesied!
Have assurance. This is true.
We may be weak, but Jesus is strong. He knows our weakness, knows our guilt – and has covered it. Pray without fear. Pray without guilt. Come to him knowing your darkest secrets are covered. And walk in new life, to his praise and glory. Hooray for Jesus!
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