If last week’s sermon was all about Peter, this week’s is all about Jesus. Where we saw last week Peter’s walk off the cliff from devotion to denial – and then, the power of Jesus’ redeeming grace – this week is a look at the full mystery of the incarnation. Here, we see Jesus manifesting his full divinity in the institution of the Lord’s supper and then manifesting his full humanity in his obedient prayer in the Garden.
Let me cut to the chase and tell you that today is all about instilling or renewing your awe for the overwhelming love of God in Christ Jesus. When we spend time dwelling on the mystery and wonder of God – that God is mindful of us and cares for us at all – we cannot help but be humbled and awestruck; literally, struck with awe.
As we begin, I want to remind you that we are in a narrative Mark has carefully constructed. We move back and forth between the disciples falling away and deserting and Jesus’ investing more and more deeply into his Passion – that is, his suffering sacrifice and atonement for sinners.
I know we have been working through Mark for more than a year, but these last weeks have been noticeably more intense. As Jesus journeyed towards Jerusalem, there is a growing sense of conflict, of tension, of the impression that something cataclysmic is coming down the pike. I get that sense every time I read through Mark. For about five or six years, during the week between Palm Sunday and Easter, I have read aloud the Passion narrative from each of the gospels devotionally. What has struck me each year was how it seems to start out slowly, but then picks up speed and grinds on and on and on. Each time you want to say, “Wait, stop! Can’t we just slow this down a minute? Take a moment and think about what is happening! Couldn’t someone just step back and see where this was headed and avoid it?”
The answer is, “no.” This was God’s plan. Jesus predicted it. Multiple times, Jesus told the disciples that this was going to happen. He was not speaking metaphorically or hyperbolically, but specifically.
The lead-in to our text today was Jesus’ prediction of Judas’ betrayal. Jesus turns from having said, “It would have been better for that one not to have been born,” to the Lord’s supper. “While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” “Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. 24 He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”
I. The Lord’s Supper
Last summer, I preached on the meaning of communion and why we continue to celebrate it (July 7, 2019 if you want to find it). Today, I want to look less at the mechanics and deeper meaning behind communion and focus on the one instituting it.
The words of communion are familiar to us. I sometimes worry that the words of the communion invitation have become like a commercial where the disclaimer language is spoken rapidly. Familiarity tends to lead us to complacency – as if communion were a normal thing. We know they are meaningful and we know they are important in understanding what is happening when we “do this in remembrance of me.”
But though it is more than this, communion is the institutional remembering of something much more personal. This was the Passover meal; and Jesus was celebrating the Passover meal with his closest disciples. The Passover meal was a re-living and a re-telling of the meal in which the blood of the sacrificial lamb was spread across the doorposts of the Jewish homes so that the angel of death would pass over as judgment fell on Pharaoh and Egypt. It was the LORD – Yahweh – I Am – who was taking action to redeem His people from bondage and slavery. This was not a dispassionate God who was far away waving his hand and making bad things go away. This was a passionate God who revealed his hand working in and through history to accomplish things that were not possible for humans.
Just as Passover was a very personal revelation of God in Moses’ time, so also was this meal for Jesus. To be sure, Jesus had not been hiding his messianic identity. His teaching, his deeds of power, his fulfilling prophetic scriptures all had been evidence of who he was. The enemy this time was not the Egyptians or even the Romans. The enemy this time – as it says in Ephesians 6 – was not flesh and blood (though flesh and blood would factor into Jesus’ suffering and death) – but rather but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
It was the enemy Jesus faced alone. Like Peter, we cannot count ourselves as allies in this aspect of Jesus’ work. “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) The disciples did not walk this road with Jesus, they scattered. We do not walk this road with Jesus, we too flee the consequence of our sin to the places we think will hide us from judgment.
To see the heart of God, you need to see this: unlike the Passover in Moses’ day, Jesus did not sacrifice a lamb. Jesus was himself the Lamb. Jesus re-cast the meaning of the Passover meal. He had the authority to re-cast the meaning of the meal because he was God’s anointed. He was the Son of God. He was the promised messiah. It is difficult to imagine that the disciples understood all of what was happening at the time, but when they remembered his words after his resurrection, it became clear that he had been revealing to them God’s incredible love. Jesus was not the manifestation of a dispassionate God who is far away waving his hand to make bad things go away. Jesus was the physical incarnation of the passionate God who revealed his hand working in and through history.
What was taking place was the realization of the teaching Jesus had been proclaiming since the very beginning: “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near.” In other words, “here I am.”
It is difficult to put into words the magnitude of what Jesus was revealing – personally. Paul may do the best in Colossians 1, speaking of Jesus:
He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Col. 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Col. 1:21 And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him
The point is that God was taking action to restore life and repairing the brokenness caused by sin – Adam’s sin, our sin, and my sin. Just as Jesus fed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish – the provider of manna for those who had followed him into the desert; in the Lord’s supper Jesus was declaring that he was himself the bread of life for his people. Here is God, not relying on humans to figure out a way to fix what was wrong. No, here was God: present, engaged, active, and personal. Yes, in Jesus, God was accomplishing eternal things for a multitude; but also, in Jesus, God was accomplishing eternal things for me.
Let me stop here for a moment and ask you: is this the God you know? Do you know this Jesus – Emmanuel, God With Us – who reaches across time, reaches across sin and brokenness, and who reaches across death itself – so that you could be brought back from death to life, from dirty and tarnished to righteous and clean? Jesus is not a concept. Jesus is not an idea. Jesus is not a myth. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) Consider this Jesus who did this for you, for me, for us. How awesome is God!
When Jesus re-cast the Passover meal into this exodus from the power of sin and death, we see the very heart of God revealed – then, now, and forevermore. Jesus was the physical incarnation of the passionate God who revealed his hand working in and through history to accomplish things that are not possible for humans.
II. Jesus’ Prayer In The Garden
Then, after the Passover meal, as they went out, we have some of the verses we covered last week: Peter declaring his unequivocal devotion and loyalty to Jesus, and Jesus telling Peter that he would fall away and deny him three times before the cock crowed twice.
Then, they arrived at Gethsemane.
Here Mark shows us Jesus in the most human of situations: Jesus was facing the consequences of sin, alone, and praying that God would miraculously intervene. Can anyone relate?
Some of you have been to Gethsemane and others of you may have seen Ray Vanderlaan’s That the World May Know video series that shows the olive press. The image of an olive being crushed by the large stone wheel -- crushed to the point of disintegration as even the pulp is pummeled – is daunting when we see it applied to what Jesus was facing.
Jesus took his closest friends with him to be with him as he prayed. They fell asleep. He was distressed and agitated. He was grieved, even to death. He threw himself on the ground and prayed. “If it be possible, let the hour pass from me.” What was the hour? Was it just the physical suffering? Was it the abandonment of his friends; was it the betrayal? Was it the condemnation of his own nation and the indifferent cruelty of Rome?
“For you,” speaking to God, “all things are possible; remove this cup from me.” What was the cup? Scripture describes the “cup” Jesus was facing:
- Psalm 11:6 On the wicked he will rain coals of fire and sulfur; a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
- Isaiah 51:7 Rouse yourself, rouse yourself! Stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl of staggering.
- Jeremiah 25: 15-16 For 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. They shall drink and stagger and go out of their minds because of the sword that I am sending among them.
Of course Jesus would not be eager to drink that cup. None of us would want to drink that cup; though all of us sinners deserve the sentence to drink it. I think we can understand Jesus’ prayer.
But let me stop here again and ask, do you know Jesus’ posture in prayer?
- Have you had a loved one struck by illness that is beyond the medical community’s ability to treat and been stripped of all other options but to fall on your knees saying, “For you, all things are possible”?
- Have you ever been betrayed or deserted by your family, friends and community and feel like there is nowhere to turn and no way forward? Have you ever felt like you were in the rain of coals of fire and sulfur?
- Have you experienced the crushing stone of sin in your own life that is too heavy to carry and too powerful to set aside? That’s what Jesus was praying about. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin.” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Friends, Jesus knew our hardest trials. Jesus lived our most difficult experiences. The writer of Hebrews declares, “He became like his brothers and sisters in every respect. …Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” (Hebrews 2:17, 18).
Jesus knows our frame. He knows our hurt. He knows our struggle. He knows our pain. He knows our fear. His prayer is a prayer we all know because we all have – at one point or another – been stripped of every idol, every security, and every pretense of self-sufficiency. We have all prayed and pleaded for a miracle to get the result we want – or to escape the inevitable we cannot avoid.
By the way, my point is not that his burden was greater than yours – though it was. Rather, my point is that if you are in the midst of it, take heart: you are not alone. The beauty – if I can call it that – the beauty of Mark’s description of Jesus at Gethsemane is that we see Jesus in the middle of the fullness of human experience. His entire incarnation was that; however, here we see it at his and our most intense.
In the midst of Jesus’ suffering, God was redeeming. There were reasons for Jesus’ suffering. This may be the most difficult aspect for us to handle. Suffering is not pointless, even though it often feels that way. That said, it also is important to say that suffering is not a proportional expression of judgment on the individual suffering. Often times, people suffer for things entirely not of their own doing; people suffer for reasons totally unrelated to their own behavior. It may be that suffering is simply the time spent waiting for the glory of God to be revealed.
For example, in John 9, the disciples were on the road and encountered a man blind from birth. “His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.’” Although we are just introduced to this man in John 9, he had been blind from birth. He had endured years – literally, years – of blindness for no apparent reason. He was not waiting for Jesus, nor was he expecting that day to be different than any other. Until Jesus passed by, there was no larger reason for his suffering evident. Yet because Jesus passed by, God’s glory was revealed through this blind man’s suffering.
A couple of years ago, I had an abscess tooth that about drove me crazy with pain. It was excruciating. I was in our bathroom, hopping around like a jackrabbit holding onto the side of my head, trying anything I could think of to alleviate the pressure that me feel like my head was going to explode. Some of you who have had tooth pain or other dental issues can sympathize.
Whether or not I “deserved” this pain is ultimately irrelevant. At the time, I was acutely aware of how much pain I was experiencing, and it was WAY out of proportion with any negligence of which I was guilty. At least, that is what the oral surgeon told me. Regardless, I was in agony. I was distressed and agitated. I was grieved and praying for a miracle.
It is a silly little illustration and no true comparison, but I want to use it to make this point: as much as I want your sympathy for the agony I endured, I look back and am convinced that my abscess tooth and how I experienced it –really – was not about me. I was in the midst of it and it shrunk my world to the tiny area of my jaw that would just not quit; but I am confident that in the bigger picture my suffering was not about me. During the several days and several appointments that were required to address it, a number of people in these offices – other patients and some of the staff – found out I was a Presbyterian minister and wanting to talk with me about God. I remember being a little incredulous – as in, “you want to talk about this NOW?” – but God was using me in his own way and for his own purposes. It would not have happened without my suffering.
But here is the other part of what we should see: even though Jesus was praying for God to allow a miracle, he submitted himself to God. He trusted that God’s will would be good – regardless of whether it would be a result that would seem pleasing in his circumstances. Seriously, Jesus could have escaped if that was really his goal; however, his absolute conviction was that God was faithful and true, and that God’s steadfast love would endure forever. God would see him through his trials, not relieve him of them. It was Jesus’ obedience through the excruciating circumstances that we need to see. His is the hope onto which we need to hold.
The pains you feel and hold – whether it is from age, from mistakes or sins in your past, from losses, from health issues; or if your suffering is unjust, undeserved, and you do not know why it is happening – it is important to realize that you do not suffer alone. This is not to say that Jesus carried every ailment or condition that any human ever had; rather, it is to say that he knows our frame and knows how suffering impacts us.
And this brings me back to where we started. The blessing of Jesus’ command and obedience is shown in these verses. Before he was betrayed, arrested, tortured, and crucified, Jesus told the disciples what it all meant: this is my body broken for you (a fulfillment of the terms of the Old Covenant), this is my blood of the new covenant, (a promise that we all are washed clean).
Today is all about instilling or renewing your awe for the overwhelming love of God in Christ Jesus. When we spend time dwelling on the mystery and wonder of God – that God is mindful of us and cares for us at all – we cannot help but be humbled and awestruck; literally, struck with awe.
Amen.