Sermon from January 27, 2002
When I was a college sophomore, I managed the language laboratory of the college as one of my part-time jobs. I met my wife doing that job, so it will always have a special place in my heart. Something else took place in that lab other than wife finding and language study.

The university trusted me with keys to the building and not just the language lab. I took advantage of that privilege by going to the lab when no one else was in the building in order to study scripture in complete solitude. One of the books I took with me as an aid to study scripture was a commentary on Philippians by J. B. Lightfoot.

As I worked through Philippians that winter with the Bible in one hand and Lightfoot's commentary in the other, I came across a statement that has stayed with me ever since and shaped the way I look at life. This is what I read that has proved durable.

"The conformity with the sufferings of Christ implies not only the endurance of persecution for His name, but all the pangs and all afflictions undergone in the struggle against sin either within or without. The agony of Gethsemany, not less than the agony of Calvary, will be reproduced however faintly in the faithful servant of Christ," (J. B. Lightfoot, Epistle to the Philippians).

As a nineteen-year-old student, I wanted to serve Christ. I wanted to suffer for Christ, but persecution seemed reserved for only an elite few. Lightfoot's comment took suffering for the sake of Christ out of the elite category and rooted it in sickness, sorrow, humiliation, frustration, loss of personal influence, unexpected change of plans, backhanded remarks by friends. That great English writer rooted discipleship in common life. "The agony of Gethsemany" became a permanent category for understanding the meaning of life by seeing pain and hardship in relationship to God.

Today, I would like for us to revisit the original Gethsemane, the prototype of "all the pangs and afflictions undergone in the struggle against sin either within or without." We begin in Mark 14:27, and at once we step back into that curious feature that characterizes the last three chapters of Mark. The feature I am talking about is an alternation between episodes that center on pivotal events leading to the crucifixion of Jesus and episodes centering on the spiritual significance of that event. Back and forth the narrative goes right to the end.

We begin in verses 1-2 with the first pivotal event that led to the crucifixion of Jesus, a policy decision by Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. They did not know how or when, but they began looking for a quiet way to arrest Jesus, get Him out of public view and then get rid of Him.

The next event takes place a few miles east of Jerusalem, but its atmosphere and meaning might seem to come from another planet. A woman breaks a valuable alabaster jar and pours out its even more valuable content on Jesus' head in an act of devotion.

In a flash Mark connects the woman's adoration with the policy decision of the Jewish officials. Jesus, who foretold His rejection, suffering and death three times earlier in Mark, interprets the woman's act in a way that probably never entered her mind. He said that it anticipated the burial rites that would be accorded Him in oh! so short a time. The death of Christ will evoke adoration of a magnitude unimaginable at the time.

Then, Mark's story alternates back to an episode that centers on a pivotal event leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. The authorities were looking for an unobtrusive way to get their hands on Jesus and kill Him, said verses 1-2. They found what they were looking for in about the last place they expected.

Judas Iscariot, say verses 10-11, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

In the meantime Passover beckoned, and Mark's story alternates back to an episode that centers on the spiritual significance of the coming crucifixion. Jesus, celebrating Passover with His disciples, institutes what we have come to call the Lord's Supper. Jesus, through His death, becomes the bread of life, the inexhaustible source of satisfaction for humanity's seemingly insatiable hunger for purpose and wholeness and God. He and His disciples then sing a hymn and go out to the Mount of Olives, and Mark's story oscillates back to an event that is pivotal to the coming crucifixion.

"You will all fall away," Jesus told them, "for it is written: 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.' But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee." If you have spent the better part of three years in a demanding apprenticeship with Jesus, it is not encouraging to be told that you are going to fall away under pressure. Peter did not take it well, and in his defensive frame of mind he made a strong statement.

Peter declared, "Even if all fall away, I will not." Rash perhaps, but sincere. Unimpressed, Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, today – yes, tonight – before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times."

Peter took that even less well, and in his even more defensive frame of mind made an even stronger statement. But Peter insisted emphatically, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the others (carried along by Peter's passionate rhetoric) said the same. Even more rash, perhaps, but sincere. Jesus left it unchallenged. Betrayal and abandonment by those closest to Him awaited their moment.

They went to a place called Gethsemane. Let us join in reverent observation of the terrible trials that serve as models on which we may base our own obedience. Here, better than any other place, we can learn why the letter of Hebrews 5:8 says, Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.

First, we learn that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, hungered for sympathetic, human companionship at the great crisis of His life. Jesus said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." He took Peter, James and John along with him. They alone had gone in with Him to the little girl's bedroom, where He had raised her from death. They alone had shared with Him the Mount of Transfiguration. They, with Andrew, had been privy to the signs of the coming of the kingdom. They would understand. They surely would be able to offer the greatest help in the personal agony to follow.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, hungered for sympathetic, human companionship at the greatest crisis of His life. Is that weakness on His part? Perhaps, but it is not evil, unless the need for human love and understanding is evil.

Do you have within the body of Christ a little knot of Christians with whom you can share life's great trials and triumphs? Within the Church the Holy Spirit has created a network of human relationships, built on the deepest things in life and infinitely capable of banishing loneliness with affection, understanding and accountability. If Jesus Christ needed such companionship in facing His trials, how much more do we need it?

Next, we learn that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffered enormous, inner conflict. He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," he said to them. "Stay here and keep watch." Some of the best commentary on this experience comes from Hebrews 4:15. We have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.

I hope none of you ever entertains the notion that since Jesus was God's Son, His sufferings were not real. There is a difference between watching a man suffer in a movie and watching a man suffer in his hospital bed. The suffering in the movie is not real and we know it. The suffering in the hospital is real in a way that no actor can imitate. The sufferings of Christ in the presence of His disciples were of that kind. We do not want a sham Savior. We want one who has suffered as we suffer. Gethsemane testifies to such suffering. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffered enormous, inner conflict.

The next event in Gethsemane takes us to new depths of our Lord's humanity, and we learn that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, exhibited perfect reluctance to do the will of God. Verses 35-36: Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me."

Jesus knows the will of God for Him: He must drink the cup of death that James and John hastily said they were willing to drink. He knows that, but He is reluctant to do it. "Take this cup from me." He wants to avoid what lies ahead, if at all possible.

But His reluctance to do the will of God is a perfect reluctance. What makes it perfect reluctance and not willful rebellion is the turning of His will back to the Father. "Yet not what I will, but what you will." There is only one thing greater than His reluctance to do God's will, and that is His desire to do God's will. The reluctance was real, a barrier He had to get past.

And aren't you glad He did? The passage in Hebrews 4:14 that says, We have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, goes on to say in verse 16 that He is one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning. Our Savior's reluctance does not detract from Him; it enhances who He is.

You and I experience the same reluctance to do the will of God. Our Lord's relctance before the daunting prospect of the cross teaches us to be honest about ourselves. We do not have to pretend that everything is all right inside our souls, when we know that all is not well there. We can admit it freely, when part of our being draws back from doing what we know to be the will of God.

We can admit it freely, because His perfect reluctance teaches us that temptation, no matter how hard it tugs at our soul, is not sin; it is only temptation. We learn that in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, exhibited perfect reluctance to do the will of God.

Finally, we learn that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is grievously disappointed by His closest friends. Verses 37-38 say, Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Simon," he said to Peter, "are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. Returning the third time, he said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting?" Three times He comes back only to find His most intimate friends asleep, contrary to His specific instructions. The penalty for their failure was close at hand.

"Enough! says Jesus, The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!" Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is grievously disappointed by His closest friends. Is this His reward for investing His life into theirs? And ahead lie Caiaphas, Pilate, Herod and the cross.

God is good. He means us nothing but our good. If we allow Him to have His way with us, His purpose is to make out of each of us creatures so glorious that if just one of us here, now, became such a creature, the rest of us would be in mortal danger of committing idolatry by worshiping that person.

But God has ordained that suffering and death lay out the only pathway to such glory. He put into the world a picture of his plan, when He taught nature to suffer and die each fall and winter and then live again in glory each spring and summer. We discover the same pattern, when the only way to health is by the surgeon's scalpel.

But the clearest demonstration of the divine pattern is Jesus Himself. He is King of kings and Lord of lords, invested with all authority in heaven and on earth. But the path to those royal privileges passed through Gethsemane, Golgotha and the grave.

Perhaps, we can now grasp better why Bishop Lightfoot wrote that "the agony of Gethsemane ... implies that all the pangs and all afflictions undergone in the struggle against sin either within or without ... will be reproduced however faintly in the faithful servant of Christ." There is something about the sufferings of Christ that our Father would like to duplicate in each one of His sons and daughters. Let me show you.

Don't you experience sickness, sorrow, humiliation and disappointment? Don't the good times come to and end for you too? What meaning do you give to these difficult experiences? Do you look at them and say, "Tough luck," or "bad news," or "C'est la vie," or "That's the way the cookie crumbles?"

Why should we not consider a more thoroughly biblical interpretation of these experiences? Let us look at our common trials and tribulations as ways in which we share, however faintly, in our Lord's struggles against sin. Once we attach this meaning to our common sufferings, we begin to learn that God uses them to build and test and deepen our faith and obedience, and make us into that splendid thing He has in mind.

And what about those times when the lights go out all over your universe? I mean those times when the suffering seems so great that you do not think you can bear it. That too falls within God's redemptive plan, although He seems pleased to have spared most of us from it. We know it falls within His redemptive plan, because Gethsemane was followed by Calvary.

Amid the anguish of crucifixion and soul suffering our Lord, Jesus, from within the depths of His being looked out on a universe from which, it seemed, that every trace of God had vanished, and asked why He had been forsaken; but through it all He trusted His Father's goodness and obeyed His Father's wishes. On the fringes of life where pain, fear, futility, rage, despair and death erase, it seems, the presence of God from all universes, the God of the Bible wishes to find in us, as He found in His only-begotten Son, hearts full of trust and obedience.

And when He finds something else, the failure, which the only thing we in our frailty can offer Him, His mercy comes to us in the last dark depth of human experience to save us. The disciples fled from Him. He did not flee from them. He took upon Himself our darkness, so that in our darkness He could find His way to us and on the other side of fear and despair turn us toward the light.