Gospel of Mark #55 ~ (14:32-42)

[Al Moak]

Mark 14:32-42
The Deepest Passage In The Bible

This part of Mark is like a window. By looking through this window we can see the inner soul and the very heart of hearts of our Lord. Nowhere in Scripture is His soul so clearly revealed as it is at Gethsemane. We can see His true Manhood more clearly here than we can in any other incidents recorded by the Gospel writers. If you want to become acquainted with the heart of your Lord, this is the place.

Jesus knew what He was about to suffer. He had always known it. But at Gethsemane He was within only hours of it.  With that proximity His whole being recoiled, not from the physical suffering He must endure, but from what Paul describes. In Galatians, where he says, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.')" It was the "curse" that Jesus felt so deeply at Gethsemane.

It's not at all easy to describe our Lord's agony. None of us have ever experienced anything like it. Many during the Jewish holocaust at the time of the second world war experienced unutterable physical torture and pain, but even they did not experience anything approaching the soul agony that our Lord experienced. It was so overwhelming that our Lord's human nature came near to succumbing to it. That's made quite clear when He Himself said "My soul is overwhelmingly grieved, even as far as death!" Just the prospect was enough to bring Him near to death.

But even though we can never fully understand the depths of our Lord's agony, yet even a dim understanding of it can inspire us to much fuller dedication and much greater effort  to love, obey, and worship Him. With that purpose in mind, let's look as carefully as possible at this revelation of our Lord's inner soul.

Jesus left most of the disciples at the edge of the olive grove at Gethsemane, taking only Peter, James, and John to be near Him when He prayed. The four of them went a little further into the grove, and then He went on a few more steps, telling Peter, James and John to "be watchful," while He Himself prayed. It was as He walked with them that He said, "My soul is overwhelmingly grieved, even as far as death!" Why was He so overwhelmingly grieved at that point?

Was it because of the physical pain and anguish that must be His in just a short while? I don't believe so, though it was to be excruciating to the extreme.  But the anticipation of even such physical pain wouldn't have brought Him to such an extremity of anguish. The answer has to be in something far, far greater. To even begin to understand why He was so overwhelmed, we have to think carefully, though inadequately, about His relationship to the Father.

Let me try to illustrate. Think of someone in this world whom you love very, very much, someone of whom you think more highly than anyone else, someone for whom you'd rejoice to do anything and everything. Now try to picture yourself being accused, by your beloved, of some terrible, terrible disloyalty, some act against him or her, an act you did not commit, but an act for which he or she nevertheless holds you entirely responsible. How do you feel? Would you be distressed? Jesus was.  But it's even worse than that.  He had to feel as though He actually were guilty of it all.

We can't even distantly imagine the love that exists between the Father and His Son. It's hard enough for us even to imagine these two distinct Persons in one Godhead. The idea of a trinity just doesn't compute in our minds. But God is nevertheless trinitarian, and the love between Father and Son is the greatest love there is or could ever be. We see just a little of its results in our Lord's own words as recorded by John in John 8:29.  He quotes Him as saying, "He Who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him." The greatest joy our Lord had was to do the things that pleased His Father!

But at Gethsemane Jesus could clearly see what was coming. He could see that, in just a few hours, He was going to be accused of committing all the sins of all His people – of all their transgressions against His Father, for He was their Sponsor even when those sins were committed. To Him such sin against His beloved Father, the Father of goodness, was a hateful thing, an unthinkable thing, an abhorrent thing. He always sought only His Father's glory, and for Him to be accused of transgression against Him, then, must have hurt Him beyond anything we can imagine. That's why He was "overwhelmingly grieved, even as far as death!"

It's actually that pain that killed Him on the Cross. While on that horrible instrument of torture, our Lord had to actually feel the guilt of our sin! He Who knew as no one else the goodness of the Father, He Who loved Him with perfect love, He Who hated sin as no other can - He was made to feel guilty of all the sin of all His people of all time! THAT created a sorrow so deep, so powerful, so all-consuming, that it broke His heart, and He died of it.

It was that sorrow that moved His entire human nature to cry out at Gethsemane, "Take this cup from Me if it's possible!" It's why He desired the hour to pass Him by. If there were some other way by which God could save His people eternally, Jesus desparately longed for it! And yet His love to you and I was so great that He was also willing to endure that which He so desperately longed to avoid.

Have you ever thought of your sins that way? Have you spent any time in your life truly sorrowing over sin - especially over what it cost Him? Have you ever been overwhelmed by THAT love of His to you? Or would you rather change the subject and talk about something else?

But it's just barely possible that we actually need to focus upon it, upon what each and every one of our sins cost Him! It may be what we need to move us to fight a little harder against the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. It may be that we need occasionally to take a long look at the Cross and to give more than a little consideration to what our sin cost Him there.  I believe it's why this experience at Gethsemane cost Him so much even beforehand.

Yet even at Gethsemane, even while our Lord was suffering in anticipation, the disciples slept. They couldn't bear the intensity our Lord was experiencing, so they did the only thing human nature allows under such circumstances - they slept. Apparently John remained awake, since he recorded all that occurred, but the rest did not. The lateness of the hour, together with the intensity of the circumstances was just too much for them.

The important thing for us is to see that even the disciple's apparent carelessness didn't lessen our Lord's love for them. Having been strengthened by prayer for the awful things that lay ahead, He then came to them and simply awakened them and went forward with all He had to do. It's the same for us. We may have too little concern about our sins or about His love, yet He is not deterred by our carelessness either. He still comes by His Holy Spirit to do His gracious work in us, no matter how weak and uncaring we may be.

It's good that He's so merciful to us. It's good that He doesn't treat us according to our carelessness. But oh how we ought to heed His words when He says to us, "Watch and pray so that you won't enter into temptation!" It's possible - because of what we are - to be so lulled by our Lord's apparent love, by the fact that He continues to work even when we seem quite careless - that we began to have a kind of false sense of security. He would have us to stay awake, to observe carefully His agony, and then, having seen it, to pray for grace to stay close to Him, grace to love Him more than we do, grace to rededicate ourselves to Him again.

The words of the old hymn writer seem so appropriate:

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
For Thee all the follies of sin I resign;
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou:
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus 'tis now

I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me,
and purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree;
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow:
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus 'tis now.

I'll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
and praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow:
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus 'tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I'll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
I'll sing with the glittering crown on my brow:
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

[Chris & Margit Saunders]

Well said,,
amen.