Garden of Grace

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““Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Mark 14:37-38

Main Readings: Isaiah 53 & Mark 14:27-72

Supporting Readings: Hebrews 4 & 5

It might seem strange to say it, but I think we can: Jesus, in his humanity; in his flesh, knew what it was like to feel daunted by a task.

Jesus knew what it was like when every fiber of your being wants to turn away from what lies ahead, because what lies ahead fills you with dread.

‘During the days of his life on earth, Jesus offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death’ Hebrews 5:7 says.

And it’s one of those ‘days on earth’ that Hebrews is describing, that we have recorded for us in this passage from Mark’s gospel this morning.

Verses 27-31 represent a prophecy of Jesus about the disciples - and then specifically about Peter - which will come true within a few hours of leaving the upper room. And we’ll come to those verses in a little while.

But the bulk of the passage focuses on Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and his subsequent arrest, and that’s where I want us to start out.

Hebrews says ‘he offered fervent prayers to the one who could save him from death’ – it’s referring to Jesus’ heavenly Father.

So, it seems that the prospect of his own death - which he knew was coming; we saw that back in chapter 8 - was deeply troubling to him.

So troubling he wanted to be saved from it.

Mark shows us how troubling it was to him in verse 33: ‘He took Peter, James and John along with him’, it says, ‘and he began to be deeplydistressed and troubled’.

I think we all have some experience of being ‘deeply distressed’ and ‘troubled’. Life can be so very bitter, can’t it? And our souls are verysensitive, such that they get troubled by life’s bitterness.

The Psalmist shows us, in poetry form, how he felt like this sometimes: ‘My soul’, he said, ‘is downcast within me’ .

And again, ‘why are you downcast my soul? Why so disturbed within me?’

That kind of unrest within us is a very human experience.

Jesus was a human also. One of the reasons he took on frail flesh was so that he could experience what it was like to suffer – not just in body but in his soul too.

Hebrews says, because he did that – and this is just a massively comforting promise for every Christian - ‘he can help us in our suffering’. In other Hebrews words, ‘we do not have a saviour who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses’! Amazing!

But, of course, Jesus was not just a human being, he was Godappearing in flesh. And so, whilst there are similarities between his suffering and ours, there are also differences.

Verse 34 points at some of that difference.

Mark records Jesus saying, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death’.

Luke adds that ‘his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground’.

So, I don’t think it’s exaggeration on the part of Jesus, when he says he was sorrowful to the point of death.

There are three or four realities that he knew were about to unfold, that created - in his human soul - a deep dread of what was coming next.

Undoubtedly one of those realities was the physical pain and suffering he was about to face.

Roman scourging and crucifixion were vicious forms of torture and execution - enough to drive fear into even the most physical of men. So, there’s that aspect of what is coming.

But more troubling than the bodily pain, was almost certainly the sin-bearing aspect of the cross. Jesus never committed one single sin. He was holy and pure in every thought, and deed, and word, and attitude.

But at the cross, God counted the sins of his people as though they had been committed by Jesus.

Isaiah 53 says it like this, ‘we all like sheep have gone astray, each of us as turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all’.

Here’s a New Testament way of saying the same thing, 2 Corinthians 5, ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us’.

The theological word for this reality is ‘imputation’.

God imputed the sins of his people to the account of Jesus.

I don’t think we can know what it was like for the sinless soul of Jesus to bear the weight of one person’s lifetime of sin. Let alone thousandsand millions of people’s lives of sin.

By the time I die, I will have committed simply millions of sins against God. I alone!

So, there is the prospect of the weight of the sins of millions on Jesus as he goes to the garden.

With that, then comes separation between God and Jesus. ‘The Father turns his face away’ we sing.

Hanging there on the cross, Jesus will say ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ ‘Why have you gone so long without talking to me? So long without communing with me?’

There is an abandonment coming Jesus’ way, the likes of which we cannot know because his relationship with God was never interrupted by anything before. He could say ‘I and the Father are one’.

Perfect unity; perfect harmony; perfect fellowship - Jesus knew these his whole life. And now abandonment was looming.

Abandonment was inevitable because of the sin God was going to account to Jesus; but also then, so that God’s judgment could fall on him.

It wasn’t enough for Jesus to be a sin-carrier alone; he had to be a wrath-bearer also.

The word ‘propitiation’ captures this idea. Romans 3:25 in our NIV translation conveys the reality behind the word.

It says, ‘God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood’.

Not just a carrier of sin, but a sacrificial slain lamb was necessary for the atonement to be full and effective. Jesus had to shed his blood.

And Jesus, himself, points to this fact here in verse 49.

After asking the question why they didn’t arrest him earlier but came with clubs and swords to capture him now, he says, this was to fulfilscripture.

The scripture he has in mind is probably Isaiah 53.

It says there in verse 7 that ‘he was led like a lamb to the slaughter’. He was led away as a sacrificial lamb, by evil men, to be slaughtered.

The penalty for sin is death Romans 6 says. And ‘Death’ means eternal death – death forever.

Jesus, as the Son of God, is the eternal Son. And having taken a body, he made himself subject to death.

In other words, he had to die, because in his death he took the eternal punishment of God in the place of God’s people. He took my eternal punishment in his own body.

So, there is also this - the prospect of facing God’s punishment for allhis people.

All of that suffering - in body and soul - for the perfect Christ Jesus was troubling in a way that we can never truly grasp. And it brought him to the brink of death in the garden of Gethsemane.

There’s an effect that all this has on the spirit and mind of Jesus in his humanity.

We heard it in Hebrews 5 in the phrase, ‘who could save him from death’. And we can see it here in Mark also - in the prayer he offers up in verse 36, ‘“Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me.”’.

‘Take this cup from me’: it’s a request on the part of Jesus’. The ‘cup’ he’s referring to is the cup of God’s judgment. He wants what is about to come on him to pass from him.

The picture we’re getting is that Jesus, in his flesh, is weak here. His soul is tormented.

And the temptation is to find a way out of this horrendous ordeal that is about to unfold.

But you can see - by how he concludes his prayer - in verse 36, that his spirit is totally willing.

God’s will is paramount in Jesus’ mind, and he has come to do it.

He said in John 6, ‘I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me’.

So, even though his flesh is week, his spirit is willing and therefore he prays, ‘yet not what I will, but what you will’.

He’s deeply troubled; his flesh is weak; his spirit is willing - and he’s placing himself into the hands of his Father. That’s the scene.

Now let’s see where he’s at when the betrayer, Judas, appears on the scene in verse 41.

This is what he says: ‘Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!’

This moment of deep evil, when Judas betrays the perfect Jesus with a kiss (verse 45), and the men seize Jesus and arrest him (verse 46), represents the onset of everything Jesus had anticipated with suchdread.

He prayed the cup would be taken away, and here are the soldiers to arrest him.

But look at this! Look at Jesus’ soul here, in comparison with verses 33 & 34. There he was ‘deeply distressed’ and ‘overwhelmed with sorrow’, and here he says, ‘Rise! Let’s go! Here comes my betrayer.’

And I put it to you: there has been an almighty shift in the state of Jesus’ soul from verse 33 to verse 42!

There is, I think, a profound and beautiful cause for this transformation in Jesus’ soul which I want to share with you.

I think the difference-maker here is nothing other than prayer. And I think it’s stamped all over this passage.

See if you agree. In verse 32, Jesus told nine of the twelve disciples to remain where they were whilst he went to pray.

That’s his mission here in the garden - prayer.

Then, having taken along Peter, James and John deeper into the garden, he tells them to stay put and keep watch whilst he goes a little further alone.

Verse 35 says that, after going a little further, ‘he fell to the ground and prayed that, if possible, the hour might pass from him’.

That’s the same prayer as, ‘take this cup from me’.

Then he returns and finds the disciples sleeping.

And he tells Peter, in verse 38, to ‘watch and pray so that he won’t fall into temptation’.

And having said that, he leaves them a second time. And verse 39 says he went a prayed the same thing.

Once again, he returns to find the disciples sleeping. This time he says nothing but turns and leaves to pray a third time. And we know that because when he comes back in verse 41, he finds the disciples asleep again.

So, three times Jesus prays. And then, after the third time of prayer, the soldiers are on the scene and he’s at peace enough to say to the disciples, ‘Rise! Let’s go! Here comes by betrayer’.

So, I want to make the case that the vital, soul-fortifying difference; the connecting tissue, between weak flesh and spirit-empowered action, is prayer.

The way that God answered Jesus’ prayer was not to take the cup fromhim. It was to give him all the strength he needed to go through withthe cup.

And I think that, by verse 42, Jesus had received that gift of strength from his Heavenly Father.

Jesus is showing us that prayer supplies the miracle that transformsweak flesh into spiritual might and enables the action that looked completely impossible before to happen.

And I think this is what Jesus wanted his disciples to experience for themselves too - but they missed it.

So, let’s go back to verse 27 and see how that unfolded in the disciples.

But before we do, notice this: Jesus knows that the spirit is willing but that the flesh is weak. He says it to Peter in verse 38.

It’s important to notice that Jesus is the one supplying that truth.

It’s because of this universal truth that Jesus says what he says to all the disciples in verse 27 - namely ‘you will all fall away’.

The flesh is ultimately weak. And Jesus knows that when the moment comes and the detachment of soldiers arrives, at that moment, their spirit will fall away and their flesh will take hold of them, and they willall desert him.

Verse 50 bears out Jesus’ prediction. Mark simply records, ‘Then everyone deserted him and fled’.

But watch how willing the spirit was and how weak flesh ultimatelyproved to be.

Verse 29, Peter’s spirit is willing, ‘even if all fall away’, he says, ‘I will not’.

But his flesh is weak.

Jesus replies in verse 30, ‘today - yes, tonight - before the cockerel crows twice you yourself will disown me three times’. That’s going to happen.

But look, again! Peter’s spirit is so willing! So willing, that he won’t allow Jesus the last word.

In verse 31 he says, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you’ And Mark says, all the others said the same.

After that they all headed out to the Garden. And having told them to ‘keep watch’ in verse 34 whilst he went to pray, Jesus returns to find them sleeping.

Jesus says to Peter - I guess because he had been the most vocal back in the upper room - ‘couldn’t you keep watch with me for one hour?’

It’s as if Jesus is saying to Peter, ‘do you see how weak the flesh really is, Peter?’

The same thing happens in verse 39, Mark says it was, ‘because their eyes were heavy’. And then again in verse 41. Jesus says ‘are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come’.

And then the soldiers move in to arrest Jesus, but Peter’s plucky spirit kicks into action again and he takes his sword in verse 47 and cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest.

It’s all for nothing though - Jesus repairs the ear, we know that from Luke - and then Peter, along with the rest, desert Jesus and flee. And Jesus is left alone with his enemies.

And all because ultimately, the flesh is weak - just as Jesus said.

Jesus wasn’t looking for disciples who would draw their swords. That’s not why he said ‘watch’. He wanted disciples who would stick with himwhen the time of greatest trial arrived.

And he knew, that for that to happen, they would need a miracle of strength in the face of that dark hour, not to abandon him.

To resist temptation and not succumb to it.

Jesus’ antidote for the weakness of the flesh in the face of temptation is prayer.

We can see that for ourselves in verse 38, ‘watch and pray’ he says, ‘sothat you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’.

When he said to them in verse 34 ‘stay here and watch’; and when he said to them in verse 37 ‘couldn’t you keep watch for one hour’, he meant ‘stay here and pray’; and he meant ‘couldn’t you pray with me for one hour?’

His spiritual answer to weakness and temptation - which is alwayspresent - is prayer. And his going to that place of prayer, three times in the garden, shows the necessity of not just prayer, but persistentprayer.

Temptation is never from God you know. James says, ‘no one should say “God is tempting me”. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone’.

Rather, it is Satan who is the great tempter.

So, I guess, since Peter and the disciples were led away by the temptation to flee; and since they deserted their Lord and friend Jesus in his most pressing hour; then we have to acknowledge that they sinned – even though that sin resulted from their inevitable weakness.

I don’t suppose that naturally speaking, we would have done anydifferent in their position.

Though, had we heeded Jesus’ advice I think we would have been given everything we needed to endure.

So, I think that, in the same position as the disciples, heeding the counsel of Jesus, and praying in the spirit on all occasions, we would have been given the miracle of strength and faith we needed to endurein the face of that opposition.

When you think of it in that way, then we are really talking about a giftof grace here.

God wants us to endure. God knows that our flesh is weak. And God did not spare his only son for us but gave him up for us all.

How, then, will he not give us everything, along with Jesus, that we need for a Godly life? The answer is he will give us everything we need.

That means that every time Jesus encourages his disciples to pray, like he does in verse 32, and verse 38.

And every time he chastens his disciples for not praying, like he does in verses 37 and 41.

It is grace on his part.

He is showing them that there is power from on high available to them - wherever they are, instantaneously – accessible through prayer.

When Jesus goes to the cross in 12 hours’ time, he will be buying that grace for them with his own blood!

The disciples didn’t receive the encouragement and the rebuke – they didn’t respond to them.

And it wasn’t because they didn’t believe Jesus; or because they didn’t like what Jesus said.

It was just because they were tired.

It was easier to sleep than to pray.

But the easy path they chose, was the one the tempter was on also.

And so, he had his way with them in their sleepiness. That’s why they all fled, and that’s why they all sinned against Jesus.

What that doesn’t mean though, is that they were lost like Judas. Jesus’ work on the cross for them, bought for them the ability to be able to confess, and the ability to believe that reconciliation could be found, and the ability to repent of their sins. And it ultimately bought their forgiveness.

So, there’s grace in the hands of Jesus, even for these disciples who deserted him - even for Peter who will disown him three times before the cockerel crows twice.

That prophetic word, by the way, from Jesus, about Peter, is designedto convey just how fast Peter’s temptation would be. Peter will have crowed three times before the cockerel, God made to crow, had even crowed twice!

Maybe verse 51 is Mark’s own confession of his sin in his very own gospel account. Maybe he is the young man he’s referring to, who fled naked.

If that’s the case, I think Mark would have marvelled, in recollection, at the Lord Jesus’ grace to him; in Jesus’ promise of verse 28 - which comes well in advance of the disciples fleeing, but in full knowledge that they would.

In verse 27, quoting Zechariah 13, Jesus applies that Old Testament prophetic text to the falling away of all the disciples.

In other words, he knew the shepherd would be struck, and that the sheep would be scattered.

And, in light of that, he said to the disciples in verse 28, ‘But after I have risen [from the dead], I will go ahead of you into Galilee’.

That’s a promise, that even though they will disown him, he will notdisown them. He will go ahead of them, and when they catch him up, he will have them all back.

By then, he will have died on the cross. He will have taken their sins on himself - including their desertion of him - and he will have born the wrath of God on their behalf.

There will be reconciliation. There will be restoration. There will be fellowship between them and him anew.

And here’s the thing! Jesus knew they would scatter. Jesus knew he would die for them.

Jesus knew he would eat with them again after his resurrection.

And yet he still encouraged them to pray, and he still chastened them when they didn’t.

Grace is not license to sin. Grace is license to be freed from sinning, and to access all the gracious gifts God has given us to live lives that plant our feet firmly in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus.

So, this passage is just a massive encouragement to me to pray more and more. To access more of God’s grace in my fight against temptation.

However, willing the spirit is, just know, the flesh is weak, and we need to access, by persistent prayer, the miracle of strength God graciously has for us and which Jesus graciously won for us with his blood!