A Dramatic Pinnacle

Well, I remember a number of years ago during the Gulf War, and you have alittle boy who day in day out kept hearing about the Gulf War, the Gulf Warthis and the Gulf War that, there was fighting in the Gulf War, until one dayhe said to his father, "Dad, how hard do they throw the balls?"because he thought it was a "golf war." Now, I reckon it would be abit painful to get hit by a golf ball, but it's not a war is it? It's not abattle. Can you imagine taking such a serious battle so casually?

In Mark chapter 14, Jesus is in a battle. He tells his disciples to watchand pray and they sleep. He says his soul is heavy to the point of death andtheir eyes are heavy. The disciples are bored; Jesus sweats blood. It saysthere in verse 32 that they went to a place called Gethsemane. The wordGethsemane literally means "oil press." It's like Jesus is beingsqueezed, deeply troubled.

When you think about it, so much of Mark's gospel just contains random andanonymous people: an unnamed woman, a girl, a paralytic, a man with a shriveledhand. And so much of Mark's story takes place in anonymous and random places:on a mountainside, by a lake, in a house. But Mark is also really specific anddetailed at times as well, and the names he uses come to mean something muchmore than perhaps even he intended: Peter, whose name means rock; Judas, thebetrayer; Gethsemane.

Every great story has a hero, and a quest, and villains, and heart, and atwist. And every great story has a high point; it has a pinnacle. If you thinkabout the way stories are put together—and that's what we've been doing, it'sbeen like our side hustle over these last couple of months—if you think abouthow stories are put together, there's this dramatic arc where there's thisperiod of rising action, and the complications and the intensity rises, andthere is a high point to falling action, and you just know what is going tohappen. It's where Romeo kills Tybalt and says, "I am fortune'sfool," and is set in train a cascading series of events and the outcome isassured.

Every great story has a destination, a place where it's been heading fromalmost the beginning, a place where all the threads of the story come togetherand from which point on nothing will be the same again. Every great story has aclimax. The word climax comes from classical Greek; it literally means astaircase or a ladder. It's like the ultimate obstacle where the protagonistfaces the greatest challenge, and here it's like Jesus is climbing the ladderto his ultimate challenge.

This is the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We've known that fromthe beginning; that's how Mark's gospel opens. This is the gospel about JesusChrist, the Son of God, but then we discover the Son of God is to die. That isthe great twist. Well, it's more than a twist; it's like a hairpin bendcompared to the trajectory we were on: the Son of God is to die.

And so, as Geoff mentioned, we think about Palm Sunday, the week beforeJesus' death. This passage here is taken the day before Jesus' death, the daywhen humans crucified God. Think about this for a moment. The very first battlethat humankind faced was in the garden, the Garden of Eden. "Did Godreally say if you ate from the tree in the middle of the garden you would die?You will not surely die." Eden: that was where the battle was lost.

The last battle that humankind faces is in a different garden; it's thegarden called Gethsemane. But someone else is going to battle for them. It willbe a lonely battle; it will be a fearful battle. It's lonely, it's fearful,it's fearful, it's lonely, but ultimately it will be a successful battle—Jesusin the garden of Gethsemane where he battles for each one of us.

We are on page 1009 of Mark's Gospel—well, 1008 of the Red Bibles. And yousee there in verse 33, they went to a place called Gethsemane and Jesus said tohis disciples, "Sit here while I pray." Then 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."

It's fearful. The language of scripture is groping to explain what ishappening here. Jesus is staring into the abyss of the judgment of God. There'sno other answer for that; there's no other answer that really explains whathe's going through except that Jesus has known the Father from the beginningand now he's to be severed from the Father. He'll face the white-hot purity ofthe living God having taken on our darkness.

It says in verse 33 he was distressed, he was troubled, facing terror. Theword there for "troubled" literally in the original means"against the demon," so he's wrestling. It's like he's wrestling withdemonic powers. He's overwhelmed; he's surrounded by sorrow. You might knowwhat it's like in your own experience to feel a bit panicky or a bit stressedor a bit anxious; if you know what that's like, you know something of afraction of a glimmer of what it was like for Jesus. I think it was MartinLuther who said no one feared death like Jesus. Why? Because it was just noordinary death. There were many people who faced death terribly, but this oneis different.

He calls it "his hour," the hour that has been coming since themoment he arrived on earth. His hour is coming; he calls it that in verse 35.In verse 36, he calls it "the cup." That's kind of like Old Testamentcode for God's judgment, God's wrath—the cup where the judgment of God comesdown, and he's overwhelmed. I love the fact that we read Isaiah 53 beforehand.Wonderfully, it was written five, six hundred years before Jesus and yet itfits him so well. I can imagine perhaps Jesus even thinking on these words ashe's in the garden.

This is no Gulf War. And he's lonely as well. Jesus faces Gethsemane utterlyalone. He takes Peter and James and John with him. He says in verse 33,"Stay here and keep watch." They fall asleep. He goes back to themagain after praying, "Are you asleep? Couldn't you keep watch for onehour?" He comes back again in verse 40; they are still sleeping. "Areyou still sleeping and resting?"

He doesn't ask much of them, does he? He just asks them to stay awake, butthey don't. You and me, we know what it's like to sleep, don't we? I have alittle app on my phone which is called Sleep Cycle. It tells me at the end ofthe night how well I slept, how much my dreaming was, and how long I was in bedfor, and it even gives me a percentage, which is very nice. I don't know ifit's accurate but makes me feel better anyway.

When I was first starting off as a preacher, I had some of my sermons oncassette tapes—remember what those are like? You probably thought my sermonswere on like 78 records or something like that, but cassette tapes. And some ofmy friends had them, and one of my friends who had a little girl, she wouldsay, "Mommy, Daddy, can you play one of Uncle Greg's talks as I go off tosleep because it helps me to go off to sleep?" And that's very kind ofhumbling, really, for a little kid.

We know what it's like to be sleepy, but this is a different kind of sleep,isn't it, that Jesus is talking about? And if he just had someone to stand withhim, just one friend, but no one can or will. He must do it alone. And thehorror, and the loneliness, and the pressure—Jesus feels it in spades.

The opening line of Mark's gospel is, "This is the good news of JesusChrist, the Son of God." But is it good news? It doesn't seem to be thehappy ever after story, does it? I mean, that very first hymn we sang about aman going off to be crucified and we sang it in, I think it was a major key,and it sounds kind of happy and joyful. How can that be? It doesn't seem to bethe happy ever after story. What are we supposed to feel here? What do you feelhere? They call the day we remember his death Good Friday, but what's goodabout that? An innocent man gets executed—well, worse than that, God iscrucified.

It's interesting that Jesus prays three times in Mark's gospel. Mark recordshim praying three times. The first time is in chapter one after he'd healedmany people and he's faced with the pressure of being the successful physician.You could imagine he might be wrestling with that, thinking to himself,"This is what I've come to do: to make people well." That would be agood thing. He prays again in chapter six after he'd fed the 5,000 and peopleput pressure on him to become the clever king, the one who could just meeteverybody's needs. And now in chapter 14, he's facing the pressure to avoid thecross.

Why is this the climax? Why not Good Friday? Why am I saying to you thatGethsemane is the climax? Because this is where Jesus makes the decision.Jesus, who is the God-man, is struggling with his desire to avoid this terribledeath. It won't just be a death, but it will be a relational death. It will beto be separated from God the Father—a disruption between himself and God theFather. So this is not just some ordinary person facing trouble; he's facing adecision: will he shoulder the sins of the world or will he leave the world toshoulder its own sins?

This is the choice. This is the dilemma. This is the clash. This is theclimax. And so this decision will change the history of the world so that theworld might become deathless.

And he's got such a disappointing bunch of followers with him, hasn't he? Doyou feel bad about this? Do you feel bad about his followers? Maybe you could;maybe that's what Mark wants us to feel. Or maybe he wants you to realize thatthis is just like you and me. We always think of Peter and James and John asbeing the key disciples, and maybe they are the key disciples, but maybethey're mentioned most often because they're also the most hopeless, and justlike you and me—the most hopeless.

And you see, if this is the big moment of salvation, what do they do exceptsleep? But at the big moment of the salvation, what do any of us do exceptsleep? You are hopeless and I'm hopeless, but your Savior is so great you don'tneed to do anything. You can literally sleep through this.

It's all very easy, isn't it, in our world today and our lives to think ofour achievements. I'm going to make a plea with you: if you get to come to myfuneral, please don't talk about my achievements. Please don't talk about theletters I have after my name; please don't talk about the professionalqualifications I have. It's not a job interview; it's done. Please, whateveryou do, don't play "I Did It My Way," which is such a bad song. I wasthinking about this this morning as I was preparing this; it's such a bad song.Even Frank Sinatra thought it was self-serving and self-indulgent, even thoughit made him a lot of money. Please don't do that. Please don't speak about whatI achieved; speak about the Savior. I mean, tell some stories about my life, that'sfine, do that. You can maybe mention a few little bits and pieces here andthere, but I really want you to talk about the Savior.

We sleep while the Savior saves. The cup is the Old Testament word forjudgment. Does he take the judgment, in which case others will not, or does heescape the judgment, in which case we take it ourselves?

He says "Abba," the words of tenderness between the Father and theSon. "Dear Father, I would rather not do this, but not what I want, whatyou want." And when he said those words, "not what I want but whatyou want," Jesus sealed your salvation. He made the decision inGethsemane, and because Jesus went through with the cup, you who believe inChrist will never drink the cup. You will sail through to the presence of God.There is no judgment; there is no cup of judgment for you to drink. There is nocondemnation; there is no separation, and nothing can stand between you and Godbecause of his decision there. So just take it. Just take it; that's all. Don'toverthink it; don't feel bad about it.

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