Sermon: The Agony in the Garden – Mark 14:26-42

Introduction and Scripture Reading

The reason why we are in the Gospel of Mark chapter 14 is, as a church, we’ve been going through the Gospel of Mark here on the Lord’s Day. And so one may wonder, why are we in the middle of the Passion of Christ here at the end of August instead of the Easter season? But that is the reason why we’ve been attempting to exposit this gospel. And this Sunday we find ourselves here in Mark 14. We’re going to read the same passage that we read last Sunday, which is verses 26 to 42. Let us give careful attention to God’s holy, inspired, and authoritative word.

And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives, and Jesus said to them, you will all fall away, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter said to Him, even though they all fall away, I will not. And Jesus said to him, Truly, I say to you, this very night before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. But he said emphatically, if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And they all said the same, and they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, Sit here while I pray. And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And He said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death, remain here and watch. And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. And he came and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation? The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again, he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again, he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough. The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise. Let us be going see my betrayer is at hand. This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

You’ll notice in this sermon that I will not deal with what is glaringly obvious, and that would be the fall or the negligence of the disciples, Peter, James and John and those who could not tarry to pray. And I believe I mentioned last week that we would look at the failure of the disciples today, but I am going to push it off again, not because it is not necessary to attend to those facts that are scriptural. But we will find here the betrayal of Jesus and the denial of Jesus by Peter, specifically, and so we will look at this text today, two questions that are before us, questions that strike at the very heart of who Jesus is and what he does in these moments.

First, what is going on when Jesus goes in the garden and prays earnestly that the cup would be removed from him, if Jesus is God incarnate, which Mark has been saying emphatically from the beginning of his gospel? How is it that we see God pleading with God to change the decree of God? Second, in light of that, how is Jesus able to predict the future with such accuracy? He not only foretells that Peter is going to deny him three times before the rooster crows, but he also promises His resurrection when he says, after I am raised, I will meet you in Galilee.

So in this text, we are confronted with two realities, Jesus in His humanity, crying out in deep anguish, and Jesus in His divinity, speaking with perfect knowledge of what is to come. And there’s another layer in this that we must not miss, because in the garden, we not only see Jesus in His humanity and in His divinity, we are also seeing him as mediator, a mediator at work. And that raises a third question for us today. Why did the mediator have to be fully God and fully man? Why was it necessary that the one who would suffer, die, and rise again for us possess two distinct natures, divine and human, united, without confusion, without change, without division and without separation in the one person of our Lord, Jesus Christ. So three questions: why did Jesus, God incarnate, pray as if pleading with God to change His will? How could he so accurately foretell the future? And why must this mediator be both fully God and fully man united in one person.

Question 1: Why Did Jesus Pray as if Pleading with God to Change His Will?

Let’s begin with that first question. What is going on here? As he prays earnestly that the cup would be removed from him in the fifth century, in AD 451, the church gathered for a great Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon, and it was one of the most significant councils in church history. And this council was convened to confront several heresies that were threatening the church at the time, but the most pressing error of that day, an issue of that day, was something known as the Monophysite heresy, another big word, right? Monophysite. But the word has two parts, the prefix, of course, mono which you know what that means, one and physis, which we get our English word, physics from nature, the study of nature. So put them together. The Monophysite controversy simply meant one nature. And this is what these individuals called the monophysites were teaching. They claimed that Jesus did not have two natures, one fully divine and one fully human, but he only had one. And that one nature, they said, was something mixed, something like a divinized humanity or a humanized divinity. In other words, they said Jesus was one person with one blended nature, a divinely human or humanly divine nature. And that’s what the council of Chalcedon was addressing, because it was an error that was deadly, and it was deadly for two reasons. First, it denied the full deity of Jesus, and secondly, it denied the true humanity of Jesus. And so in Chalcedon in 451 the church stood firm and confessed that Jesus Christ is truly man and truly God, two distinct natures, fully divine and fully human, united in one person. And indeed, it’s a mystery that humbles us when we begin to try to wrap our minds around that. How do we even begin to comprehend the union of a human nature with the divine nature in one person? The scripture tells us that in the incarnation, the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity took upon himself a human nature, and when the Word became flesh, John 1, it’s very important to clarify that human nature was not swallowed up or transformed into something divine. It truly remained, truly and fully human.

We read the Apostles Creed. We often read the Nicene Creed. And the Nicene Creed asserts that for us and for our salvation, the Son of God came down from heaven and was incarnated. And that sentence is insisting, in fact, the whole paragraph in that Nicene Creed is insisting that, in no uncertain terms, that the man Jesus after the Incarnation, is the same person as the eternal Son of God before the incarnation. So two natures, divine and human. In Christ, the mediator so united with each other that from this union results is one person, and that’s the Chalcedonian Definition of Christ’s nature. And the famous sentence, if there is a famous sentence in that creed, is without confusion, without change, without division or separation, and it becomes the cornerstone of Orthodox Christology. And now just a brief word here, when we speak about the Trinity, which we often do here in worship or in sermons or in teachings, or when we speak about this mystery of Christ being fully God and fully man, it is always safest and wisest to let the scriptures and the historic creeds speak for us. In other words, don’t try to be clever or creative. Don’t reach for shallow illustrations like ice water and steam and all those kind of things and attempts to explain the trinity or who Jesus is. Quote the Word of God, go to the creeds and confessions, which are not meant to be just dusty old documents. They are what they are the church’s shared testimony of what Scripture teaches, and they remind us that theology is not something that we do alone or in isolation, but it’s something that has been done together as the people of God across the ages. We know that when we try to do theology in isolation, we cut ourselves off from the wisdom of the church and our history. We put ourselves in a very dangerous place. But these creeds, these confessions, are given to us to help us understand, defend and clearly communicate the truth of who Christ is and what he has done.

And so we think of what the creeds say about Jesus. Again, the Nicene Creed declares that Christ is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. The Chalcedonian Creed says to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably, one of the same son, the only begotten God, the word the Lord Jesus Christ. And so take these and anchor yourself to those truths which will keep us in a worshipful and humble and a place safe from heresy. Now, as we think carefully about Christ’s two natures, and we return to this episode in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus is pleading with the Father. Is it his divine nature, the eternal logos, pleading for the father to change his mind? Of course not. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the three persons of the Trinity, have been in perfect agreement from all eternity about how the work of our redemption is to be accomplished. And Jesus said in many places but John 6:38, For I have come down from heaven to do what? Not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. But when Jesus is in the garden in which we’ve peered into this episode here this morning, we see him overwhelmed with anguish. What are we getting but a glimpse of his true humanity, the sweat on his brow, it was human sweat, likewise, when our Savior grew hungry, that was his humanity, when he fell asleep in the boat. That was his humanity. And in Gethsemane, which we’ve just read here this morning, his very real human nature is on full display for us. We think about it, when Jesus would get hungry? Does God get hungry? No. When Jesus was exhausted, does God get exhausted? No, but these are expressions of his human nature. And we’re reminded Jesus is fully man, and Jesus is fully God. And so we begin to understand what is going on in the garden at this time.

Question 2: How Could Jesus So Accurately Foretell the Future?

And that brings us to the second question, how is Jesus able to predict the future with such accuracy, which he does with Peter’s denials and even promises his own resurrection? And we heard last Sunday, we talked about it more, how he says, I will meet you guys in Galilee, even after you fail me. How is he able to do that as we see him in such anguish in the garden? Well, in the Incarnation, God does not give up or diminish a single one of his divine attributes. In other words, the divine nature remains eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, anything that belongs to true deity remains fully intact. God did not stop being God when the son took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, and yet, at the same time, the human nature truly remained human. It was finite, it was contained. Can only be in one place at one time. It was limited in knowledge and limited in power. Every attribute that is truly human remained an attribute of Christ’s humanity. So again, we’re seeing the two natures, divine and human and Christ, the mediator, are so united with each other that from this union, results is one person. He became flesh, not by mutation, but by assumption, constituting one person. And we see in Scripture that this is how it has to be. We see His divine nature, Isaiah 7:14, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold a virgin, which we confessed in the Apostles Creed, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And what will you call his name? Matthew interprets it for us, Emmanuel, which means God with us, He is God. He is fully God.

And yet, in Jesus, we see scripture revealing to us his human nature, don’t we even in the prophecies? Isaiah 9:6 For unto us, a child is born. A child, a man child. Isaiah 53:3. He was despised and rejected by men. He was a man of sorrows, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, fully God, fully man. First Timothy 2:5. There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, Hebrews 2:14 since therefore the children share in flesh and blood. He himself likewise partook of the same things, fully God, fully man. In First Timothy 3:16 says, This is the great mystery that we confess he was manifested in the flesh. This had to be so that he could truly be the mediator. In fact, the necessity of that is so evident in Hebrews 2:16 through 17, when it says, For surely, it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore now note the words he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

So again, we are seeing in the garden and then Christ’s prophecies, his foretelling of the future, evidences of Christ’s two natures remaining fully intact, again, quoting that great creed without mixture, confusion, separation or division, what belongs to his Humanity, hunger, weariness, sweat, a physical body remains human, what belongs to his deity, His eternality, His omniscience, his omnipresence, His omnipotence, remains divine.

Question 3: Why Must the Mediator Be Both Fully God and Fully Man?

And that then leads us to the third question, why? Why did the mediator have to be fully God and fully man, and this is important because of many reasons, but one being that every generation faces the same heresies as the early church faced, which again, is why we must stay grounded in the scriptures and the creeds and the confessions that have provided for us boundaries to think through and understand these things while acknowledging that we cannot fully explain how the divine and human natures are united. We know what it is not—it’s not by confusion, it’s not by mixture, it’s not by separation, not by division. The son again, remains fully God and fully man in perfect and mysterious union. And this is how it had to be. He had to be made like his brothers in every respect that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of His people, and that because he himself has suffered when he is tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted. And that’s one of the immediate applications we should gain and extract as we peer into this scene of Jesus in Gethsemane that he himself has suffered and he is able to help those who are suffering.

Jesus as Fully God: Able to Save

He had to be God to save us, because he has full authority over his life and death. Remember what Jesus says in John 10:18, no one takes it my life from me, but I lay it down. That’s God. Only God can do that of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. You know, only God can do that. It must be so that he offer a sacrifice of infinite worth to fully atone for sin, satisfying the justice of an infinitely Holy God. It had to be so that he could remove the infinite guilt of sin and secure for his people the infinite blessing of union and communion in life in God. For in Him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. And you have been filled in him, Colossians 2:9 through 10, it had to be so that he could powerfully save and sanctify and keep his people against every one of their enemies, so that the gates of hell will not prevail against this church. I think one of the things that ought to come to our mind ought to come to our thinking when we read those and confess those Westminster shorter catechism today is the darkness of sin, of the ginormous problem of sin? Is it something that has been passed down to us as was explained by ordinary generation, as something that we cannot deal with on our own, as something that has brought what but misery and pain to our world as we look at what has happened even this past week? Oh, don’t try to ignore it. There it is. There’s the pain. There’s a tremendous misery, like a blanket that has come across the peoples. But why? Because of this great problem, but Jesus is fully God to save us, as no one else can save us to deal with this great problem as no one else can deal with it.

Jesus as Fully Man: Able to Sympathize

And this mediator had to be man. Why? So that he’d take the place of sinners and bear their guilt, become our substitute under the law, so that he suffer and die to satisfy the demands of God’s law, as Isaiah prophesied, it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put Him to grief, so that he would live a perfect life of obedience under the law on our behalf, so that he would be a merciful and sympathetic high priest and one of the most beautiful verses, I think in Scripture, they’re all beautiful, but Hebrews 4:15 for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who, in every respect, has been tempted as we are, yet without sin, and so he becomes our kinsmen, Redeemer, our brother, standing in solidarity with his people.

And this is what we see in the garden, don’t we? We see Jesus agonizing. Did you see it when it says, he falls down on the ground. He falls he collapses. It’s hard to even read those words without feeling that pain. He fell on the ground, tremendous agony, tremendous grief. I’ve only seen that in hospital contexts, when such terrible news comes to individuals of a loved one that they would collapse on the ground, scream, shriek. But see in the garden, we see Jesus agonizing, and it tells us something that is life changing, if the Spirit would reveal it to us, he is like us. He is able to sympathize with us, but he is unlike us, and we see it when he says, in that great agony, but not my will, but Your will be done in perfect obedience to the Father, perfectly submitting to the will of his Father, even under such great agony.

Jesus’ Humanity in Gethsemane: Like Us in Suffering

But he’s like us. That’s what you see in the Garden of Gethsemane. Because no one can honestly look at Jesus here and say, This man doesn’t understand me. This man doesn’t know what it means to have unmet expectations and unfulfilled longings. He’s never known loneliness or deep disappointment or what it feels like to be abandoned by God. No one can say that and be intellectually honest. No one can say he’s nothing like me. He doesn’t understand because he says, it says he has been tempted in every way so that he could sympathize with our weaknesses, yet he was without sin. And it’s been noted by some Greek scholars that that word tempted in English, our understanding in English is sometimes confusing to us or doesn’t really bring out the broadness of what that word is. We think tempted, we think enticed to sin, which, of course, it does mean. But in Greek, it’s much broader. It’s the full range of testing of trial of temptation. It’s saying that Jesus walked through the full range of human suffering. That’s what we see here. Now someone will say, Well, how’s that possible? Has he really experienced all the full range of human suffering? He never went through a divorce, and the pain of that divorce, pain as a man, never had a miscarriage and had the pain of what that feels like. He was never paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. So what does it mean? He’s walked through the full range of human suffering. Of course, every one of our experiences is unique, even if we could relate in those ways that I just named, we still can’t fully get into each other’s shoes, because we’re all different. But there’s a core of our suffering, isn’t there loss? All of those things speak of loss, divorce, miscarriage, paralyzation, illnesses that confine abandonment, betrayal, pain and what we know of what the gospel say about Jesus is Jesus has been there, but not only there, he has endured those realities to depths beyond what you and I could ever imagine, an unfulfilled longing, unlike we could ever imagine, an alienation, unlike what we could ever endure, that what is going on in the garden that day is a weight of disappointment and a weight of grief and abandonment that he bore when he cried out. Abba, Father, please. Let this hour pass, which will lead to him on the cross for again, he’ll cry out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? So No, he’d never experienced a divorce or a miscarriage or a paralyzation or the loss or the death of a child. He never experienced the in biological terms, the wariness of rebellious child, pains and sufferings that we as children of men experience, and many more. But Jesus knows the core of that kind of suffering. He’s tasted it. That’s what Mark is saying in Gethsemane. He’s tasted a suffering, and it’s a suffering and a degree that’s beyond anything you and I have ever tasted. In fact, we could say, with due respect, our suffering is a drop in the ocean compared to the vast depths of his agony that is beginning here on those grounds of Gethsemane.

Why We Need Someone Like and Unlike Us

But, oh, that is what had to happen, because you and I not only need someone like us, which Gethsemane is showing was Jesus’ full humanity is showing we not only need someone like us and we need that, but we also need someone who is stronger than us, who can carry us through the sufferings of life, Someone who has overcome I was talking to someone recently, and they said one of their family members is mental health counselor, and they were just standing amazed at the fact that they could do that day in and day out. In fact, this counselor in his practice, they said, has more clients than he could handle. The waiting list is just so full, and they were just talking about just I couldn’t do that, day in and day out, morning till night, counseling people coming with so many problems. But imagine you go to a counselor, counselor, and you begin to tell them your problems, and they respond, oh, I know things have been really tough for me too lately. Well, you say, Well, no, I want to tell you about what’s going on my life. Oh, I know the counselor says things are really terrible in my life as well. Well, I think you’re gonna cancel the agreement with that counselor. Why? Because the counselor’s heart is not able to go out to you because they are too wrapped up in themselves. They can’t truly sympathize with you and enter your pain. Why? Because they’re self centered. They’re sinners, and it’s becoming very evident in how they’re dealing with you. You’re trying to tell them your problems, and they’re so self absorbed, they start talking about their problems. They say, that’s not what I need here. I guess the counselor can’t sympathize with you. Can’t relate to you, but the counselor is also like that, defeated by the same problems you’re in the middle of. How could they, in any way be of help to you? But friends, we don’t just need someone who is like us. We need someone who is unlike us. We need Jesus, because He is the only one who was tempted in every way, yet without sin. He is the only one who said an absolute perfect obedience in the midst of that agony of Gethsemane, not my will father, but Your will be done now. Believe me, I’ve seen evidences of that kind of heart as God’s Spirit works sanctification in his people. In other words, we too can come to a place to say, Not my will, but Your will be done. I’ve seen it a while back when a family had their loved one die unexpectedly, and they prayed and they prayed and they prayed and they prayed for a miracle. This cannot be. This is not what we want to accept, crying out to God to heal this family member. And yet this family member died, breathed their last breath, and I watched as they gathered around the hospital bed, and the hymn that they sang was, God, you always do what is right, my friends, that is the work of a spirit in the hearts of God’s people who can say, Lord, not my will, but Your will be done, even in the midst of such excruciating pain. But even in those words, being son, he always does what is right. There is still not perfect obedience, there is still not perfect holiness. There is still not perfect strength that belongs to Jesus Christ alone. And when he says, Not my will father, but Your will be done, is perfect obedience, untainted motivation. There’s no tainted motivations. When he speaks that prayer out, my friend, he is the one who’s not only like us, but he is unlike us, so that he is the wonderful counselor. He can save us, he can deliver us, and he does have you come to this Jesus. Do you find your love? Do your help and your relief in him. There’s no self absorption in him. Like even the best counselors, I think a counselor who counsels people 8-12 hours a day, at some point, just can’t handle it. Has to step away. Jesus can handle it. He falls to the ground. If it’s possible, may this hour pass from me. And then verse 36 he says, Abba Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but you will.

The Intimate Cry: Abba Father

And he says, Abba Father, which is dear father, dear. The most intimate words from a child to a father, Abba Abba. The scripture tells us that we, as children of God, can call now God Abba Father. Abba was listening to a pastor named Eric Thomas. He told a story that about the first time he truly grasped the meaning of the word Abba, dear father. He was walking in Israel, Thomas said, and he was behind a Jewish man dressed in full orthodox robes, the side curls, the traditional clothing, the whole attire, and the man was holding his young son by the hand as they hurried towards the Western Wall. They were running late, so the father was walking very briskly, almost dragging his little boy along. And the boy with his little legs and feet were trying to keep up, first running and then walking faster, but his little legs couldn’t match his father’s pace. He grew frustrated. He was tired, and so the boy yanked his hand free from his father’s grip. He plopped down right there on the ground, and he cried out, abba, abba. Abba, abba. Abba Derek said, the father stopped, turned around, looked at his son, and then gently scooped him up, lifted him up on his shoulders and carried him the rest of the way. And that’s what happens when the children of God cry out, Abba Father, in our great need, the father picks us up, carries us along, and he meets the needs of our soul. But hear this friend, when Jesus cried out in the garden of Gethsemane Abba Father, the Father did not scoop him up, did not deliver him. He left him undelivered to drink the full cup of God’s wrath. Why? So that you and I could be delivered, so that you and I could speak from our frail lips, Abba Father, and never be left alone? Why? Because the Son of God was forsaken in our place. And that’s the heart of what’s happening here, that in the garden, Jesus is embracing the cup of wrath that you and I so rightfully deserve, so that we could drink of the cup of mercy, which we don’t deserve, that he was left alone, so that you and I could never be left alone. He was forsaken so that we could be accepted, and he bore the full weight of judgment so that you and I could stand in the full sunshine of grace. So friends, when you feel abandoned, when you feel the weight of sin with the sting of suffering, lift your eyes to Gethsemane, and you hear him say, Not my will, but your will be done. And you know that the obedient son secured for you the eternal love of Almighty God, Abba Father, Child of God, when you come to the Lord’s table today, and you see the cup, and you remember he drank the cup of judgment all the way, so that you can hold that cup as a sign and seal that you are his, you are loved, and no matter what’s going on, no matter what pain or suffering you’re in or joy, you will never be forsaken come in faith, resting in the one Who is fully God to save but fully man to sympathize with you, our mediator, our Redeemer.

Closing Prayer

Let’s pray, Father. We thank you for Jesus, fully God and able to save the fully man who sympathize with our weaknesses. Thank you that he drank the cup of wrath so that we might drink the cup of mercy. And as we come to your table today, deepen our gratitude and strengthen our faith, as we draw near to you and you draw near to us, save the one who is far from you, cause from their lips to cry out to you and bring salvation through your son. And we pray in Jesus. Name Amen.