Mark 14:26-52
Date: June 18th 2023
Speaker: Samuel Crites
Scripture: Mark 14:26-52
Exegetical Outline
Main Idea of the Text: Jesus spends his last moments with his disciples, singing hymns and praying, then is betrayed into the hands of his enemies.
26-31: Jesus tells the disciples that all will betray him, even Peter, and fall away, as it is written.
32-42: Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, and no one can stay awake to pray with him.
43-52: Jesus is arrested when Judas betrays him, and the disciples flee.
Homiletical Outline
Main Idea of Sermon: In the end, everyone must fail except Christ alone.
We are too inconsistent to save ourselves, Christ is constant. (26-31)
We are too weak to save ourselves, Christ is strong. (32-42)
We are too prideful to save ourselves, Christ is meek. (43-52)
Introduction:
Why do we tell ourselves stories? Why do we need heroes? What is it about fiction that captures our imaginations and anchors the great stories of history to our souls? We tell ourselves stories about princes that scale dark towers and fight evil forces; common youths that are given magical swords and are guided by wise wizards to establish kingdoms of righteousness and justice; little halflings that are called to take an unexpected journey and sacrifice everything to deliver humanity from an age of darkness.
In Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, he recounts a conversation between C.S. Lewis and Tolkien that contributed to Lewis’s ultimate conversion to Christianity. In the conversation, Tolkien gives Lewis an answer to our question: why do we tell ourselves stories?
[Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000). 151.]
"But, said Lewis, myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver.
No, said Tolkien, they are not.
And, indicating the great trees of Magdalen Grove as their branches bent in the wind, he struck out a different line of argument.
You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a ‘tree’ until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.
We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress’ leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.
…
You mean, asked Lewis, that the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth that works on us in the same way as the others, but a myth that really happened? In that case, he said, I begin to understand.”
What Tolkien is arguing is what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth. All the stories that we tell ourselves have a definite similarity, not because of any intent by the original authors, but because a particular story resonates with us. What led to Lewis’s ultimate conversion is that he began to see that true story in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Every hero’s journey eventually faces the dark night, the moment when the hero descends into the darkness, and we aren’t certain that they will rise again. Today’s sermon is the beginning of that moment in the Gospel of Mark. As Jesus begins to walk toward the darkness of death, he will be abandoned by all those around him. This week, we will see that this is God’s plan. Let’s read Mark 14:26-52 and see why Christ must be abandoned by all those close to him.
Mark 14:26-52
26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 27 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.’ 28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” 29 Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” 30 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” 31 But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.
32 And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 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.” 37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 41 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. 42 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
43 And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. 44 Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man. Seize him and lead him away under guard.” 45 And when he came, he went up to him at once and said, “Rabbi!” And he kissed him. 46 And they laid hands on him and seized him. 47 But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. 48 And Jesus said to them, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.” 50 And they all left him and fled.
51 And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, 52 but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.
The main idea of our sermon is this: In the end, everyone must fail except Christ alone. Starting with last week, as Christ makes his journey toward the cross, we are going to see everyone fall away. Judas is not the only betrayer. By the time he is being crucified, there will be no one left to support him. All of his disciples, even Peter, will have been scattered. This is such an important sermon, because we must remind ourselves that our hope is not in our government, our families, our country, not even in the Church. Our hope is in Christ alone, because he is the only one that has been faithful to the end; he is the only one that will never fail us.
In our sermon, we are going to see three contrasts between Christ’s faithfulness and everyone else’s failures. In our first point, we will see that we are too inconsistent to save ourselves, but Christ is constant. Jesus has been telling the disciples since Chapter 8 that he will be rejected by the chief priests and elders, be crucified, and rise from the dead. He opens our sermon text today by telling the disciples that the time has come for God to “strike the Shepherd,” as Zechariah prophesied, and that the sheep will be scattered. Every one of the disciples will betray him in the end. The disciples passionately deny this, especially Peter, but in the end, they all abandon him. The disciples have passion, but they don’t have perseverance. We can trust Jesus because he is constant when we are inconsistent.
Our second point is that we are too weak to save ourselves, but Christ is strong. As Jesus is preparing to face his crucifixion in the Garden of Gethsemane, he spends his time praying. The might of Jesus is not in the strength of his arm, but in his dependence on and submission to the Father. He asks the disciples to join him, but it is past their bedtime. They are so weak that they cannot keep maintain consciousness as Christ pours his heart out before the Father. They are given three opportunities and three times they fail Christ. Their weakness shows the strength of Christ. We can depend on him because he has the strength to intercede for us to the Father.
Our third and final point is that we are too prideful to save ourselves, but Christ is meek. When the betrayer comes with the armed crowd and arrests Jesus, his disciples are willing to fight for Christ, but they are not willing to suffer for Christ. In spite of all that Christ has told them about what must take place, in the moment when Christ is arrested, the disciple’s pride causes them to draw swords. One of the disciples even cuts off the ear of a servant of the high priest, but in the end, he flees. The meekness of Christ is not weakness. His strength is bridled by his submission to the will of the Father. In meekness, he allows himself to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. If Christ had not bridled his pride in meekness, there would be no atonement for sin.
In the end, Jesus had to be alone, because he is the only one that can save. There never has been nor ever will be anyone other than Jesus Christ that could have taken our place at the cross. Everyone had to fail so that Christ would be alone in the end, taking the punishment we deserve, so that we can have the righteousness that only he deserves. In the end, everyone must fail except Christ alone.
We are too inconsistent to save ourselves, but Christ is constant.
Our first comparison comes from verses 26-31, Jesus is constant when we are inconsistent. Let’s reread these verses together:
Mark 14:26-31
26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 27 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.’ 28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” 29 Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” 30 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” 31 But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.
Two things are important to see in these verses. First, Christ expects his disciples to fail. He literally opens up his discourse with them by telling them that they will all fall away. He knows this, because God revealed it to the prophet Zechariah 500 years before Jesus was ever born, in Zechariah 13:7. Zechariah said that when the sword turns against God’s Shepherd, God will also scatter all of the Shepherd’s sheep.
From this we can learn a couple things. God doesn’t need the disciples to accomplish his plan. In fact, it seems that he needs to get them out of the way, because he purposefully scatters them. Christ alone is the one that has been prepared to bear the wrath of God on the cross. So in some ways, the inability of the disciples to endure is not their fault. It was not God’s intention that they endure. Which should be a lesson to us that if we are going to make it to the end, it is not going to be by our own strength and merit, it is going to be because God preserved us all along the way.
Not only does God not need the disciples, but the warning from Christ is a mercy. Think how the disciples must have felt in the time between the betrayal and the resurrection. As they were cowering in the Upper Room, I imagine they vacillated between panic, anger, fear, and extreme guilt. They were probably bickering with each other one moment and sobbing on each other’s shoulders the next. That Jesus told them that he expected them to fail might have been a comfort during that time. In the midst of despair, they probably reminded each other of Zechariah 13 and encouraged each other that Jesus was coming for them again. Don’t you remember, he promised he was going to meet us in Galilee?
It is the same with us. God does not need us to accomplish his plans, and when we fail, he has grace for us in proportion to our weakness. We are his sheep; he knows us. He knows where we are vulnerable, and he knows what is too much for us to handle. Many of us this week have failed him. When I fail Christ by succumbing to sin, I fall into the same kind of despair that disciples probably felt in that Upper Room. I feel like I need to do something to come back to the Lord, some sort of penance to make up for the way that I have failed him.
Brothers and Sisters, that is not the Gospel. It is good news that your salvation does not depend on you. When you fail, encourage yourself with the truth that Christ expected you to fail. The author of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 4:15 that
Hebrews 4:15-16
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. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
When we sin, we should not wallow in our guilt and self-pity. We need to remind ourselves that High Priest, our true Shepherd, knows who we are; He has experienced all of our temptations and yet he never sinned. In his sympathy for our frailty, he alone stood in our place so that we could have confidence to approach the thrown of grace and receive a mercy that we do not deserve.
A mature Christian, who truly understands this sweet truth about the Gospel, repents quickly. It is the mature that throw themselves on grace at the moment that the Spirit convicts them of sin and trusts that the sacrifice of Jesus is sufficient to cover even this newest failure to consistently follow their Savior. We can be confident of forgiveness, because Jesus knew what he was getting. He knew we would continually fail him, just like the disciples, and he went to the cross anyway.
The second thing that we can learn from these verses is that passionate words do not matter; we will not be judged by what we say, but by what we do. The chief example of this in the Gospel of Mark is Peter, and he is in fine Peter form in verses 26-31. He boldly proclaims in verse 29 that “Even if everyone else falls away, he will be the last man standing that does not abandon Christ.” And Christ looks him right in the eye in verse 30 and says before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. Now, Peter has seen Jesus command storms, he has seen him cast out demons, he even saw him raise a little girl from the dead; you would think that if Jesus told him something so directly, that Peter would trust that Jesus knew what he was talking about. But look at Peter’s defiant pride. Verse 31 says,
Mark 14:31
31 But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.
Peter is so sure of his own abilities that he again stands against Christ, trusting in his own wisdom and ability and confidently declares he possesses a faithfulness that he will abandon before the morning even begins. Peter’s problem is not that he desires the wrong thing. He desires to be faithful. Peter’s problem is that he plans to achieve the right thing the wrong way. He has decided that in spite of what Christ has said, he is going to white-knuckle his way to righteousness.
I want my young Christians to pay particular attention. You need to understand something about the Christian life. You will never make it to the end on your own effort. You did not save yourself, so you cannot keep yourself. Any progress in the faith that you make from the moment God saved you to the moment he takes you home to be with him is going to be because God has continued to work that faith into your life. We are not saved by grace and kept by effort. We are saved by grace, kept by grace, and one day, we will be glorified by grace. So that God gets the credit for every good work in your life. If you trust in your own strength, you will fail.
The truth is, we are all like this. We understand Peter because we are Peter. How many times have we promised Christ our faithfulness and within the week we’ve given up? We are all flakes. We make promises with our mouths, and we fail Christ before the day is done. We should take comfort in the fact that Christ knows our inconsistency. He knows how flippant and prone we are to wander. So the plan never depended on us, or the disciples, or anyone but Christ, because Christ is the only one that is reliable. He is the only man that was constantly obedient to the Father, and so he was the only one that could be left in the end to face the wrath of God on our behalf.
We are too weak to save ourselves, but Christ is strong.
As we move to our second point, we are going to see that we are too weak to save ourselves; Christ alone is strong enough to save. Let’s reread verses 32-42:
Mark 14:32-42
32 And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 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.” 37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 41 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. 42 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
Every time I read this passage, I struggle to understand why the disciples cannot stay awake. It has been a long week, perhaps the excitement of the triumphal entry and all the hikes back and forth from Bethany to Jerusalem are finally catching up with them. It is possible that the weakness that is clearly on display in this passage is merely physical.
However, as I was meditating on the contrast between Christ’s strength and the disciple’s weakness this week, another idea came to my mind. What if the disciples are not merely physically tired, what if they are purposefully resting? This praying and sleeping episode is sandwiched between the machismo of Peter’s declaration to die with Christ and the short and ineffective battle of Gethsemane. What if the disciples are not ignoring Christ; what if they are purposefully resting up in order to defend Christ when the moment of Judas’s betrayal comes to fruition?
If that is what is taking place, then the contrast that Mark is trying to get us to see is emboldened. The disciples and Jesus have two very different understandings of what it means to fight the good fight. The disciples don’t think prayer is important. They are making sure they are rested up so that they will have the energy to do what Jesus is unwilling to do when the bad guys come. Jesus, on the other hand, understand that the true fight is not between the religious leaders and himself, but between his will as a man and his will as God.
As a man, Jesus is deeply distressed about what he is about to face. He says to Peter, James, and John in verse 34:
Mark 14:34
“My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.”
Here we see Jesus’s humanity on display. He is apprehensive, broken-hearted, overwhelmed, and sad; he is literally in physical anguish about the punishment he is about to receive. This is all the truer because that punishment is not one that he deserves. He is going to be taking the punishment for you and for me.
So as he leaves the disciples, he begins to pray to the Father, because there is a legitimate discord between his will as a man and his will as God. Now, I have been very careful to say Jesus’s will as God, because there is not a difference between the divine will of the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, and the divine will of the Son, the second Person of the Trinity. The Godhead, and every Person in the Godhead, both desire and act in perfect concord and unity.
So, for Jesus, the God-man, to be in the Garden desiring something that the Father does not desire, we have to understand that Mark is foregrounding the humanity of Christ in opposition to his divinity.
Now, I want to be careful, because when you hear opposition, you might hear rebellion. It would be sin for Jesus to be in rebellion against God. That is not what Mark is showing us. Rather, Mark is showing us the honest discord between the will of Jesus of Nazareth and the will of God; or, said differently, Jesus’s will as man and Jesus’s will as God.
It is important to understand this opposition because it frames the second point of our sermon. The strength that Jesus demonstrates is not the strength to stay awake when everyone else is so tired they fall asleep. The strength Jesus demonstrates is the strength to submit; that is, the humble strength to submit his human will to his divine will. The important lesson for us is to see how he does it.
I have three quick lesson to learn about how to exercise the humble strength that Jesus demonstrates for us in the Garden. First, Jesus exercises humble strength by conforming his will to the Father’s. Now, we have to assume that three rounds of prayer that we see in verses 32-42 takes hours, but Mark does not show us the content of all those hours of prayer. Rather, he gives us the main highlight in verse 36. Jesus says to the Father:
Mark 14:36
“Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
The purpose of Jesus’s hours and hours of prayer was to bring his human will into conformity with the divine will. He was not informing the Father about something the Father didn’t already know. He was not praising God through prayer. He was not praying a prayer of thanksgiving. He was praying to change something in himself.
It is like the Father’s will was a mold, and Jesus’s will was clay. The hours of prayer were Jesus’s way of working that human clay into the mold, forcing it into every nook and cranny of the mold. So that, when the mold was removed, there was a perfect imprint of the will of God on the will of Christ.
This is the purpose of prayer. God doesn’t need anything from us. Prayer is our effort to work our will to be identical to God’s will. It requires strength because I don’t want to change my will. In my flesh, I want what I want, and I don’t want to change what I want. Sometimes, I know I am outside of God’s will. I want something he doesn’t want for me. I know I should pray, but I don’t want to because I know that it will change how I feel. I want my way, not his way. I am too much like the disciples.
I want to demonstrate my faithfulness to God with my ability to do the right thing, not love the right things. I want to win the battle with my physical strength and all the things that I can do for him, instead of with the humble strength of Christ that brings me to my knees in prayer and changes my heart to love the right things. True strength is exercised in prayer, not in physical effort. Humility is the measure of power, not white-knuckled will power.
The second thing we learn about how exercise humble strength is that the strength comes from God. The disciples are planning to face the storm of suffering on the horizon with a sword in their hand; before it even breaks, they will be scattered and cowering in hiding. Jesus is planning on facing that same storm by submitting his life to God, the Father, to do with as he pleases; in his humility, he will stand alone to receive the full force of the wrath of God against sin so the disciples, and all of us, never have to. The strength of the disciples fails them because the strength of men will always fail. Jesus’s strength does not fail him, because his strength comes from God. Our first lesson was to fight the right battle the right way; the second lesson is to trust in the strength of God, not the strength of men.
Our third and final lesson is that the strength of God, accessed through prayer, is meant to be shared. One of the most remarkable things that Jesus does in the midst of his anguish and labor to bring his will into conformity with God is that he pauses, comes back to Peter, and encourages him. In verses 37 and 38, Jesus comes back to Peter and says:
Mark 14:37-38
“Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Jesus is not rebuking Peter for falling asleep. He is reminding Peter about the prophecy from verse 30, that Peter will deny Christ three times before the rooster crows twice. Jesus is shepherding Peter. He is telling him, “Peter, did not understand what I said? You should be praying so that you will not fall to the temptation to deny me.” Peter’s weakness is not his inability to stay awake, his weakness is his fleshly pride that prevents him from true spiritual humility.
We can learn from Christ, because he is attempting to help Peter. The strong have a duty to bear with the weak. This is exactly what Paul teaches us Christ is doing in Romans 15. He says this in Romans 15, verse 1:
Romans 15:1-3
15 We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”
The strong have a duty to bear with the weak, because that is exactly what Christ did. In his strength, he stood in our place and helped us when we could not help ourselves. When Peter was caught in the pride of believing that he would never fail Christ, Jesus showed him how to escape the temptation, through prayer. In two weeks, when we see Peter too terrified to admit that he is a follower of Christ, Jesus eventually forgave Peter on the beach when he charged Peter to take care of his sheep in John 21. And when Peter is unable to save himself from the justified wrath of God against Peter’s sins, Jesus took his punishment on the cross. Jesus cared for Peter in his weakness so that one day, Peter would be strong enough to continue the ministry of Christ. The strong have a duty to the weak.
In our first point, we saw that when the disciples made boasts that they could not keep, Jesus showed how constant and dependable he was. In spite of the fact that the disciples were going to abandon him, he never abandoned them. He remained faithful to the point of death on a cross. In our second point, we have seen that the disciples were too weak. When they were ruled by their flesh, Jesus had the humble strength to bring his human will into conformity with the will of God. Though the disciples were too weak to persevere to the end, he never gave up on them. He used his strength to support them in their weakness.
We are too prideful to save ourselves, but Christ is meek.
In our third and final point, we are going to see the uniqueness of Christ in one final way. Instead of pridefully resisting his arrest like the disciples, Jesus is meek. Let’s reread verses 43-52:
Mark 14:43-52
43 And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. 44 Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man. Seize him and lead him away under guard.” 45 And when he came, he went up to him at once and said, “Rabbi!” And he kissed him. 46 And they laid hands on him and seized him. 47 But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. 48 And Jesus said to them, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.” 50 And they all left him and fled. 51 And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, 52 but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.
Let’s get something out on the table right out of the gate. Jesus’s willingness to be betrayed by Judas and arrested by the mob was not an act of weakness. Jesus is God. This is the same Jesus that John tells us in Revelation 1 that has a face like the sun, with lightning coming out of his eyes and a sword coming out of his mouth. This is the Jesus that John 1 says created all things. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
He is the all-powerful God. There is no other. No one like him. All the strength of the creator of the universe existed in that man in that Garden, bridled by the humble submission he achieved through prayer in the previous verses. So here I hope you can see the importance of our third and final point. If Christ had not bridled his power in the meekness of his Spirit, there would be no salvation. There would have been no world. It would have all ended in that moment. Holding off the impending wrath of God against sin all depended on the meekness of Christ to willingly be betrayed and quietly accept the punishment that he did not deserve.
So what can we learn from the meekness of Christ? We can see that the meekness of Christ is contrasted with the pride of the disciples. Every week, a group of men from the Church get together to help me prepare for the sermon over breakfast. This week, Brandon said that he was struck by how the disciples were willing to fight for Christ, but they were not willing to suffer for Christ. Meaning, they easily drew swords to defend Christ, but when it was clear that Jesus was not going to defend himself, they all fled into hiding.
Their desire to fight for Christ was more about themselves than it was about Jesus. We know this because since Mark 8, Christ has been telling them this was going to take place. Three times he prophesied that he would be rejected, arrested, murdered, and three days later he would rise from the dead. Since arriving in Jerusalem, he has consistently reminded them of his immanent death. The entire point of the Lord’s Supper in the upper room was to make them aware that he was the true Passover lamb that was about to be sacrificed. But instead of listening to Christ and submitting to the will of God, they decided they were going to fight for Christ.
That same machismo that had all the disciples beating their chests in verse 31 is the attitude they have in the Garden when facing Jesus’s arrest. Not going to take my Jesus. Yeah, we have no king but king Jesus. Not going to let those Roman tyrants take our king. He belonged to them, and they were going to defend what their property.
This happens all the time among Christians, especially among our youngest and “wisest” young men. Some budding theologian or apologists meets another person that would dare disagree with them about some second or third tier doctrine and before you know it the discussion is going round and round in circles that never come to resolution because no one is willing to admit that they were wrong or attempt to understand the other person’s position. Both parties see themselves as defending Christ when really all they are doing is stroking their own egos. They care more about winning the argument than they care about doing deliberate spiritual good to their neighbors.
Meekness means that sometimes we allow ourselves to be slighted. Sometimes we leave our sword in the scabbard and trust that God will sort out the details. John Piper says that meekness is like being a heavy punching bag, the kind that are filled with sand and designed to take thousands and thousands of punches without every breaking or ripping. The meek man takes blow after blow, always looking for ways to absorb all the animosity and aggression from others. Though he absorbs the unjust punishment from those around him, he never cries foul, he never justifies himself or seeks regress for the injustice done against him.
But most of all, meekness means mimicking Christ.
Isaiah 53:7-9
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Conclusion
In the end, Jesus alone had to be meek, because Jesus alone was the one that could have stopped his arrest. Jesus alone had the power that could have prevented his crucifixion. Peter, nor all of the disciples together, could have stood against the might of Rome to prevent Jesus’s arrest and crucifixion. The whole point of the sermon today is to see that it all depended on Jesus. He alone could consistently walk this path, he alone had the strength to submit to the Father, and he alone had the ability to meekly choose to allow his betrayal and arrest. He could have stopped it at any moment, but he didn’t. He didn’t give up, he didn’t resist the Father, and he didn’t defend himself.
Paul says that we are to be sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Sorrowful because he was alone. Like no one in all of creation has ever been alone, Jesus was alone on the cross. He was the bore the total, undiluted wrath of God against sin. All of God’s holy anger was focused on him like a heat of the sun magnified on an ant. And he experienced that for you and for me.
It should break our hearts at the same time that it is the origin of our joy because it wasn’t me. I deserved it but it wasn’t me. By taking my place, I am not afflicted. By taking my place, I am not slaughtered. By taking my place, I am not cut off. Martin Luther said that if he could believe that God was not angry with him, he would stand on his head for joy! Stand on your heads, brothers and sisters, because God is no longer angry with you. Because Christ faced the wrath of God alone, we can face the mercy of God together.
Let’s pray.