Jesus Dreaded The Cross: The Mark Series pt 61 (14:32-52)

welcome to the mark series part 61 okay you don't have to watch part 1 through 60 to get what we're doing today today we're in the garden of gethsemane with jesus this is just right before he goes to the cross right before he's betrayed by judas this is literally the last moment of freedom that jesus has before he he's you know traipsed around from courtroom to courtroom in illegal uh night night courtroom sessions we'll talk about that in future weeks and then he stands before pilate then he's put upon the cross this is the last moment of freedom it's also his last opportunity to just walk away and this is also jesus's moment of the most intense agony and emotional and psychological strain that we see probably of anybody in any individual inside the um the gospels or maybe even the whole bible all together there's there's mika look she decided to come and say hi to you guys a little bit so there's her tail anyways apparently she doesn't want to doesn't want to show you her face uh that being said uh this is pretty serious stuff as you saw from the thumbnail that i've used today that there's there's this idea of jesus we get from artwork especially artwork back in like the the renaissance period and on where jesus is and i'll show you some examples jesus is like praying in the garden here's the disciples asleep there's jesus praying there's an angel helping him according to one of the scriptures and one of the gospels and the angel of course is a naked baby because because i'll tell you what some of these guys were great artists but they were terrible at theology this is from the 1500s from giorgio vasari and jesus is praying in the garden and he's just he's almost light-hearted right as he's praying as he's reaching out to take the cup man you are just a spaz and um talking to the cat not you guys then you have another example of jesus praying in the garden this comes from 1490 approximately from pietro perogino and g you know the disciples were asleep then you see way in the background you can barely see it on your screen but way in the background to the to the uh right of jesus i think on your screen unless i'm reversed i'm trying to remember if my screen reverses things or not and anyway anyway you see these guys that are dressed in like medieval period or early renaissance period clothing because it's normal for artists when they depict jesus to make them look like people from their own time period right jesus doesn't look jewish the disciples don't really look jewish um they they do weird things uh jesus looks looks like he's european because the guy's doing the painting or europeans i don't think this was a racist thing person not not that no one's ever been racist about this because people have i think you know when i've seen korean artwork of jesus and he looks like he's korean why is this because everybody the artist knows looks korean so they go i'm gonna make jesus so they make him look like i i get why that happens what's weird is when you ship this artwork out to other cultures around the globe and then it misrepresents christ because it's suggesting that he looks like a european or something when he's really not um here's another one this is from dolce and carlo dolce in 1650 approximately and you notice there's even jesus sweating blood but he's obviously not in agony like in all these pictures jesus is not in agony even up until recent times here's heinrich hoffman this is in about 1911 or he died in 1911 so some time before that and jesus is just very composed very peaceful he has like a table a rock table that he's like preying on with his hands gently fold and he's glancing up and he just looks very stoic none of this represents what we read about in the gospel of mark in the garden of gethsemane jesus is in utter agony he is he is i'm using this phrase i think it's very accurate i try not to exaggerate things at all i think he's dreading the cross dread is a good word for how jesus feels about the cross we should see his agony in this passage someone to avoid it i think it's meaningful i think it's important i think it shows us the goodness but as we see how bitter it was we realized how good it was what he what he did for us when he went to the cross but also the same agony is abused by some more liberal or progressive teachers who want to suggest that jesus like didn't know what was it's weird that they say this because when you study the passage you'll see it doesn't make any sense they want to say jesus didn't know what was coming he was confused and and and uncertain about why he was on the cross he doesn't know why he's there this is something bart airman says i'll i'll get to this uh when we get actually to the cross we'll get into more detail on that but that would be to demonstrate there's two errors one error is thinking jesus is like composed and peaceful full of like light joyfulness and the other one is to think that jesus is actually confused and doesn't know what's going on and he feels like what happened i this isn't the plan like that kind of attitude both of those are totally wrong they don't fit the text of scripture divinely inspired communication we're being given in the gospel of mark speaking of which here we go let's read through the passage mark 14 verse 32 we'll go all the way through 52 just reading it loading the ideas on our head trying to take it all in in context then we'll go through it piece by piece and methodically study this passage of scripture for the just mining it for the deep important theological truths um emotional help it provides us which i believe it will as well as neat stuff including probably the weirdest verse in the gospel of mark is in today's passage so that's all the preview you get here we go mark 14 32 they came to a place named gethsemane and he said to his disciples sit here until i have prayed and he took with him peter and james and john and began to be very distressed and troubled and he said to them my soul is deeply grieved to the point of death remain here and keep watch and he went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible the hour might pass by him or pass him by and he was saying 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 said to peter simon are you asleep could you not keep watch for one hour keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and 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 resting it is enough the hour has come behold the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners get up let us be going behold the one who betrays me is at hand immediately while he was still speaking judas one of the twelve came up accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders now when he was betraying him now he who was betraying him had given them a signal saying whomever i kiss he is the one sees him and lead him away under guard after coming judas immediately went to him saying rabbi and kissed him they laid hands on him and seized him but one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear and jesus said to them have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as you would against a robber every day i was with you in the temple teaching and you did not seize me but this has taken place to fulfill the scriptures and they all left him and fled a young man was following him wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body and they seized him but he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked there's the weird part that's the strangest verse perhaps in the two verses and perhaps in the entire gospel of mark and we'll get into theories on who this young man was and why why is it there it's actually kind of interesting stuff um but that was your preview what we're going to do now is we're going to go through this very thoughtfully very carefully because there's surprising theology in the gospel of mark here as there usually is when you study these things deeply you find that there's treasure for those who dig you know and and we're going to get some of that there's deep symbolism there it connects with the psalms it connects with jonah interestingly enough this stuff connects with jonah it also connects with adam in the garden of eden and all those connections are happening right here in the garden of gethsemane deep interesting thoughtful things now they came to a place named gethsemane that's what mark 14 1432 says that's the first thing we're going to talk about gethsemane you can actually go there nowadays today gethsemane is a place where there are all these olive trees there's there's actually a garden still where they grow olive trees and the word gethsemane means olive press so garden of gethsemane is a garden of the olive press i think there's an interesting symbolism potentially there and i'll just say potentially i don't want to be dogmatic about things that we don't need to be dogmatic about why why you know escalate stuff like that but it is interesting that the garden is the garden of the olive press and it is where jesus has pressed so hard that that he sweats blood that's pretty intense where he says he's just dressed and grieved where he says that he's grieved up to the point of death grieves as much as possible and and this is intense intense intense what he's going through he here he prays that the cup would pass and it's there at the olive press and the way that you get olive oil right you've taken olive and you just smash the tar out of it actually technically you smash the oil out of it and jesus is pressed and there comes love and obedience this is a picture of the garden i guess somebody what you're seeing here these are one of the trees these trees are hundreds and hundreds of years old they don't go back to the time of christ but they do go back a very long time in the time of christ there really was a garden here it seems where olive was grown olives were grown now what's interesting is that very recently there's been an archaeological discovery this has just happened this is like a hot off the presses i actually just heard about it this week as i was studying for this this study and they were digging a tunnel there if you look at this picture you see in the background in the far background that little gold dome that's where the temple mount is located that's jerusalem but where that wall is that's kind of where jerusalem ends and as you come this way towards us from the picture you you have a downward traveling down you go down to the valley of kidron that's where the dig is taking place that you're looking at on screen if you keep going up to where the photographer's taking the photo you start to come to the mount of olives in the garden of gethsemane so you can see how close jesus is to jerusalem when he's at the garden of gethsemane but recently they were digging a tunnel and there was a cave in over here and it led to an archaeological discovery of a bath i know you're like a bath what's the point well i put a link if you want to read more about the discovery in the video description you can read about that there this recent discovery in israel and archaeologist ram talks about it israeli archaeologist and long story short how it applies to today's study interestingly enough is that they think that this this ritual bath was most likely there because all of production was happening very nearby because of the jewish kosher laws they had to have ritual cleansing in order to produce the olives so that people could partake of them eat them and you know use them in cooking and things like that so this is a bath that coincides well coincides well with a first because it goes to the first century this is the only thing they found in the area that exact area the valley of kidron from the first century the only thing they've ever found because everything's all buried right so they're not digging all the time and it coincides well with the new testament teaching here that jesus was in the garden of the olive press i thought that was pretty cool i thought you might want to know about it as we continue so they come to the garden of gethsemane and then in verse 32 here we go um he says to his disciples sit here until i have prayed so he has a request for them like i want you to stay here i want you guys to wait and sit here until i've prayed um he's also going to ask them things like what to watch and to pray that they don't enter into temptation so to understand the scene we want to know what is jesus doing well first off it's night time it's late night time it's like midnight right it's it's maybe 11 p.m or 10 30 or something when this whole thing starts it's about three hours long that he's in the garden and during that time he wants them to sit and wait and be near him and pray and as i'm looking at this passage i think we're meant to think of the humanity of christ in the garden of gethsemane because he's so he's so raw and exposed emotionally and psychologically and so as he asks them to be near him i think that that's one of the reasons for this whole thing he just wants them to be near him i think jesus is going through real hard times he's suffering like a lot a lot and he wants him to be near him he's human he is just a human and he has that sense that need to just have others around him while he is going through his hard times and the sad reality is he's gonna actually end up being alone they fall asleep and then then they end up fleeing they betray him one of his friends judas comes to to stab him in the back effectively right uh betray him with a kiss this is a moment where jesus is feeling incredibly alone except the father's still with him but humans fail him and that's an important theological teaching that we're getting in the garden all the humans utterly fail so he asked him to be near him in the next verse we'll find in um verse 33 that uh he takes with him peter james and john and we get this from the other gospels as well they they um the the 11 are there judas isn't there but the 11 are there and there may be some other kind of looky-loos they're hanging around we'll find out later but the 11 are there and then he takes the three peter james and john these are the special three that that always travel with jesus to like really things that no one else is allowed to go to they're with jesus when he heals the little girl in mark five he raises her from the dead they're the only ones that see jesus do that resurrection they're with jesus on the mount of transfiguration when they see his glory revealed and then now they're with jesus they're the ones closest to jesus when he's praying this desperate prayer and he's in just like he's dreading and he's grieved to the point of death he's under incredible emotional strain they're the closest to him so from their perspective this is interesting like a theological thing these three have seen jesus raise the dead they've seen the glory of jesus revealed and the father saying this is my son in whom i'm well pleased showing he's greater than moses and elijah this is back flashback to previously in the in the gospel of mark series there's a link to the whole series down below if you're interested in going through it with me and um over a year of of time going through this stuff and then the third thing that they've they're now seeing is jesus in despair jesus grieving jesus like in some version of despair he's not without hope he's never without hope but he's he's just intensely emotionally beat down and i think that's interesting because it creates confusion for them but it all makes total sense when you understand the gospel jesus is the one who has the power over death as he raised the little girl and peter james and john saw it jesus is the one who has the is god's glory now manifested in our very presence he is the son of god he is god with us and so he's glorious but he's he's hidden in this human and then we have jesus beat down jesus suffering jesus carrying the weight of the sin of the world upon his shoulders and i think it's powerful so he takes them peter james and john and he wants them to be near him now this is where some people would say how did anybody know what jesus prayed um you know luke says that jesus went a stone's throw further than peter james and john and so some will say you know there's no way they could have known what jesus was saying at this time what his prayer was plus they fell asleep this is um i'm not i'm not making this up this is what some commentators have mocked like as i'm reading a bunch of commentaries on this they literally mock this objection to the gospel i don't want to do that because i'm not trying to hurt people's feelings here but i'll say this that most people think this is a pretty bad objection and if you think this is good you're like yeah how do they hear jesus then let me just suggest to you that skeptical questions aren't powerful unless a case can be made for them a mere question is just a question there's no power and it shouldn't be any power in it how did they hear jesus well probably because a stone's throw is a very generic term for going a little further and jesus is praying it was actually typical back then that jews when they prayed they prayed out loud it was not normal for them to pray quietly we even get this with uh hannah when she's praying in the in the old testament the high priest uh hears her praying and he's like she's she's mumbling she's praying quietly to herself like oh god does it and he can't hear her he thinks she's drunk why because it was just not normal to see people pray quietly like that but that that to say when jesus prays he's probably playing praying kind of loudly they hear him and then they fall asleep because they're tired it's been a long day at any way in any rate we'll move on um they're also supposed to keep watch jesus says and this is the idea is to watch out and here i wanna um i wanna highlight this you're like why are they keeping watch because it's ironic to say hey disciples i want you to keep watch yet usually you keep watch to warn about like somebody bad coming to hurt you right but jesus wants that to happen or at least that's the plan so why are they keeping watch and i think this is it i think jesus can't sleep they are not supposed to sleep because they're keeping watch because they're supposed to see judas coming why here's the big important thing because when judas shows up to betray him it's very important that the way this plays out is that jesus actually walks toward judas so that he's not caught on by surprise this is important to show that christ is intentionally moving towards the cross he's intentionally walking forward to the betrayer he's literally waiting in the garden for judas to betray him that means at this moment all jesus has to do to avoid the cross is walk over the hill that is here's jerusalem here's the valley right of the valley of kidron then here's the garden of gethsemane and this is the mount of olives if he just keeps going a little further walks over the hill walks over to bethany where his friends are he won't be crucified all he has to do is walk away but it's important that when judah shows up people see him coming so jesus can voluntarily move forward it shows us that he's accepting and embracing the cross and that's the big lesson of the garden of gethsemane jesus intentionally embraces the cross over and against what some liberals want to say about it and i say liberals i mean theological liberals are not talking about politics um let's see here um also he wants them to pray and we'll we'll talk about this too he wants them to pray um let me go to the text you know he's he's like hey um uh pray and then uh oh it's in luke luke 22 40 we get this extra piece of information he tells them pray that you may not enter into temptation right later he rebukes them like you know watch him pray watch him pray you're not praying you're not watching you're not staying awake but here in luke he tells one of the reasons why he wants them to pray and he wants them to pray that they may not enter into temptation because they're about to go through a major trial and here i think there's a simple practical lesson i won't labor the point because i have way too much to tell you guys about today the point is this i think that neglected prayer can connect to a lot of the failings we have in our walk with christ i think that and i don't mean this in a condemning way let's let's pretend that you don't have to feel bad for a second about not praying enough that it's not about that emotional guilt rather it's about not entering into temptation that somehow there may be a real a real thing here where when you pray more you sin less because you've been praying because praying is engaging in the new man engaging in the walking in the spirit is doing these these wonderful good things and also it may be that there's battles you have with sin in your daily life that might be a lot easier if you spent more time in prayer now i'm not trying to advocate that every christian has to spend four hours a day in prayer in the morning or something like that i'm just saying pray that you might not enter into temptation like pray for that pray about those issues of sin like make it an actual thing in your life where prayer is like there's a spiritual benefit that you get from prayer it's not just about asking god for things it's about relation with him it's about engaging in walking in the spirit as you're praying and it's also about supplication and asking for things and all that but there's also just the spiritual benefit that happens when you pray pray if you're dealing with sin if you're dealing with a sin that's been going on and on and on and on and on what if you just devote some season of time every day some portion of time whether it's 30 seconds or an hour i don't know whatever you think devote that time to prayer on that issue and on other issues and see what impact it has because i think there's a real connection now we're gonna get a shocking shocking description the most shocking description of jesus that there is i think in in in the bible because it's about his emotions and on one side christians have been uncomfortable with this through the years i think that's one reason why these paintings have jesus like so like oh like he's sweating blood and he's like like no sweat no problem and um and yet yet it's true and we should accept it jesus really felt this way but skeptics want to abuse it on the other hand so we're going to find that middle ground where we just try to stay faithful to scripture and we don't alter scripture to be more comfortable for us we also don't take hard truths and abuse them as often happens with skeptics or false religions here we are verse 40 uh 33 but he said to him lord with you um wait verse 33 that's wrong oh i'm in luke 22. that's why mark 14 33 i'm like that wasn't right and he took with him peter and james and john and began to be very distressed and troubled and these are strong terms very is added here for emphasis distressed wasn't enough troubled wasn't enough distressed and troubled wasn't enough mark says very distressed and troubled and then to add to this look at how he describes himself he said to them my soul my soul his suke in the greek is deeply grieved deeply grieved we'll talk about this word in a second to the point of death remain here and keep watch he tries to tell him i'm going through such a hard time can you guys just stay here and keep watch i think that's very human i think he's going through really jesus is experiencing incredible weakness right now and he holds up under it he does the right thing but he goes through every bit of it every every butterfly in the stomach every sense of anxiety his heart is probably racing his his he's sweating because of fear anticipation anxiety about the things that are coming and and it's not just the cross it's the cross it's the it's the pain we'll talk about what the cross is like later it's the weight of the world sin it's the sense of shame that he has to walk through and experience what represents the condemnation of the sin of mankind i think there was the the spiritual sense of what happened on the cross is is just as bad as the physical if not worse jesus is looking at all that he's also experiencing a relational pain in that judas himself is the one betraying him in that the jerusalem and israel that he saved and he brought out of egypt that he gave his laws and that he is now there to preach to is rejecting him his own people rejecting him like this hurts his heart okay this is a painful difficult thing to go through and um and he says my soul is deeply grieved to the point of death remain here and keep watch let's talk about this deeply grieved to the point of death what's the point of speaking this way um this is a strange expression for us in english jesus is grieved to the point of death like do you want to like why did he say it that way that's just like a weird way of saying things um i think that you could you know some people want to translate it this way they go jesus is saying i'm deeply grieved because i'm i'm going to die like so deeply grieved like on account of my coming death um you could try to translate it that way but i from what i've read among scholars here it seems like that's not a very viable translation it's more that he's saying i'm grieved to the point of death that his grief is like as extreme as death is does that maybe maybe putting it that way makes more sense in other words he's as grieved as he can be it's when you're like looking for an expression you know i have relatives that would say um i love you to the moon and back i i know a lot of other people say this too but what they're doing is they're saying something big and crazy so they could say i you know i love you as much as i can find words to tell you about and so here he's grieved as much as he can find words to tell you about the grief is intense he's as grieved as he can be now let me point this out this is where uh skeptics want to say jesus is grieved because he doesn't know what's happening because he's he's he's confused about what's happening and i think this is one of the weirdest and most foolish interpretations of being honest here of the bible you can get if jesus didn't know what was happening he would just be like la la la in the garden he wouldn't he wouldn't be grieved he's only grieved because he knows he's going to the cross he's only grieved because he knows how important it is he's only grieved because he knows it has to happen and why it's happening and that's why he's willing to keep going forward even though he doesn't want it even though he hates this experience he according to hebrews he despises the shame he despises it but he's going to take it and drink that cup he's going to go through it anyways so where the skeptics would say um he's grieved showing his confusion he doesn't know what's happening here jesus is confused like to kind of take away the deity of christ or take away the agenda and plan of god but obviously he's only grieved because he knows what's going to happen all he has to do is walk over the hill and leave he knows judas is coming to betray he just has to leave that's all he's got to do just walk away because that's the only place judas knows he'll be now there's actually some really interesting old testament connections to this phrase where jesus says that his soul that's psuche is deeply grieved that's one greek word paralupus and these two words together where asuke is paralupus that's very rare there's only two places in the bible where we see this happening and those two places are psalm 42 and psalm 43. the reason i'm going to really emphasize this for us is because if you've been following with me in the hallmark series and i i really recommend you do if you've been following in the mark series you realize that mark all the time uh in the gospel of mark there's these subtle and it's often from jesus's own lips there's these subtle illusions to the old testament that are actually very enlightening when you when you when you go to them and look right like jesus walking on the water and the connection with the book of job that i still am excited about that even those months ago um that happens all the time in the gospel of mark all the time so when i see these two words together and they're only together like this in the old testament in the greek translation that was available at the time they're only together in two psalms and i look at the two psalms and the psalms connect not only to what's happening in the garden but they connect to what's been happening before the garden and after the garden and they connect to other things jesus says because jesus is going to quote jonah as well and jonah also quotes psalm 42 and so there's all this inner connectivity going on it means we should pay attention i'll explain here we go let's look through psalm 42 as the deer pants for the water brooks so my soul pants for you oh god so i i need you like the deer needs needs needs the water my soul thirsts for god for the living god when shall i come and appear before god my tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all day long where is your god this is things they were saying to jesus very shortly after this after he gets betrayed things these things i remember and i poured out my soul within me for i used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of god with a voice of joy and thanksgiving a multitude keeping festival now this i gotta highlight the psalmist is saying i'm currently in a place of being downcast of and i'm longing for my my close relationship with god that i was experiencing before i want that right i'm i'm beat up i'm down ira and then he flashes back to a glorious time in the past where the psalm writer is leading a procession of people on their way to the temple the house of god and with the joy of thanksgiving and it's specifically happening at a festival or a feast day of israel now jesus just a week prior to his crucifixion uh actually to his resurrection you know several days just a few days before this event that's happening right now in the garden of gethsemane he was leading a procession of people to the temple of god for the festival right for palm sunday he goes and he comes in on the donkey and they're yelling hosanna and it's a procession and they go to the temple in procession literally jesus just led that and it's flashing back to that glorious moment and that was a glorious thing they're basically saying he's this he's the messiah the son of david but this psalm works so well with what jesus is going through right now is not surprising that you find jesus saying something that's similar to psalm 42 verse 5. why are you in despair oh my soul okay that's perry lupos that's su k why are you in despair oh my soul in the greek translation of the old testament and why have you become disturbed within me hoping god for i shall again praise him for the help of his presence there's a i'm down now but there's a future time where i will praise god again oh my god my soul is in despair within me therefore and there it is again my soul is in despair therefore i remember you from the land of the jordan and from the in the peaks of hermann from mount mazar these are all locations that are distant from from the temple and so the idea is i was close and now i'm far now i'm so far that's the feeling that is giving obviously he's not in all these locations jordan and hermann and mount mazar these are different places so this is metaphorically saying i'm remembering you from from being far from you right now this is this really fits what jesus is going through then he says deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls now this um i want to point out this uh deep calls to deep is actually quoted by jonah in jonah 2 3. deep calls to deep we often have these worship songs we do nowadays you guys have probably heard um and they're beautiful worship songs where we sing as deep cries out to deep that phrase is in a few different worship songs um and it's usually being used as if it was as like the depth of my heart cries out to the depth of god's heart like for deep from within i'm calling out to you god i think that's cool you can sing that it's definitely not what the psalms mean when they use the phrase deep calls to deep deep calls to deep is not a positive thing it's very negative deep being um uh like like the oceanic deep something dangerous and scary and it's as though um the deep deep of the ocean is like throwing waves at you and the waves are trials and hardships and pain okay deep calling to deep here is i go from one hardship to another hardship i'm going through all kinds of hard things and you can get this in the rest of the verse all your breakers and your waves have rolled over me right the breakers and waves that's the deep the ocean throwing these breakers and waves and they're just beating me up so so yeah you can sing the worship song just know that when you come to the text of scripture that's not what that phrase means in the bible you might mean that when you're worshiping that's fine you can use phrases for different things just don't get confused about the bible but jonah quotes this and he quotes this interestingly remember this because we're gonna we're gonna look at jonah in a minute about seven minutes and it's gonna be really neat but jonah actually quotes psalm 42 as well and he quotes it relating to his experience inside the fish or the creature we don't know what it was the hebrew just means some kind of sea creature some kind of big thing in the water and um and jonah talks about it being related to his experience inside this sea creature and the sea creature experience jesus relates to his time in the tomb his death on the cross and his time in the tomb and so this connects to jonah and jonah's typology of christ well jesus is going to connect to that as well later just just keep it in your head forgive me if i'm at all confusing but if you've been following along with me for very long you're probably used to this all right um as we read on it says the lord will command his loving kindness in date in the daytime not now it's going to be in the daytime and it's in the early morning you know when the sun rises pun intended there and his song will be with me in the night a prayer to the god of my life and indeed jesus is praying in the night during the hardship during the pain and psalm 42 taps into that i will say to god my rock why have you forgotten me oh man this is so appropriate for jesus now in the garden heading towards the cross it completely fits the moment of jesus's life why do i go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy and as a shatter as a shattering of my bones my adversaries revile me while they say to me all day long where is your god again the same thing will be said to jesus later why are you in despair o my soul there's the phrase and why have you become disturbed within me hope and god for i shall yet praise him the help of my countenance and my god you know the things that jesus alludes to just before the cross and even on the cross there are these passages that speak of the forgotten forsaken one who yet has hope in god in the future um bringing him back bringing him back to life so to speak let's look at psalm 43 the only other place this suki para lupus comes into play vindicate me o god and plead my case against the ungodly nation oh deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man that's i mean yeah judas for you are the god of my strength why have you rejected me now you had read this psalm years before and thought man this is pretty intense like why has god rejected me like this is how does the psalmist write this and when you realize it relates to christ so many of the weird things in the old testament that make you go that's so strange i don't understand that they relate directly to jesus in fact one day i'll teach it the saddest psalm in the bible i mean it's considered the most depressing psalm in the bible when you look at it in the light of christ it's just it opens up with beauty and meaning we'll get there one day why do i go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy oh send your light and your truth let them lead me let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling places then i will go to the altar of god to guide my exceeding joy and upon the liar i shall praise you o god my god why are you in despair o my soul there it is again and why are you disturbed within me hope in god for i shall again praise him the help of my countenance and my god all this to say um this is this is the psalm he's psalms two psalms he's alluding to at the moment when they are the most relevant in the life of christ now some could say well mark is a genius and he's tapping into this stuff later he's adding words to jesus and here you have a clever like really witty mark who's like cleverly adding things in or somebody is you know someone's adding things in and changing things well we we all agree there's a clever mind behind this i just think the clever mind is jesus and i think that's more consistent than all these different authors having all the same similar clever ideas and doing all these different layers of meanings throughout the entire bible it's like no no god's the clever one he's the one embedding the meaning what you what you're requiring is is a human level of genius that um is uh not very likely to be accurate and so um now let's talk briefly about jesus saying to the point of death because this is also a reference to scripture i i was like why does he say i'm grieved to the point of death to the point of death that weird phrase in the greek thanatos right you're thinking of marvel movies right that's just the greek word for death his name is thanatos or thanatos at any rate this is a phrase we find in the old testament in one location something grieved or in this case angry to the point of death and we get it from jonah the same guy who quoted psalm chapter 42 we get it from jonah chapter 4 verse 9. then god said to jonah do you have a reason to be angry about the plant and he said i have a good reason to be angry even to death it's the only time we get it only time we get in the old testament angry to death now it's the opposite of jesus because jesus isn't angry to death he's grieved to death but then this just taps right into the whole idea of jesus in the old testament you know i love this issue i hope you love it too it's so exciting to study this topic it's my favorite series i've ever taught is that playlist of jesus in the old testament videos i've got but jonah is not like jesus jonah is like the opposite of jesus over and over again in the text he he stands as a as a counter example of christ kind of like adam is he he represents us all in the garden but he's a counter example of what jesus does we'll get there in a minute jonah is a counter example of christ he's upset about the plan let me re-hash quickly the end of jonah the story i'll just give you the 30-second version jonah is told by god that he is to go and preach to the ninevites who he hates who are evil wicked people who have abused the jews a lot and jonah doesn't want to go there so he flees and goes to tarshish as far as he can get from nineveh all kinds of turmoil happens and eventually he's he's thrown into the sea he ends up being eaten by some creature taken spit out on the shore and then he travels to nineveh now he's learned his lesson right he got a serious rebuke and he'll obey god but he doesn't like it so he goes to nineveh and there he preaches in 40 days god's going to judge you and kill you and then he goes up and he sits on a hill outside nineveh and he waits to see if they'll be killed this is his hope he's hoping they'll die jonah hates the ninevites doesn't want them to be saved and as he's waiting and watching two things happen a plant grows up and it becomes shade for him god gives him miraculously this plant grows up to give him shade ultimately to teach him a lesson that he never seems to learn maybe he learns who knows not in the book anyway maybe afterwards um and the other thing that happens is the ninevites repent and so god doesn't destroy them jonah's like waiting you know with his popcorn waiting for them to be killed and no they repent and then jonah's really irritated about this and then his plant dies his plant dies and shrivels and now jonah's angry and that's what he's angry about in this passage jonah 4 9 he's mad about the plant because the plant gave him shade jonah here is not an environmentalist it's not that he cares about the environment or he's worried about taking care of our our uh our planet or something no no he's just wants his shade right he just cares about his plant then god said to jonah do you have good reason to be angry about the plant and he said i have good reason to be angry even to death even to death and then the contrast well let me read the next verse this is the lesson we get and the lord said you have compassion on the plant for which you did not work which you did not cause to grow which came up overnight and perished overnight should i not have compassion on nineveh the great city in which there are more than 120 000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand as well as many animals god cares about people jonah cares about himself he's selfish that's why he wants judgment to fall on them because he doesn't care about them this is why he's happy to watch it happen and upset when he loses his shade jonah is the opposite of jesus here jesus he's told to go and he goes he comes willingly to a rebellious and sinful people jonah flees jesus preaches and he labors and he preaches for years not just 40 days for years jesus doesn't go and wait and hope that judgment will come jesus responds opposite the opposite way he's not angry to death he's grieved to death because he's taking the sin of the world upon his shoulders so jesus stands as the opposite of jonah let me see if there's some other examples i can give here from my notes um jesus represents god's heart unlike jonah who represents the heart of obstinate sinful man showing that jonah just like nineveh can only survive by the grace of god jonah flees jesus voluntarily goes to the cross that actually happens right here in the garden he voluntarily goes jonah's bitter and he wants judgment to fall jesus stands in our place he's grieved but he takes the judgment on himself jonah wants them to die and for himself to have the comfort of a shady plant jesus was nailed to a dead tree to die in our place to give us escape from judgment that we deserve so jonah and jesus are these opposites now i'll just add again jonah he quotes the same psalm as jesus psalm 42 about being in that um in that sea creature and i think that there's these different connections that we're seeing in the text of scripture because in the mind of god this was always the plan and he has just laid out all these connections throughout the bible that are there for us to discover all right so back to mark chapter 14 verse 35 after he tells the disciples remain here and keep watch it says and he went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible the hour might pass him by that's his prayer and he was saying abba father all things are possible for you remove this cup from me yet not what i will but what you will there's so much here oh i wish i was willing to teach us a three hour study but i'm not it'll be shorter than that let me move quick and it'll just be like like little power packed morsels of goodness i pray for you guys verse 35 it says he was praying that the hour might pass but what we miss a lot of the time in verse 35 is that jesus fell to the ground this is not jesus normal way of praying falling to the ground is not his typical thing in fact this is again in these pictures they they tend to get this wrong here's jesus they're on the ground sleeping jesus is kneeling but he's not fallen on the ground jesus is probably on the ground really right and none of these is he he's kneeling because this is probably their way of praying here he's like looking up he's kneeling all of these things here he's leaning on a rock jesus is probably i don't know you guys may have been there i've had times in my life where i am just so heavy-hearted on something that i just get down on my face and pray on my face it just it's just something that's intuitive to us i think a lot of the time when you're praying and it's deep and it's you're going through hard stuff jesus is going through hard hard hard hard things he falls down to the ground and there he prays normally in every other case jesus's prayer is mentioned he's standing if we get his posture at all he's standing he'll even be it'll even be uh said of him that he lifts his eyes up to heaven as he's looking up as he's praying so you know we have tradition we tend to pray you know like this that's fine there's nothing wrong with that don't ridicule people for doing that but but there's all manner of uh postures are acceptable in prayer i think you should let your posture represent what you're going through although if i'm in a group of people and we're all praying i don't just like do weird things that might make it difficult for them to focus in prayer but yeah i think your posture representing your focus is good so he fell to the ground and then he says abba father now realistically uh jesus probably didn't say abba father what you have here is two different languages you have abba and you have father um okay sorry i just got a text from somebody i have an announcement to make for you guys i'll do it later um so he says abba father abba is the aramaic abba and then father is greek i think mark is giving us a translation of what jesus said jesus didn't say abba in aramaic and then say father in greek he probably said the whole thing in aramaic most likely in this scenario i think jesus spoke greek and aramaic but here he probably said in aramaic so abba abba is the greek and then father we we have have come to love this term abba like the church we have come and we should love it we should rightly love it but we've also come to sort of misunderstand it a little bit let me try to break that down abba doesn't mean let me just say what it doesn't mean it doesn't mean daddy abba doesn't mean daddy and look if you've said i was like daddy like that's there's that's sort of true but it's also sort of not accurate so abba is an aramaic term that yes a child would say of his father like papa or whatever you know that kind of thing like this is this is true but abba was also used if you were an adult speaking to your father whereas at least in my culture at least you know me speaking here from the united states of america from california you generally don't call people daddy after a certain age because daddy is like a diminutive daddy speaks of somebody usually not everybody okay maybe you call your dad daddy still and you're like 40 years old and there's nothing wrong with that but for most of our culture we don't do that and because we don't do that it means that daddy is not a great translation of abba because abba could even be used of a disciple talking to his rabbi right it's not super common but it was used back then and so abba speaks of intimate relationship that's what it speaks of abba means me and you are close and you are a fatherly figure to me we are close father is a position father it could be said coldly it could be said when there's no relationship you could nev you could not know your father he was never in your life he's still your father but he's not really your abba is he because there's no real relationship going on there when jesus says abba it means there's relationship that's what i'm saying abba speaks of a special relationship jesus have with the father now there's two really remarkable things about this and each is more remarkable than the next the first one is this is not how jews prayed jews back then did not call god abba this just wasn't a normal thing at all they might refer to him as being the abba like of israel in a sense but not not really like jesus did nobody did it like jesus did jesus he obviously had a special relationship with the father he obviously had a very special relationship with god obviously like the christian theology tells us he has the best relationship possible from eternity right the trinity father son holy spirit they're all god but they're different persons and they've been in relationship with each other from all time and outside of time so there's god is relational inherently relational this is how god is love okay there's just let your head explode on that one for a second it's beautiful wonderful truths but here's where it gets even better the jews didn't pray this way gentiles didn't pray this way jesus prayed this way but after jesus when the church begins and the church is growing all of a sudden christians are praying to god as abba and they're using the term to refer to their own relationship with god and this is this is where it gets even better let me give you an example of this in scripture galatians 4 6 and when you realize this connects to jesus's prayer that's when you see the beauty of it he says because you are sons god has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts crying abba father now by the way this is this is this is paul quoting jesus's method of prayer in the gospels abba father right abba the aramaic and father of the greek we have this and yet many would suggest that the gospels were not written yet when paul is writing galatians and i think that that's interesting think about that but here's the cool theological stuff we get from this he calls us all sons okay girls and guys we're all sons well yes calls us all sons but not because girls are now male this is not what we're talking about in scripture um in scripture we're all called the bride of christ that's a feminine term i'm the bride of christ like well not me individually but us collectively we're the bride of christ so we're all we're all feminized in a sense as the bride of christ here we're all like masculinized is that the right word and the the reason for this is why girls and guys are both called sons of god in scripture why the term brothers is used as a blanket sense to talk about all christians male and female the reason for this in the scripture is because um male heirs in the family male heirs have more of an inheritance than the women part of the reason for this back then is that the women are getting the inheritance from the guys they marry so a woman leaves her father and mother right and leaves her family just as the husband does but the husband's going to inherit land and stuff from his family his wife's going to enter into that inheritance her stuff his stuff is her stuff now but the hut but the man in a family when the when the parents die he inherits more he has more authority he has more claim and a higher role in that family structure all that to say we're all sons because male female all of us have the same relationship with god now that jesus had abba you have god as your abba god is your close real good relationship healthy father figure ultimately spiritually your heavenly father this is god you have the highest inheritance possible you inherit all things in christ male female all the same so so we're all called sons here because there's a not that we're male but we're all um gaining that high inheritance we all have the position of christ in relationship to the father now i want to be careful with this i'm not suggesting you are christ what we're saying is jesus has a perfect relationship with the father and he says hey because of my relationship with the father my spirit will enter you you will have a perfect relationship with the father too that's it it's not changing um not becoming little gods or something creepy like that we're just having perfect relationship with god so all that to say um this is this is beautiful this is striking this is unparalleled jesus says abba like nobody else did at the time and then all these christians start acting like they got that kind of close relationship with god too why because jesus brings you in god loves you yeah um now though that does however mean that those who say that everyone is god's child ever god's everybody's abba and that's actually not true it's only if you come to christ it's only when you know jesus and you've you've received the spirit of god that then you can you can by the spirit of the son you can cry out abba father apart from that you're not a child of god and this is where modern pop religion would suggest everyone's a child of god we're all right with god and actually the i mean the beginning of the gospel is like we're not all right with god jesus makes us right then you become a child then you cry out abba then we get the request of jesus jesus's request in mark is to avoid the cross now keep in mind jesus knew everything about this stuff he knew he was going to the cross he knew it had to happen but he's he's pouring his heart out i want to not go through with this i'd rather not experience this he began to pray that the hour might pass him by and he prays this and let's break down the prayer all things are possible for you this is a great attitude in prayer god can do anything that is possible everything everything that's logically possible something god can do then he says remove this cup from me now this is where a lot of people in their prayer god you could do anything so do this end of prayer and i've even heard and i'll have to mention this because i've heard it so many times i've heard some more of the people who care and love the idea of miracles and i do too i've heard them pray and say that in your prayer when they're teaching people how to pray they say don't pray god your will not mind don't pray that they actually tell people not to pray that and that's where i just want to start overturning tables because jesus doesn't in the prayer there he says yet not what i will but what you will i realize that what my heart is breaking because this thing is happening to me i i know god can fix it he can help me he can change things but i don't want what i will god i want what you will so here's my prayer help me through this get me past this overcome this change this fix this lord but yet not what i will but what you will why because i know your plan is good and if you say i still want you to go through this i know there's a good reason for it i trust you this is the posture in prayer jesus models for us if you feel you can say abba because of jesus if you feel like because of jesus you can say god can do anything if you feel you can pray for avoiding of trials and getting away from hard things and the healing of a loved one and and getting rid of the suffering that you're going through then you can also say yet not what i will but you what you will jesus models for us incredible genuine submission to god in the midst of the darkest darkest moments of life and that's what we need to learn let's talk about the cup briefly actually we'll talk about two things the trinity and the cup okay the doctrine the trinity holds that there is the father the son and the holy spirit are different persons i believe completely the doctrine of the trinity think it's 100 biblical some people complain that the word trinity is not found in the bible if they actually pay attention to their theology they'll realize a lot of their theological words aren't found in the bible this is like a kindergarten complaint against the doctrine of the trinity the question is is the teaching that the doctrine of the trinity summarizes is that found in scripture that's the question the answer is yes and um here he says all things are possible for you first off you get that jesus is one you and the father is in and the father is a different you so that's why jesus could say you and then talk about me all things are possible for you remove this cup from me the father and the son are different persons not what i will but what you will so we have different persons but we also have different will going on now you can't have a will unless there's a person there to will it flowers don't have wills my cup of water does not have a will although i'm thirsty see that segway to drinking water that was pretty it's pretty good very professional um but jesus and the father represent wills that's that's interesting i don't know how all the interplay of this works but i know that it's consistent with the doctrine of the trinity and it's inconsistent with what some people try to say about like uh modalism or oneness some of those things don't seem to work very well with this there's another thing i'll bring up and that is a theological position on the cup remove this cup from me um now some of you guys know i appeared in the um american gospel 2 film christ crucified and for those who have seen it i don't know if you haven't seen it you're welcome to check it out um i i don't think i think you have to pay for it to see it i'm not really sure you have to go google it i don't remember at the moment um but i'm just in there for a few a few scenes briefly really briefly most of the film does not include me but in addition to me there's others there's a bunch of other godly wonderful servants of christ that are out there and they're trying to present a defense of the biblical view of the cross penal substitutionary atonement is a fancy term for a doctrine they're trying to support with scripture and reasoning and all that one of the ways in which people support penal substitutionary atonement that idea if it's new to you it's the idea that on the cross jesus was suffering a penalty that's the first word penal like like a penal institution he was suffering a penalty for what i'd for well for sin jesus is dying on the cross because of sin like that's a death that's a death sentence because of sin and then substitution that middle word penal substitutionary jesus was the substitute for me so it's for sin he's paying a price for sin but it's for my sin he's in my place on the cross and then atonement is the idea that this restores our relationship with god that this washes us and cleanses us of sin that this brings us god's righteousness so that's just we're just saying jesus died on the cross for your sin you believe in him you're forgiven but there are those who want to push against this doctrine and so we did this i took part in this film to do that i also have a series on penal substitutionary atonement and i'll put a link down to it below but here's why i bring all that up forgive me for being a little add at the moment on this um i just wanted to throw this in here because this verse is used even in the movie american gospel too it's used in a way that i think is not right i agree with the theology that is being supported i just don't agree with the way it's being supported with this verse jesus and here's how it goes jesus says remove this cup from me and then the question arises from the preacher what cup was jesus referring to and then they go to revelation 14 to describe the cup that jesus was referring to revelation 14 9. then another angel the third one followed follow them saying with a loud voice if anyone worships the beast in his image and receives a mark on his head forehead or on his hand he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of god which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger and then it's about judgment that will fall on them and so they'll say jesus goes i don't want to drink this cup and they go the cup was god's wrath because revelation talks about a cup and the cup is god's wrath it's the wrath of god it's in the cup of his anger i have a problem with this while i do support penal substitutionary atonement and personally i very much think that jesus actually experienced the wrath of god but not the displeasure of god how do i say that i mean that on the cross jesus like experiences the wrath of god is is not just god being irritated with you it it's meant to say like um the spanking that comes because of your sin that's we'll call that god's wrath it's the experience of pain or suffering because of sin doesn't mean that god's irritated at jesus the father's not irritated at the sun that's not what i'm saying but he experienced god's wrath i think in a biblical sense but i wouldn't use this verse and the reason is because of mark 10 38-39 the cup here just represents suffering and if you look at it in that sense mark makes more sense mark 10 38 jesus said to them you do not know what you're asking are you able to drink the cup that i drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which i'm baptized now for some defenders of psa abbreviation for penal substitutionary atonement they would say the cup is god's wrath okay well i acknowledge jesus experience god's wrath not not his irritation but by the wrath in the biblical sense but this can't be that cup because in verse 39 they go hey we're able to drink it and jesus says the cup that i drink you shall drink and this refers to james and john getting later persecuted and suffering for the name of christ the only consistent way to take the cup and mark is to consider the cup as a symbol of suffering the cup is just suffering jesus is suffering for our sins that's true they're suffering for their faith in christ so they're suffering for different reasons but it just means suffering you are going to go and drink the cup because the cup just represents suffering so my counsel is for those who like me want to passionately defend this doctrine psa don't use this verse to do it just go to other places um and um the playlist for the doctrine the psa playlist i go through scripture history theology philosophy rhetoric it's like six videos tons of content there please check that out if you'd like more information on that now let me again mention real quick before we go to verse 37 i told you it's gonna be a longer study today because i got so much to share with you guys there's a point missed by liberal commentators and that is this jesus he a knows what's happening full well knows what's happening and b he submits to the will of god and he goes forward to the cross these are the things that people miss but it is the calm before the storm like the night leading up to a great battle i could think of gandalf and pippin uh i'm sorry guys this is the lord of the rings analogy uh gandalf and pippen are they're having a conversation before the battle where the armies of mordor are i feel like such a dork are like coming out and they're at ministeria anyway they're expecting to lose the battle like they think it's a really long it's a long shot that they're going to survive so they kind of feel like they're going to die and they're all stressed out and they're worried that's what jesus is going through this is the call before the storm this is jesus's last chance to run but he stays put and he says your will be done jesus has victory in this great moment of temptation to flee the cross and he did it for you and me and we should appreciate this is this is just an act of love verse 37 and he came and found them sleeping and said to peter simon are you asleep could you not walk keep watch for one hour notice that he says to peter simon are you asleep this is kind of diminutive towards peter because it's kind of like saying peter you're not acting very much like a rock at the moment there's something kind of negative about this and he says you couldn't watch for one hour this is the same peter who said um you know i'll die with you and he won't even stay and watch for an hour he won't stay awake for an hour and i think again our um our attitude towards little temptations says more about us than our big boasts about big temptations well i would never do that i would never cheat on my spouse but would you would you look at another woman would you look at another man would you entertain fantasy thoughts about them oh well that's different well is it i mean yeah it's different but it's just another step on the same path and so he thought i'll die with you but he wouldn't keep awake with him then he says keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak we talked about the idea here of of our prayer sometimes helping us avoid temptation that praying is important in that regard we went to luke but here it is in verse 38 as well i thought it was in there i just didn't remember which verse then then he says the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and this i think jesus is saying this in two senses one their spirit is willing in a sense but their flesh is weak but in a sense jesus his spirit is willing but his flesh is weak too jesus experienced the weakness of the flesh that's why he's like sweating great drops of blood that's why he's going through all of this intense stuff um hebrews 4 15 puts it this way i'll put it on your screen for you for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin now jesus i think he sympathizes with us even in our failings even in our the weakness of our flesh and our regular failures of sin that doesn't mean that it's okay our sin is never okay but there is a sense in which it's like he looks at us and he's like yeah you're blowing it again and your flesh is weak and he knows because he went through it now there's there's a simple application of this which is in your life in my life there's hardships you've had that you've gone through and because you've gone through them when you meet someone else going through the same thing you have a whole different perspective right like i i went through that whole season of doubt and fear and and needing the evidence and nobody around me being able to give me answers and me just like on my own kind of isolated studying and worried and really wanting intellectual integrity and wanting to know for sure that what i believe was true that i wasn't just delusional all those kinds of things i went through that whole thing and now when people come and ask me doubtful questions i'm not offended in the least someone's like man i'm really struggling i'm really doubting i the first thing i think is oh man i've been there i've been there tell me what's going on you see like my attitude towards them changes because i felt that weakness too jesus understands our weaknesses because he went through weakness too and this might sound like a cliche to people but there are no real cliches in christianity there's only underappreciated truths jesus understands what you're going through intimately because he lived the human life and he was brought to the depths of emotional suffering but he overcame so it's not an excuse for us to sin but it is nice that we have a high priest who sympathizes with us understands our weaknesses because he was tempted in all points like we are but without sin then we get to mark 14 39 and it says here he again um and put on your screen and again he went away and prayed saying the same word so jesus repeats the same prayer multiple times he already knows what the answer is going to be but he's pouring his heart out he's just in the moment he's going through it and he's pouring his heart out but it's in submission he's not just complaining to god or something and again he came and found them sleeping for their eyes were very heavy and they did not know what to answer him and this is interesting they didn't know what to answer him the implication here is they're just embarrassed like they're sleeping again a third time and jesus comes back and he's and he probably kind of points it out you're still sleeping you're sleeping again and when he does they just say like you ever been busted for something and you had literally nothing to say there was no nothing no way to spin it no way to make it look better that's exactly the scenario that they're in right now and he came to them a third time and said to them are you still sleeping and resting it is enough it is enough the hours come behold the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners now at this point i want to pause and i want to do something i didn't really know where to put this in the study like logically but i want to talk about the contrast that we were being given between jesus in the garden and adam in the garden now adam stands as an example of christ but again he like jonah is sort of a counter example of christ there's ways in which he's like christ and there's important ways in which he's different adam you might let me just kind of butter the bread a little bit to explain this adam like jesus he represents all of humanity and his actions can stand in the place of all of humanity those who are genetically connected to him jesus he stands to represent all of humanity and his actions they benefit they impact everyone who puts faith in him because it's a spiritual connection not just a physical one and so adams represents all of mankind jesus represents all of mankind adam when uh when when he meets eve eve is formed out of his side opened up and a piece of his side is taken out and formed into eve and jesus on the cross is pierced and blood and water pour out and from this is birth to the church his bride his eve so adam's put into a deep sleep christ he's laid in the tomb and when he awakens there's his there's eve and when jesus rises now begins the church so it's just these beautiful parallels that are happening adam is tempted now let's get to jesus in the garden of gethsemane adam is tempted right and he decides to choose the temptation he falls he eats of the fruit jesus is tempted to flee he's tempted to flee but he obeys and he goes forward and he is crucified so here's what he's not like adam jesus says the opposite of adam in the garden of eden that's by the way eden means luxury delight pleasure or softness eden was like a nice place to go on a vacation right like eden's where you want to be gethsemane means like olive press or be crushed to be crushed adam is in pleasure christ in the garden is in agony adam he has eternal life available to him but he eats of the tree that brings death jesus he is life he is his life christ is life he chooses to suffer death the consequence of adam's sin adam is tempted and fails jesus is tempted and he resists eve fails and adam joins in her rebellion when eve fails adam joins her but jesus everybody around him fails judas the jewish leadership the the all the disciples everybody following him everybody it fails jesus doesn't join them in their failures he instead stands faithful to god and does the right thing we fail jesus pays the cost adam chooses sin and gets death deservedly jesus chooses not to sin he only does righteousness and he gets death he doesn't deserve adam his curse is connected to jesus and his cross this is so cool i love this adam's curse and jesus's experience uh in gethsemane and leading up to the cross um you guys know in genesis 3 right adam gets the curse and god tells him a few things will happen you're going to by the sweat of your brow and hard labor you will bring forth fruit from the earth and he also tells him that um he's going to die from dust to dust you're going to die and he also tells them they'll be thorns and thistles brought forth from the ground making your life harder and more difficult so sweat of the brow thorns and thistles death these are the three things that relate to the curse of adam right directly specifically about adam jesus experiences these three things in different ways from the garden to the cross by the sweat of your brow we read in luke that jesus was sweating great drops of blood from his brow right he's sweating these things and i think that this relates to him taking on the curse of adam this is symbolically meant to show you and he vividly went through it that he was going through what relates to the curse of atoms so theologically there's a connection here now some are skeptical about this i remember hearing this years ago they'd say oh there was no great drops of blood this is ridiculous luke's making stuff up and so some skeptics would would challenge luke here and say this is legendary development this is evidence that things are being fabricated the story is being embellished and added to over the years and when luke finally writes it down now there's great drops of blood interestingly enough the reason they make this claim is because they say that people don't sweat blood that's just medically wrong but that's actually not true people don't normally sweat blood but there is a rare condition called hemotodrosis i recommend you go and google it hema hema to do tedrosa's i'll spell it for you h-e-m-a-t-i-d-r-o-s-i-s i'll read to you now from a webmd article on the topic hemotedrosis or hemotu hematidrosis or hematohydrosis is a very rare medical condition that causes you to ooze or sweat blood from your skin when you're not cut or injured only a few handfuls of hematodrosis cases were confirmed in medical studies in the 20th century so this is something we're familiar with now because we have like you know documented medical cases at this point but many years ago skeptics are often several years behind in research they may not have been able to confirm this it also goes on to say people who have hematiterosis may sweat blood from their skin it usually happens on or around the face hemotedrosis i read different sections of the article here can look like blood bloody sweat or sweat with droplets of blood in it doctors don't know exactly what triggers hemoterosis in part because it's so rare they think it could be related to your body's fight or flight response summary what jesus went through is a documented very rare documented medical condition people who've gone through extreme suffering hardship and suffering and are in a major emotional strain sometimes experience this it may be related to fight or flight response which is exactly what jesus would have experienced waiting in the garden for his betrayer to come knowing he would be in chains or he would be bound from there on out the last moment of freedom before the pain began and jesus is sweating blood if if a skeptic's gonna say this is not medically realistic therefore it's legendary then i'm going to respond and say it's medically realistic therefore it's probably historical and it doesn't seem very likely that something that we know with modern uh medical research we know is real it doesn't seem super likely that the people writing the gospels are really well well aware of hematodrosis and its causes and go let's pretend jesus had this like more likely it's just a historical fact and i think that's pretty cool so the sweat of your brow that relates to adam um also you will die okay obviously the relation between adam and jesus is clear here jesus goes to the cross and dies he even dies on a tree which connects to the idea of you know the cross is wood it's made of tree and adam you know is kicked out of the garden because of eating from the tree also thorns the third thing is thorns thorns and thistles the ground will bring forth for you adam and you're gonna have difficulty sweat of your brow death thorns and thistles jesus on the cross is given a crown but it's not a normal crown it's meant to mock and ridicule him and it's meant to hurt him it's a crown of thorns this is something that the romans would sometimes do it's just a way of hurting people but when jesus is given this crown of thorns on his head to stab into his head and cause him blood more more believing than he already had i think this represents jesus taking the curse of adam upon himself because jesus not only redeems mankind but he buys back the world he reclaims the universe in the name of god and here he takes the curse that's on nature creation and he wears it on his head because he's also redeeming all things i think that this is amazing i think it's beautiful it's brilliant there's definitely a brilliant mind behind the life of christ and behind the gospels and i think that brilliant mind is god and so verse 41 let's read on let's read on and he came the third time and said are you still sleeping and resting it is enough the hour has come behold the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners get up let us be going behold the one who betrays me is at hand now jesus is going to go forward it is interesting though that he uses the term sinners to describe the jewish leadership the people coming to betray him the way they're just described here in mark they're they're from the sanhedrin the official jewish jewish rulers but he calls them sinners i'm being betrayed at the end of verse 41 into the hands of sinners why do i highlight this because um this is a reversal of their view they would have looked at the prostitutes the um the tax collectors the the gentiles um they would have looked at all those categories as sinners these are people who are sinners but not the jewish leaders these are the righteous jesus summarizes them as sinners and they are sinners like they're coming to kill the son of god they're doing very wicked sinful things all this to say your religion and your religious leadership is not going to be the thing that makes you righteous it's only going to be faith in christ that makes you righteous how you respond to jesus dictates your righteousness now our modern culture has flipped this on its head we we like let's be honest we like tearing down religious leaders it's like fun and i'm not saying i like it or you like it individually but our culture tends to enjoy this they like it when a big religious leader falls it makes them feel better about themselves because when they hear jesus say these guys are sinners what they really think is oh so the prostitutes and the tactical they're the good people see they're thinking they're reversing roles they're thinking that the religious leaders are bad religion's bad but normal non-religious people secular people in general they're good people they're wonderful people that's not the biblical view sadly the biblical view is that we're like all down here it's not a reversal of roles it's just that here's us all sinners here's like these highfalutin religious leaders guess what they're sinners too y'all are sinners that's the biblical message all of us need the grace of god all of us need the love of christ the prostitute is still in trouble the tax collector over there who is betraying his people and mistreating them and stuff he's also in trouble the the big ceo who who exploits the poor he's in trouble the poor guy who doesn't honor god in his life he's also in trouble we all need jesus that's the message the uncomfortable message but it's true and in verse 42 he says get up let us be going behold the one who betrays me is at hand and he's talking about judas and this is an important moment to note again against skeptics who want to act like jesus doesn't know what's happening when he gets on the cross we'll talk more about that later but this is something that repeatedly comes up from um more liberal scholarship that kind of thing jesus deliberately goes forward he knows judas is coming to betray him and he purposely intentionally goes forward to be betrayed it's his agenda the important thing about the garden is to realize he doesn't like it he's not enjoying it it hurts it's painful there's a cost it's terrible he's dreading it but he goes forward because of love and because he intends to be crucified for our sins so he says to them get up the one who betrays me is at hand then in verse 43 we have the betrayal immediately while he was still speaking judas one of the twelve came up accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs who were from the chief priests and scribe and the scribes and elders that would be the sanhedrin the threefold chief priest scribes and elders okay that's the sanhedrin the jewish ruling party the kind of supreme court in the jewish world in jerusalem and they come to get him they've got clubs and swords these are actually the two weapons that historically they would have had the the the temple guard that the sanhedrin had charge of they would have had these things there may have been some romans mixed in there too but the emphasis here is on the jewish guard that was from the temple in verse 44 now he who was betraying him had given them a signal saying whomever i kiss whomever i kiss he is the one sees him and lead him away under guard after coming jesus judas immediately went to him saying rabbi and kissed him so he calls him rabbi which he's rejected jesus now his teaching is he's not his rabbi really and he kisses kisses him uh in their culture this is not a weird thing okay especially american culture really weird don't come up and kiss me okay right but in many cultures it's not a big thing to give someone a kiss on the cheek or even on the mouth depending on the relationship it's not to be sexualized those who want to do that um are just twisting the word of god to their own destruction because they've got something going on here that's not appropriate and so they're putting it on everywhere else they're seeing what's in their head everywhere they look so this was a not a strange thing what we should notice about it is that judas is not a patsy like he's purposely deceiving or trying to deceive jesus he's purposely trying to pretend that he's he's a good guy now in the dark this crowd doesn't you know the guys are swords and clubs they're not gonna be able to find jesus well in the dark there's no street lamps right they're in the garden they're outside the city it's very dark it's nighttime amongst trees and everything so judas has to show them peacefully oh here's the right one and then boom they jump into action they grab jesus at that point proverbs 27 6 may connect to this very thing here where it says faithful are the wounds of a friend but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy and that is exactly what judas does i think um these are metaphorical proverbs 26 is speaking metaphorically like sometimes friends hurt you but they're hurting you because they're your friend they're trying to help you even though it hurt say things that are hard to say say no to you right because they care or um enemies who are going to manipulate you and deceive you they pretend to flatter you all the time they say nice things about you to get control of you to get you to do what they want but i think this is fulfilled in a very literal sense when we look at christ in the garden dealing with judas um i don't think judas was a patsy i think this was a mock a mockery the kiss was mockery this was definitely judas knew what he was doing then in verse 46 it says they laid hands on him and seized him now this is the first time the word sees comes up and one of the times it comes up multiple times comes up four times in these in these verses right around where we're at right now and um verse 47 but one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear now you guys know who this is if you've been reading your bible you know from the other gospels that this was peter peter's the guy who pulled the sword out and cut off the the disciples that serve in her slave of the high priest's ear his name was malcus we actually find out um we talked about that last week but but i want to focus on the reason why his name is not mentioned some make a big deal about this i actually read a commentary this is why i have a hard time recommending commentaries if you guys are like recommend books mike listen i read commentaries and sometimes they have great insights and then a a paragraph later they say something that i think is destructive and bad here's an example of that the commentary says in mark it's one of those who stood by which implies according the commentary implies it's not one of the disciples who drew his sword and struck the high priest so the commentary says that there's a contradiction here between mark and john i think it is that says that it's peter who does the does the deed he bases this on the phrase one of those who stood by in the fact that mark doesn't mention peter's name why doesn't mark mention his name i think this is really silly like it's almost like being thick on purpose is peter one of those who's standing by why yes he is peter james and john the disciples these are the only people we know of that are there other than this strange naked boy that we read about later and um obviously peter's there like i don't know this is a mountain out of molehill this is like creating contradictions out of thin air between the gospels all we have to do is ask the question peter did this we know that from john there's no reason to doubt that all the way through he's asked the question why doesn't mark mention his name and i think the reason is because mark in this section he doesn't want to mention names he doesn't even mention the name of the young man he wants to record that it happened but doesn't mention who he was later he wants you to know in these verses it's jesus and judas that are highlighted and if he goes in to describe peter as being the one who does this act with the sword it changes your subject in your mind your mind goes over to peter what peter did what wow why did peter do that and you lose your attention on judas and jesus verse 48 oh it also explains this too um strangely enough there's no battle that takes place mark records slicing off of the ear no battle that takes place you'd expect a bunch of disciples to die now swords and clubs from the from the bad guys killing the good guys this is what you'd expect it doesn't happen when you look at the other gospels you understand why it didn't happen right jesus for one thing exhibited supernatural power read the gospel of john they fell down when he declares who he is also jesus heals the man puts the ear back on which would have given him a lot of authority in that moment showing that he's deliberately going to the cross at any rate it explains why nobody died there's no bloodshed after this moment here's where other gospels give information that incidentally answers questions we have that are raised by say the gospel of mark suggesting historicity verse 48 and jesus said to them have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as you would against a robber this is a very diminutive term this term robber and we'll talk about that in a second every day i was with you teaching in the temple teaching and you did not seize me but this has taken place to fulfill the scriptures this again confirms that it's there's a temple guard that's there taking jesus they were there in the temple when he's preaching they didn't take him now they see him in the dark in the quiet from a betrayer and deceitfully and uh so he shows that i'm not the robber you guys are the ones who are doing it wrong not me that's the implication but this term robber and him saying that it fulfills the scriptures is very interesting he's probably talking about isaiah 53 because repeatedly in the gospel of mark during the passion narratives this section we're in isaiah 53 has appealed to over and over again and so here it may be again where it says all allot him a portion with the great he'll divide the booty with the strong because he poured out himself to death remember jesus said is my blood poured out for you and was numbered with the transgressors you've come out against me as if i was a robber and it gives us the theological interpretation he's bearing the sin of many he's interceding for the transgressors he's doing this to save us from our sin so there's there's the old testament reference that we may have and again in mark later on we get this robber phrase and this is when jesus is on the cross he says they crucified him uh two robbers with him one on his right hand one on his left so he's numbered with the robbers with the transgressors robber here doesn't just mean a thief somebody who goes out and steals things it's a pejorative term for like a criminal and so you use this pejorative term to just say he's a bad dude he's a bad bad man interesting stuff so again jesus sees what he's doing in light of isaiah 53 he thinks scripture is being fulfilled even though he's agonizing over the moments in which is being fulfilled then we get the weirdest place the weirdest verse in the gospel of mark two verses um they all leave him and fled uh and then oh i'm sorry let me do verse 50 first i almost skipped it silly me uh the point here is that jesus is alone jesus is alone in the garden the only one with him is the father he's alone humans have all abandoned jesus this is an important theological point it's not just to say oh look how hard it is for him that's true that's part of it but there's a theological point where jesus is alone the faithful man he is alone the good one he is the only one who does the job right and does what's right when is hard he's the only one who's perfect and good and holy and just and now he goes to be sacrificed for us in our place this is also a triple decker market sandwich i guess i'll try to scroll through the verses for you here to show you what i mean market sandwiches again for those who might be new american sandwiches where mark the way he tells the story um he'll do three three things he'll tell one story split it in two and put an additional story a second story in the middle of the two this is to provide commentary on the meaning of the bigger story that being said this is something that should be easy to comprehend here's an example of probably the biggest market sandwich the triple decker i'll call it and it's in mark chapter 14 verses 18 through 21 this is where jesus says judas is going to betray me then we have verses 26 through 28. this is where g and you're probably not going to read it all but this is where jesus says that all 12 are going to desert him so judas will betray him then he goes on and says all twelve will deserve me then in verses 29 through 31 peter specifically peter will deny him three times so three predictions are given judas will betray me all of you will desert me peter will deny me three times then in chapter 14 we scroll way down notice i'm scrolling way down there's something in the middle we'll talk about but we scroll way down and we get to 43 through 49 these are the fulfillments of all three of those claims judas he betrays him 43-49 he's betrayed then we have 50-52 we have all 12 left him and flee so all 12 deny him in the same order in which jesus predicted then in verses 66 through 72 we'll get here later on next week i think we have peter who denies him three times 66-72 so you have three predictions and you have three fulfillments and in the middle of all that you have jesus in the garden versus um 32 through 42 which you could look it up i know i'm just scrolling around probably not helping you 32-42 you could you could see jesus in the garden between his predictions of their betrayal and them actually betraying him where is he in the garden alone distressed grieved dreading what is to come and submitting to the will of god and choosing to go forward anyways what is all this to tell us the point is jesus is utterly alone the only faithful one regardless of our proclamations of loyalty of our claims or our attempts to be good before god he is the only faithful one in the garden unlike adam and all of us who fail jesus succeeds no matter the distress no matter how hard it is he presses on and he does the right thing he does the right thing i think he's beautiful all right verse 51. here we go all right the weirdest part of the gospel of mark in my epic long study here this is like the longest mark study we've done i i just had so much to share and i thought why not all right verse 15 51 they um sorry 51-52 the a young man talks about this young man who was following him wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body and they seized him but he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked so he's running around no clothes on this is embarrassing this is meant to feel shameful this might even relate well let me tell you some theories about this the probably the most popular current theory is that this young man is actually mark himself and this is mark's way as an author this is something authors did do back then they would occasionally write books and try to keep from admitting who they were in the book they would kind of make themselves anonymous if they're in the book uh john does this in his gospel where he calls himself the apostle excuse me the apostle jesus loved the beloved apostle he's not just trying to brag he's trying to not use his name because he's not trying to draw attention in that way there's there's something of a humility that's being spoken of there i think so mark might be doing this this is a popular idea mark is a young guy he's not really a follower of jesus during his three years but perhaps this is him that's one theory now one way to support this theory is to say this is consistent with the fact that later on we learn in in other texts in the scripture and in history uh historical sources we learned that mark was uh based in jerusalem and probably had a wealthy parent in jerusalem a wealthy family and home in jerusalem so that would mean that he could realistically be there at that event and he was probably about the right age he was pretty young at the time in acts 12 12 so even 15 16 17. but in acts 12 12 we might get more support for this um when he realized this he went to the house of mary the mother of john who is also called mark where many were gathered together and were praying now this is peter when he gets delivered from prison he goes to this house that everybody knows and a lot of people are there praying and it's mark's mom's house the same john mark that wrote the gospel so the reason why this is interesting is because this total conjecture please realize this is conjecture i'm not saying this is accurate i'm saying it's possible it's possible that the house they went to in the gospel of mark where they have the last supper before they head out to the garden of gethsemane that this house was mark's house right because there is a significant family who has a significant amount of money to own a large home and host lots of people in jerusalem in the early church in acts 12 12 and it's john mark's home it might be that this is also where they have passover does it mean it is no it's just possible it just might be the case and if it was the case it makes sense that a young man who's excited to have jesus this famous jesus and his disciples eating in his home this young man sees jesus and his disciples leave after passover and he quickly throws on an outer garment and he follows them to the garden and there he kind of watches from a distance trying to respectfully watch from a distance and when everything goes crazy someone tries to grab him and he vividly remembers fleeing naked as he went back home to try to stay safe this is possible now here's the problem with this view though um we lack confirmation it's all conjecture it's all like maybe maybe maybe put together and i would say that makes it a weak hypothesis okay it's a weak hypothesis but it is a potential could be mark it would work it would explain the evidence uh there is however some problems with it as well it's also a newer view we don't have this view in church history as far as i know now maybe it's there and i just don't know it but to my knowledge nobody in the first couple centuries the first three four hundred years nobody's saying that mark wrote they got the well they are saying mark wrote the gospel mark but they're not saying that this young man is mark that the the naked boy is mark nobody's really saying that uh papias in 130 about 130 a.d about 100 years later from the time this happened he says that mark never heard or followed jesus individually so that would imply that it wasn't him if mark never heard her follow jesus maybe this might be right about mark here that's possible so there's alternate views and alternate views are that it's quoting amos 2 16. uh amos 2 16 it might be that mark knows about this event happening about this young man running away naked and maybe he's saying it's an illusion that amos 2 16. even the bravest among the warriors will flee naked in that day declares the lord the difficulty here is that amos 2 doesn't have these like these messianic elements weaving through it the way say zechariah does it doesn't feel like the kind of illusion mark usually has to the old testament where you read and you go it's very rewarding you go deeper and you see all these layers of meaning so amos 216 doesn't seem to have that there's no obvious connection to the messiah in amos 2 there's no obvious connection to the events in the garden um the day when which they're fleeing is a day of battle it's not really the day of a betrayal it's just different others would say perhaps um there's there's symbolism there in the garden remember we said there's garden connections between adam and jesus well adam they're they're naked and ashamed in the garden and so here we have again everyone in the garden failing but jesus representing all mankind failing except jesus succeeding on our behalf and perhaps this young man fleeing naked is a demonstration that there we are naked in our shame running from the consequences of our sin where jesus goes forward to suffer the consequences of our sin now that to me is more appealing because it gives a theological meaning that's consistent with everything else that's happening in the garden but that wouldn't really be conflicting with it being actually being mark that could be true and it could still be mark so i don't know i would say the idea that mark wrote this is perhaps the best hypothesis available to fully explain why it's there in the text but that doesn't mean it's true i just i would say i like it maybe i just want it to be true that's possible i should admit that um and then what we're going to get into uh before i give you some application for today to try to give this into the heart of your life and your soul to change you i pray i want to let you know next week we're going to be starting to continue towards the cross we're going to get to the cry of dereliction when we get there when jesus says my god my god why have you forsaken me no this is a hotly debated passage when we get to that passage i don't know how many weeks it'll be that's huge very very hotly debated and when we get there remember the garden because in the garden jesus knew exactly what was going to happen to him and he purposely walked towards it so if you interpret the cry on the cross my god why have you forsaken if you interpret that as jesus not knowing what's going on and thinking that the plan has failed and not understanding what's happening then you have ignored the entire context of mark you've ignored the garden which is to set up the idea jesus knows exactly what's happening he knows why it's happening he doesn't like it but he's choosing it because he's going forward to die for our sins where all of us flee from the consequences in our shame like the strange naked boy all right application application the application's simple other than simply trusting in christ knowing his goodness and his love for you knowing what he went through for you is also realizing that just when we look at christ's cross we look at suffering and we see courage to go through our suffering may you have the courage to go through agony of your own where you say god i don't like this i can't handle this it's so much i am in more distressed than i knew i was i was capable of having i'm grieved to death yet i trust you i pray you take this cup from me but nevertheless not my will be done but yours this is one of the best lessons christians can ever learn to know that god intimately loves you and yet he may have a reason that you can't understand for the suffering you're going through and you'll trust him in it anyway this is such a big deal i feel like it's the application to a lot of the studies but it's because we need it so so much jesus knows what you're going through he's been there himself and if you can look at his prayer and try to echo it as well it's okay if you're in agony because remember this here's another example another one of many examples that christian joy doesn't mean feeling good all the time because the joy jesus had in the garden is not happy-go-lucky joy according to hebrews it says the jo because the joy that was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame that's a description of the from the garden on jesus had joy before him the joy is the knowledge that one day this will be over and i will be i will be with the father deeply perfectly in my in my glorified state and this is jesus right and he will also be with us he will have redeemed us he will have bought his bride and brought us into his glorious embrace forever that's the joy the joy was what was the was the future that helped him get through the hardship of the present and for us christian joy is often that it's knowledge of the temporariness the temporary reality that's not a word of the suffering we're going through today and the glory that is to come all right let me uh close this in prayer thank you for your word thank you for the layers of meaning that are in here god we do pray to you our abba because jesus in us has given us that relationship with you god we're so grateful we are um ashamed and naked and running away and there you are in grief heading to the cross for us we're grateful we love you we appreciate you and we worship you we bless you we pray that you'd help us now to see our current situations in light of the life and suffering and glory of christ in jesus name amen amen thank you guys for joining me so much i appreciate that and i'm excited that so many of you are so excited about the word of god and about just getting like the meat of its teachings into our hearts and minds and going as deep as we can and just being mind blown all the time but then at the end trying to say hey let's really live it out let's really live it out because what else what else are we doing if we're not doing that so yeah i will see you guys um this week on friday but next monday i don't i don't know if i'll even have a live stream but there's no there's no mark study because on sundays this sunday coming sunday's mother's day and we're giving that to our family to just spend time with them and love them and so yeah i'm not going to be doing a study that night this sunday night no this coming sunday no study which means i won't have a mark study for you on monday but i may have something else maybe i'll do the vocab malone interview if he's available on black hebrew israelites maybe that'll be this monday this coming a week from today i'll have to check with vocab and see if he's available for that so that's possible otherwise that's all i got to say

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 88,618

Keywords: mike winger, mark, the mark series, mark 14, the mark series part 61, Jesus dreaded the cross, The garden of gethsemane, Jesus in agony, garden of gethsemane, gethsemane, Judas betrays Jesus

Id: Bg8qeKvfXls

Length: 98min 50sec (5930 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021