We are looking today, in our ongoing study of the book of Mark, at the night before the death of Jesus Christ.  For those of you wanting to hear the story of the resurrection, I’m sorry to disappoint you.  I’ve been going through the book as fast as I could, but we are here today I believe by the providence of God.  For the question really that needs to be asked regarding the life of Christ, is why did He need to suffer and to die? And then when we answer that, I think we will have a new appreciation for the resurrection.  So I hope to expound upon that thought of why He suffered here today as we exegete the passage before us.

Now for context, as I said it is the night before His crucifixion.  It is the night of His betrayal.  Multiple betrayals, by the way.  We all know the betrayal Judas did, but we will see that before the night is over, all will have deserted Christ.  And you will remember that at the beginning of that evening, which was Thursday evening, Jesus and His disciples observed the Passover.  It was customary for the Galileans to observe the Passover supper on Thursday, and the Judeans would observe it on Friday.  Hence Jesus was able to observe the Passover on Thursday, and change it’s symbolism to the Lord’s Supper in so doing, and then the next day, Friday, He was able to offer Himself as the Passover Lamb for the sins of the world.  God’s timing was impeccable, planned in infinite detail since before creation, and Jesus knew exactly what and when all things pertaining to His death would occur.  

I believe that realization on the part of Jesus of the exact details of His death is very important to understand.  Some theologians seem to love to make Christ out to be an unwilling, and unwitting victim.  But we will see that Christ showed tremendous courage and commitment to the Father’s will, because He knew intimately the horrors set before Him.  Jesus was no coward, He knew what was coming, and He courageously set His face towards the cross and no power on Earth could have stopped Him.  And He did that not only because He loved the Father and wanted to do His will, but also because He loved us, and He wanted to obtain for us the price of our redemption.

Another indication that Jesus fully knew what was ahead of Him, because it was traditional to sing the Hallel, which was the hymn they sang before going out on the Mt. of Olives.  The Hallel comes from Psalms, and particularly we se in Psalm 118: 27 “Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.”  In Psalm 116, the same hymn, we read in vs 3 “The cords of death encompassed me And the terrors of Sheol (Hades) came upon me; I found distress and sorrow.”   I would suggest that if you read the entire Hallel, you will come to believe that Jesus faced the knowledge of His death with courage and commitment, and He left the Upper Room singing His battle song, headed for the Mt. of Olives.

So as the disciples followed Jesus out of the Upper Room, towards the Mount of Olives, it was dark, and they wound their way through the streets of Jerusalem towards the Kidron Brook, which already was flowing red with blood as the temple mount and the altars drained directly into it.  And as they waded across this bloody brook by the moonlight, Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, because it is written, ‘I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP SHALL BE SCATTERED.’ But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”

Jesus is quoting from a passage in the Old Testament, in Zechariah 13:7.  I suggest to you that it is the Spirit of Christ who was the author of that prophecy, so it is no surprise that Jesus knows it right well.  Peter writes later in 1Peter 1:10-11 “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries,  seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.” So Jesus Himself was the author of the prophecies concerning His death. 

And I make much of this principle of the deity of Christ and His eternal nature spoken of in Hebrews 1:3, because it is important that we understand that it must be God that dies on the cross in order to effect our salvation.  Jesus, if just a man, was no more than a martyr. Many people have died as martyrs, even many have died on the cross.  Jesus had to be God in human form in order to effect our salvation through His death.

I don’t know how many of you may have seen an article in the news this weekend about a somewhat primitive and superstitious culture in the Philippines which every year before Easter acts out several crucifixions.  They actually flagellate themselves as they walk on these marches, and then it culminates with several of them being tied to a cross and then nails driven into their hands.  The sad thing is that such sacrifice and suffering does nothing in regards to obtaining justification or holiness.  They are suffering needlessly.  Only a holy, righteous God can atone for sin.   And Jesus was the divine, spotless, Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. 

Notice also in this statement of Christ in vs 27,28, that Jesus foretells not only their falling away, and not only His death but the regathering of the disciples after His resurrection.  He knows all that is going to happen before it happens. It is all going according to a divine plan.

However, Peter doesn’t believe Him. He says that even though all the other guys may fall away, that He would never fall away.  I want you to notice some dangerous attributes that Peter exhibits in this statement.  First, he disregards the word of the Lord.  God has given us His word, even His commandments as warnings that we need to heed.  But how often do we brush aside the word of God in view of our own confidence?  We think we know better than the Lord.  The word  says, do not be unequally yoked; we say, we don’t see the problem with it.  The word says, do not be drunk with wine, we say, a few drinks won’t hurt you.  The words says, do not commit fornication, we say, that’s unrealistic in today’s culture.  How foolish Peter was to brush aside so easily the word of the Lord.  And how foolish we are today when we think it doesn’t really matter, or there won’t really be any consequences of our foolishness.

Secondly, Peter shows a superior attitude towards his fellow disciples. “They may fall away, but I never will.”  We often do the same thing, looking down at others who have fallen into sin, and yet thinking that we are somehow above it.  We routinely think that what we do isn’t really so bad.  We conveniently forget how often we sin against God. As I said the other day, we should never see a drug addict, or alcoholic, or a person enslaved to some grievous sin, without saying, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”  The scriptures say, “there is no temptation overtaken you, but such as is common to man.”  It’s a dangerous thing to look down upon others while thinking you are above such things.

Thirdly, Peter shows that he doesn’t know himself. He has an inflated, conceited opinion of himself as events are going to show.  Pride goes before a fall.

Jesus then rebukes Peter with an even more detailed prophecy of the events to come. “Truly I say to you, that this very night, before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny Me three times.”  Jesus is referring to the third watch of the night, between midnight and 3am.  That’s pretty specific, I would say.  And yet Peter denies the word of the Lord again, with an even greater emphasis, “Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.” Though Peter did not know himself, yet the Lord knew his heart.  And notice that Mark says, the other disciples said the same thing.  Yet in just a few hours, all would leave Him and flee.  

How many of us confidently assert we will never be untrue to the Lord, yet find ourselves later forsaking Him and His word. We do not know our hearts.  Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart [is] deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” The point that needs to be made if we are to fully understand what is going on in Gethsemane and then at Calvary, is that we are all utterly sinful.  The word of the Lord says in Romans 3:10-12 as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;  ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.” Six times the word of God says “there is none.”  That includes you. Not your neighbor, but you are a depraved sinner.  And in Isaiah 53:6, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way.”  And furthermore, the word of God says in Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death.” Man is cut off from God, without hope, and fully deserving of the punishment of eternal death away from God.  

There is no hope in good works, there is no hope in being better than your neighbor, there is no hope in religion.  There is no way to atone for your sins. The only hope is that God will have mercy and forgive us.  But God cannot wink at sin.  God cannot break His own law. If God is a good God, then God must also be a just God. And the justice of God must be meted out towards sinners.  There is only one way for us to escape the punishment that we rightly deserve.  That is if God might transfer our iniquity on another, and punish Him, so that we might go free.  And that is exactly the point of the gospel.  Isaiah 53:6 says, “God has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And 2Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Him, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  God did not stop counting sin, He just stopped counting them against me, He counted them against Christ. That is the whole picture of the Passover, the innocent spotless lamb dying in the place of the guilty.

I believe that our iniquity, the sins of the world, began to be placed on Jesus that very night in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Gethsemane is a garden on the Mount of Olives, and as you might expect in an olive grove, it was the place where there was an oil press, where the olives were taken to be pressed into olive oil.  And that is what the word Gethsemane means, an oil press.  I believe that what happened there that night was the fulfillment, at least in part, of the prophecy in Isaiah 53:10, which says, “But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering.”  It was there, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord began to crush Him, putting Him to grief for our sins.  The guilt of the world began to crush Him, until as Luke 22:44 tells us, “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

Notice that Mark says, after Jesus left some disciples and went off to pray, that he says Jesus was greatly distressed and troubled. I don’t think that the English language does that phrase justice. I think it could be better translated, filled with horror and anguish. Jesus goes on to say to Peter, James and John who went a little further with Him, “I am overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”  Then Mark says that Jesus going further still, alone, He threw Himself to the ground and prayed, “Father all things are possible for you, remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.”

Now what is going on here?  Did not Jesus know that this suffering was coming?  Is He now wishing for another way out?  Is He looking to avoid the cross?  Is He crying because He is sick in fear of what is to come in the crucifixion?  I would say – Never!  I think His anguish was not at that moment caused by anticipating the cross.  On the contrary, He was looking forward to it.  It was the purpose for which He came.  

No, I think that what was agonizing to Jesus was the horror of sin.  He had never known sin.  He had been always in perfect communion with the Father from eternity past.  Now He begins to know the burden of sin, the horror of sin, the weight of sin, upon His spotless, holy, righteous soul, and the anguish and horror of experiencing our sin  drove Him to the ground, and the weight of all our sins pressed down upon His soul until great drops of blood came out of His sweat glands.  And in regards to that horror, previously unknown, Jesus calls out to the Father, “if it’s possible, remove this cup from Me, yet not My will, but Your will be done.”

Jesus showed by this great act that His sacrifice was not forced upon Him, but He volunteered.  He voluntarily laid down His life for us.

I want to also speak to the point of what kind of death Jesus died for us.  So much has been pictured on film or spoken of from the pulpit regarding the physical torment of the cross on the human body.  But I would suggest that as these events in the Garden illustrate, the sufferings of Jesus were far more than just physical, and in like fashion, the death of Jesus was much more than physical.  The death that the unsaved man suffers is both physical and spiritual.  The spiritual death everyone is destined for is eternal separation from God, and eternal torment in hell.  I did not make that up. I would like to agree with Pope Francis who was reported as saying the other day that there is no hell.  But neither the Pope, nor I get to make those decisions.  Jesus said there was hell, and so there is a hell, where the worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched. 

I believe the scriptures teach that Jesus suffered not only death on the cross, but the full equivalent of suffering that we would have to suffer.  He was our substitute.  Somehow or another, during those three days when His body was in the tomb, the Spirit of Christ suffered in Hades in such a manner that God counted it as sufficient payment for all the sins of the world.  How could He be our substitute unless He suffered all the punishment that is due to us?

Now I don’t have the time to offer all the reasons for my statement concerning this, but let me just leave you with a couple of things, and then you can do your own homework. First recall the  verse from the Hallel which I quoted earlier; Psalm 116:3, “The cords of death encompassed me And the terrors of Sheol (Hades) came upon me; I found distress and sorrow.”  The Apostle’s Creed, which is not inspired by the way, nevertheless says in the Book of Common Prayer, “And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”

And I will give you just one more reference, and that is found in 1Peter 3:18-20 “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;  in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,  who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” In the Spirit, Jesus descended into prison, that is Hades, the abode of the dead.

I want you to see something else that is given to us in this text for our instruction.  And that is the contrast in attitude between Jesus and the disciples regarding prayer.  Between the two, Jesus and the disciples, it would seem that the Lord needed prayer a lot less than the disciples.  But as the text illustrates, Jesus prays fervently, repeatedly, but the disciples repeatedly are found sleeping instead of praying.

The other night at Bible study, I tried to present another contrast between David and the Amalekite, and again between David and Saul.  In each case, David represented the spiritual man, and the Amalekite and Saul represented the material man, or the natural man. We have the same sense of that here.  David, of course, was a type or picture of Christ.  And so Christ is the quintessential spiritual man, and the disciples are natural men in their actions and attitudes.  They may have been saved, but they are still natural in the way that they view the world around them and their response to circumstances they find themselves in.  And so they do not obtain victory in their lives, because they fail to live by the Spirit, but instead they are walking according to the flesh.

An essential component in spiritual life is prayer. Prayer is spiritual conversation. Prayer is a spiritual connection to God who is Spirit.  So when Jesus warns the disciples to be on the alert, because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, He is speaking to that very principle that it is necessary to be in the spirit, to be in communication with the Spirit of God, if we are going to be able to stand firm in the physical world. 

Ephesians 6 tells us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against angelic principalities and powers that are fighting against us.  And Paul’s list of the Christian armor gives us only two weapons that we might use in this spiritual battle that we are engaged in.  One is prayer and the other is the Word of God.  Paul has this to say in regards to prayer, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”  

So as we see this contrast between Jesus and the disciples. Jesus is praying fervently. Jesus is throwing Himself on the ground. He is crying, beseeching the Lord.  He is sweating drops of blood as He prays.  He prays repeatedly.  He prays for hours.  We have recorded elsewhere that many times Jesus prayed all night.  And also Jesus implores, practically begs the disciples to pray with Him and for Him.  So that is how Jesus prays in the Garden.  On HIs face in the dirt, crying with tears, sweating with drops of blood, for hours calling out to God. 

Now look at the disciples.  They were too sleepy to pray.  They were too conceited in their own strength to feel a need to pray.  They had physical, tangible, normal, natural reasons to lay their heads down and go to sleep.  They just didn’t see what Jesus was so incensed over.

I wonder which example is the one that is more like our prayer life?  Do we tend to pray more like Jesus, or more like the disciples?  And let me point out one more thing about this prayer time.  Jesus says, “Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  Remember Jesus said earlier to Peter, “Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.”  Satan has demanded permission to sift you here today like wheat, to sift your children like wheat, to sift your spouse like wheat.  Have you prayed for them, that their faith may not fail?  Your fervent prayers may be the only thing that keeps them from falling.

The point that needs to be made is that if you are desiring to live the spiritual life, the victorious life, then it’s necessary to be proactive spiritually, and not reactive.  In other words, Jesus is saying that prayer now delivers from temptation later.  Prayer now delivers from trials later.  The natural instinct is that you live the way you think is best now, you do what seems natural now, and then when things fall apart, then when consequences come, then when the crisis arises, now you pray.  But we need to be proactive in our prayer life, that we may not come into temptation. That’s the secret to a successful spiritual life, it’s praying at all times, in good times, when it seems there is no necessity to pray.  Pray at all times in the spirit.

Well, the time of trial comes unexpectedly for the disciples, even though they are weary, in fact, it deliberately comes in their weariness.  The devil always attacks us when we are weak.  When we are tired.  He hits us when we are down. And so Judas and the mob are approaching and Jesus who has been watching and praying hears them and says, “Get up, let us be going.  The one who betrays Me is at hand.”  

Some people point to this statement as evidence that Jesus wanted to flee the cross. But in fact the opposite is true.  Jesus wants to go out to meet them.  And as He does, Judas and the mob come up and Judas runs up to Jesus and greets Him with a kiss, which was the prearranged signal with the mob that this was Jesus whom they were supposed to arrest.  It’s only been a few hours since Jesus washed Judas’s feet in the Upper Room and served Him at the Passover meal.  Judas went out into the night, told the High Priests that He knew where Jesus would be sleeping that evening, and was given this mob made up from the temple police and Roman soldiers.

Peter though is still determined that through sheer force of will he will not deny the Lord, in fact he will die with Him if necessary.  So he draws his sword and takes a swing at the nearest man and ends up cutting off his ear. Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus healed the man’s ear and Matthew’s gospel tells us that Jesus rebuked Peter.   The point Jesus made in response to the mob and their arrest of Him was not to fight them with swords.  They came with swords and clubs.  They came with all the physical strength and weapons they could muster.  Peter thought that the disciples must fight fire with fire.  But Jesus doesn’t do that.  Instead, He says all this was done to fulfill scripture.  It was the Father’s plan not to fight against flesh and blood, but to fight against sin and death.  And Jesus would accomplish this great spiritual victory by delivering Himself over to death, so that He might experience the suffering and death that we all deserved, so that we might be given eternal life.  The enemy was sin and death, and Jesus would defeat them through righteousness and paying the penalty through His substitutionary death.

The disciples though, still seeing through the physical, natural eyes, are totally taken aback at Jesus’s response.  They don’t understand the spiritual yet.  They are still operating in the natural realm.  They don’t see Jesus doing anything that is going to bring about victory, they think that Jesus is surrendering to the stronger power of the mob.  They think He’s raised the white flag of surrender.  And so they all flee.  

Almost as a footnote, Mark adds an autobiographical note in vs51 and 52.  He was the young man who escaped naked.  Not yet a disciple, just a young hanger on, eventually he would become mentored by Peter and become a valued asset to the church.  But like all the rest, he deserted Christ that night.

I hope that you recognize in this passage of scripture we have studied today, why Jesus had to suffer and die.  Jesus suffered and died in our place, so that He might fulfill the justice of God, the wrath of God against sin which was poured out on Him.  And He did that so that we through faith in who He is, and what He has done, might be made righteous in Him.  I pray that you have accepted through faith this marvelous gift which Jesus purchased for us.  Saving faith is not just believing Jesus existed, but believing that His substitutionary death was sufficient to satisfy the judgement of God towards me.  And that assurance is given in that God raised Jesus from the dead, having satisfied all judgment.

And then secondly, I hope that you will be encouraged to walk in the Spirit, to live in the Spirit.  1Cor. 2:14-15 says “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.  But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.”  You want to live the victorious life over sin, as Jesus died to procure for us? Then walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh.  Pray at all times in the spirit.  Don’t be wise in your own estimation.  Don’t think too highly of your strength of will.  But put your faith and trust in the Lord and seek Him in all things and at all times.  And if we do these things, then I pray that we will never be untrue to the Lord.