Second Glimpse into the Mystery of Gethsemane

Introduction to Gethsemane and the Central Issue of the Cup

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday evening, October 6th, 1985, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us turn together to the passage upon which we meditated a month ago on the occasion of our gathering to the Supper of the Lord, Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 26. And will you follow, please, as I read in your hearing, verses 36 through 46, Matthew 26, beginning with verse 36. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto his disciples, Sit here while I go yonder and pray. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. That was James. And began to be sorrowful and sore troubled.

1:13 Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Abide here and watch with me. And he went forward a little and fell on his face and prayed, saying, My father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me. Nevertheless, not as I will.

1:39 But as he comes unto the disciples and finds them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, What? Could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

2:03 Again a second time he went away and prayed, saying, My father, if this cannot pass, pass away, except I drink it, your will be done. And he came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying again the same words. Then comes he to the disciples and says to them, Sleep on now, and take your rest.

2:39 Behold, the hour is at hand. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hand. The hands of sinners arise. Let us be going.

2:50 Behold, he is at hand that betrays me. Now let us again seek the help of God as we seek to understand something of the mind of God in this sacred and awesome account of the agony of our Lord in the Gethsemane experience. Let us pray. Surely our Father, if the manifestation of your glory from a burning bush on the backside of a desert resulted in a man taking the shoes off his feet because the face, the place whereon he stood was holy ground, then coming to behold not a burning bush, but your glory revealed in the agony and the sweat and the intercession and the sorrow of the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane, brings us to even more holy ground. And we therefore ask for that peculiar ministry of the Spirit so needed when our natively light and giddy minds encounter such profound and sobering mysteries.

4:11 O Lord, give us a mind and a heart prepared to receive due impressions of the suffering and the agony of our Lord Jesus on behalf of sinners. Give us eyes to behold him in the midst of our suffering. Give us eyes to behold him in the glory and beauty of his perfect humanity. And by the transforming power of the Spirit, may we be made like unto him.

4:36 Hear our prayer and meet with us sweetly in his worthy name. Amen. Now in our communion meditation last month, we considered together the central issue in this mysterious and awesome scene, which transpired in a place called Gethsemane. This place that one author of another generation described as the shadow of Calvary.

5:12 And that central issue, as we saw last month, was the issue of the cup. Imagery of a cup being held before our Lord. The demands of his Father that he drink that cup. This, I say, is obviously the central issue of the passage.

5:34 And in our meditation, I attempted to give at least a brief and suggestive exposition as to what constituted that cup, and what our Lord's willingness to drink of that cup says to us as his people. That cup was nothing less than the wrath of God unmixed with mercy, prepared in the cup of his own pure and righteous justice. A cup that was full as our Lord was to be the substitute of us sinners. And it was the taking into himself and the exhausting of the wrath of God against the sins of his people from which our Lord recoiled in a just and righteous which nonetheless he embraced voluntary obedience. Now tonight, I want us to return to Gethsemane, the shadow of Calvary, and there to consider a secondary issue, not the central issue, which is the cup, granted a secondary issue, but nonetheless a vital and necessary aspect of our Lord's suffering.

The Exemplary Nature of Christ's Suffering and Desire for Companionship

6:56 And then having done so, to make some practical applications of this aspect of the passage to us as the Lord's people. And the fundamental justification for doing what I am doing is expressly stated by the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2 and verse 21, wherein calling the people of God to patience in the midst of suffering, he says, For here unto were you called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps. Certain aspects of the suffering of our Lord, which are completely his own, they are in no way exemplary to us. He tread the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God alone. He drank the cup alone. But there are obviously, according to Peter, certain aspects of his suffering which do indeed form the pattern for his suffering.

8:09 His sufferings were not only in one sense exclusively his and substitutionary, they are also exemplary in another aspect, which is the companionship of three privileged ones who actually witness to our Lord. The principles or axioms pertaining to the family of God in this passage articulate the principle or the axiom, and then show its roots in this passage. First of all, it is not sin to desire the consolation and support of human companionship in our seasons of intense trial. It is not sin to desire the consolation and support of human companionship in our seasons of intense trial. And where do we see that in the passage?

9:26 In verses 36 to 38. Then comes Jesus with them, that is, the eleven, Judas has gone out to do his horrible deed, to a place called Gethsemane, and he says unto his disciples, Sit here while I go yonder and pray. And he took with him of the eleven, he leaves eight behind, these three, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and sore troubled. And then he breaks his heart to them, what he experienced inwardly.

10:07 And the language is most graphic and vivid of the intensity of the hour of suffering and trial that has come upon his soul. And what he is experiencing inwardly, he now discloses in the intimacy of that peculiar companionship with these three and says to them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Abide here and watch. The Lord is on his way to Gethsemane to have dealings with his Father.

10:49 That is clearly stated in the last part of verse 36. He says to the entire group, While I go yonder and pray. The settled intention of his heart was to prepare himself for the coming trial by intense direct engagement of his Father in the peculiar privilege of spiritual intercourse called prayer. He is not going into the garden with an idolatrous leaning upon human support.

11:26 He enters the garden determined to have dealings with his Father, whatever strength he will need for the coming ordeal he is determined to receive out of the context of communion and fellowship with his Father. But along the way, he takes this inner circle of his three most trusted confidants, those three who alone were with him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and saw the bursting forth of his glory there in that mountain scene. And he takes them with him, and he begins to disclose his heart, first of all, not to his Father, but to his human companions. He engages his Father while on his way to engage his Father, he says unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful. This is no ordinary season of prayer into which I am now entering. This is no ordinary crisis which is now driving me to pray.

12:42 You have again and again in the seasons of your pilgrimage with me, you have seen me go off to pray. You came and followed me as recorded in Mark 1.35 and found me in the early morning hours out in a desert place. You know from my testimony that when I forced you into the boat and stayed behind after the feeding of the five thousand, I went into the mountain to pray.

13:09 But Peter, James, and John, this is no ordinary season of prayer which lies before me. I come to this engagement of my Father with my soul exceeding sorrowful, even unto the very point of Peter, James, and John. As I engage my Father, I ask you to do something with me. Watch my great hour of prayer.

13:41 Can be a soul whose heart, Father,

14:29 gives consolation, that your hearts are with me, making it abundant, that it is no sin to desire consolation and support companionship in our seasons of most intent, supported by the Father in terms of covenantal engagements. The servant of Jesus, the servant of Jehovah, would be upheld by Jehovah even if that expression is never settled. Desire that consolation and support of human companionship in the seasons of most intense trial. You see, God did not make us to be heroic little islands of independence. God did not make us for that.

15:49 The man in his unfallen state was the one of whom God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make not an idol to replace me, but a helper answering to his needs that he may serve me all the more effective. His ruptured, tragically fragmented human relationships, yours relationships in Christ, does not make humanity only with sin's trial. You set your heart to have serious one-to-one deal with God, upon yourself false trials. There is almost for your Peter, James, and John to times even to disclose your heart to them that they may know something of the measure and magnitude and importance of the feelings you propose to have with God that you open your heart to them before you even pour it out before God.

17:15 If that is sin, then our Lord sinned. For that is precisely what he did. We learn the grace and the great lesson by the example of our Lord that it is not sin so to desire the consolation, the support, may I say it, the mystic support, I can't explain it, of knowing that there are sympathetic minds and hearts watching with us while we wrestle through things that only we can and must wrestle through with God. Then there is a second principle in the passage and it is this.

Disappointment in Failing Human Companionship is Not Sinful

17:57 It is no sin to feel disappointment when human companionship fails us in our seasons of intense trial. It is no sin to feel disappointment when human companionship fails us in our seasons of intense trial. Look at verse 40. And he comes unto the disciples and finds them sleeping and says unto them, and here is the language of disappointment, What?

18:37 Could you not watch? He said watch with me your Lord and Master who has called you, succored you, shown you the Father who is about to go to the place of execution on your behalf. Watch with me. And now he comes back and expresses his disappointment.

19:02 What? Could you not watch with me one hour? And then hoping that perhaps his mild reproof and expression of disappointment would somehow cause them to shake off the dullness of sleep after he goes off to pray again. Verse 43 says, He came again.

19:24 He came again. He came again to see if indeed they were there watching with him, entering in as much as they could as creatures, as much as they could with their presently limited understanding to this awful baptism of agony. He comes back again and he finds them sleeping. He left them again and one can only imagine the sense of heaviness with which he left them.

19:56 Peter, James, and John, the privileged three, my intimate confidants, the ones to whom I have made special revelation, they have gone asleep on me again. Verse 45. He comes to his disciples and says to them, Sleep on now. Take your rest.

20:18 If sleep is more important than entering in sympathetically to my agony, then sleep, because I have wrestled the issue through with my Father. The hour is at hand. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners arise. Let us be going.

20:36 It is not reading something into the Scriptures to say that no matter what other significance is to be found in the words, these are words of expressed disappointment. Now, if disappointment, when human companionship fails us, both felt and expressed is sin, then on the eve of being offered up as the Lamb of God, the Lamb was tainted with sin and unfit to sin. He did no sin even when he felt the disappointment. When he expressed disappointment, he who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners was not separate from true humanity. And in the experience of true humanity, disappointment is a very real experience and the more intimate the friendship, the more keen is the disappointment felt in the hour of trial when our friends upon whom we have leaned for consolation and support let us down. You see, God does not call us to be stoics,

22:01 to act as though disappointment and grief and pain never touch us. No, when we have leaned upon what we thought were trusted friends and they disappoint us, then we understand the proverb, confidence in an unfaithful man in a time of trouble is like a broken tooth and like a foot out of joint. Our Lord experienced that reality and He expressed the felt pain of that disappointment and therefore, if He is our example in suffering, we learn that it is no sin for us on the one hand to seek the consolation and support of human companionship in our hours of intense trial and then to feel and to express disappointment. They fail us in that hour of intense trial but then thirdly and finally and here is the message to our hearts, I trust, it is never an excuse or necessary occasion to sin when human companionship fails us. in our seasons of intense trial. It is no excuse or necessary occasion to sin when human companionship fails us

Human Companionship Failure is No Excuse for Sin

23:29 in our seasons of intense trial. Though He said to the disciples, watch with Me, and then verse 39 went on to have direct dealings with His Father. Verse 40 says, When He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, felt the disappointment and expressed it, He did not then say, What is the use for which I am travailing before the congregation for Me than to fall asleep? Why bother and get up and leave the garden?

24:08 No. His disappointment in them did not become the occasion of sin in Him. He did not turn aside from the will of God, because His God-given friends killed Him. And likewise, when He came back and the second time, verse 42, found them sleeping, after praying, He comes back, prays the same thing.

24:34 If this cup cannot pass away except I drink it, Thy will be done. He came again and found them sleeping. He left them again and prayed a third time. Notice, saying the same words.

24:47 Notice, He came again and found them sleeping. Now with His heart even more heavy, not merely with the sight of the cup, but with the sting of disappointment in His spirit, Peter, James, and John could not watch but even one hour drink the cup with Me. That I must drink alone, an offering that is exclusively Mine, only to stand alongside of Me. And support did not come as an extra or a necessary occasion to sin. Rather, He determined to do the will of God, even if He had to do it unsupported by human companionship. Not My will, but Thine, be done. And there is a lovely stroke in Luke's account.

25:54 It is as though God says, If the human companions fail you, I will send heavenly ones who are eager to support you. Luke 22, 43 says, And the angels of God came and strengthened them. If the creatures are so dull as not to appreciate the privilege, I will send angels who do. And it says, The angels of God came and they strengthened, they ministered to Him.

26:25 But you see, He did not use the occasion of disappointment in His friends to disobey His Father, nor, notice secondly, He did not use the occasion of disappointment in His friends to sin against His friends. The midst of His disappointment, and this to me is amazing, focuses not upon His sense of loss, expresses it at the end of verse 40, Could you not watch with Me one hour? But then He turns from His own disappointment to their well-being. In verse 41, Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing in you, but the flesh is weak in you. Disappointed in them, He still is concerned for them. And not only concerned for them, when He went back with His heart suffused with disappointment, He embraces with renewed determination to suffer everything He must suffer in order to redeem them.

27:46 You talk about love. In the face of disappointment, there is determination to lay down His life for the very ones who disappointed Him, not to strike out at them, but to endure. And He refused to turn aside from that resolute determination to do His Father's will. Obviously, the application is clear to us. Intense trial, my friend. Let that never be the occasion of your disobeying God. For God would say, When have I failed you?

28:43 When have I disappointed you? When have you leaned upon Me and found Me a broken tooth and a foot out of joint? You see what a horrible thing it is to turn against God on account of what His creatures do to us? What a horrible thing.

29:03 It would be like a wife turning against her husband because the neighbor's husband insulted her. And though the creatures bitterly disappointed our Lord, He found nothing disappointment in His Father. And therefore, the third time He prayed after two confrontations of disappointment, the same words, Not My will, but Thine, be done. We, like our Lord, need to manifest compassion to failing friends, knowing we have been the Peter, the James, and the John, and whether out of ignorance and insensitivity to the need of our brothers and sisters, or whether out of a state of spiritual coldness in which our hearts simply could not empathize with theirs, we have disappointed them. What is most desperately needed in those situations is to remember He that is without sin among you. Let Him be the first to sin against the brother or sister who disappoints Him. I say these are three

Application to the Lord's Supper: Christ's Sinlessness and Corporate Love

30:26 very vital principles of human relationships and friendships embodied, embedded in the Gethsemane passage. You say, Pastor, that seems to be true, but what application does that have in a special way to our coming to the Lord's table? And my answer to that is very simple, a two-fold answer. And the first is this.

30:53 We come to remember our sinless Savior with joy. And doesn't it make you appreciate His sinlessness all the more to know that though He operated on the basis of a true and real functioning humanity that needed human support, looked at times for human support, and found unfaithfulness in those whom He leaned upon, He never sinned. There was never a twinge or desire to retaliate by drawing up the joy of remembrance to remember Him in His death. Oh, that we may admire Him in what the full extent of His sinfulness means. It was the sinlessness of incarnate Deity, yes, but the sinlessness of true and full humanity. We admire Him as we come to His table.

32:05 We take the bread and the cup and we remember Him in that full Lord humanity. Never sinned. That we might have a spotless Lamb of God to bear away our sins. There's a second application as we come to the table.

32:26 We do not come to the table as several hundred individuals. There's a sense in which we come as individuals, yes, but we come as the body of Christ. And it's in some of the communion passages, 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, in particular, in which the corporateness of this feast of remembrance is underscored. And dear people, there is no such thing as a saving attachment to Christ that leaves you unattached from His church, His body.

33:07 The whole notion that there can be atomistic spiritual experience is totally foreign to the Scripture. To be joined to Christ is according to 1 Corinthians 12. By the Spirit who unites us to Christ, we are incorporated into the one body and made to drink of the one Spirit. What better place than when sitting here together shoulder to shoulder, row upon row, to renew our vows of determination to be true friends to one another.

33:45 You see, Jesus died to deliver us from the very sins that make us unfaithful friends in time of trouble. He died to deliver us from the preoccupation with self that makes us impervious to the signals that our brothers and sisters are sending out, saying, Watch with me. I'm passing through no ordinary trial. Stand with me.

34:11 I must have dealings with God. Yes, I must wrestle through with God. I cannot make the phone and a meeting together over a cup of tea, a substitute for the closet and wrestling with God. No, that would be to make an idol of your friendship.

34:27 Peter, my James, my John, watch with me while I go to have dealings with my Father. With our insensitivity, when our friends say many times in ways that we could hear if only we have sensitive ears, my soul is exceeding sorrowful. I am facing no ordinary trial. Watch with me.

34:54 And we don't hear the signal. With self, we've allowed attitudes to be built up in our hearts to our brethren that indispose us to empathize with them. We cannot weep with those who weep when there is an unweeping heart towards a brother. We cannot rejoice with those who rejoice when there is a heart that is distanced by suspicion, by ill will, by judgmental attitudes.

35:35 No, such a heart will never empathize, can be blocked off from that ability. And dear people of God, Christ died not only to bring us to the Father, but to bring us to one another. He died to make of the twain one new man in Christ. And it never ceases to amaze me, and I'm sure it will not embarrass my brother if I say this in closing, how it is that in personal experience I can meet people of a totally different culture, different language, all kinds of differences, and in half an hour have an expressed openness and oneness and bond of love than some will allow me to have with them over years. When as best I know my heart before God, I go out to them with equal measures of Christian affection, all the signals I know how to send out that I long to embrace. But you can't embrace a heart that will not be embraced. How do you explain that?

Exhortation to Genuine, Tangible Love and Unity

36:57 Ten years since my brother and I have seen one another, and yet when we saw each other where I met him at the bank the other morning, it's like it was only three days. And we embraced our hearts. How do you explain the chemistry of personality? I don't buy that.

37:16 The chemistry of personality will determine varying levels of greater intimacy. That's true. The Lord had Peter, James, and John, and among Peter, James, and John He had John. But my dear brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, there must be at least a modicum of what Scripture means when it says, Love one another with a pure and unfeigned love from the heart fervently, fervently.

37:47 Let me ask you a simple question tonight. The question Tevye asked his wife was, Do you love me? I'm asking that not as a private individual. Will you imagine every brother and sister in this church standing before you now looking you straight in the eye and saying to you, Do you love me?

38:16 Can you look? I represent every brother and sister in this place. Can you look me in the eye in the presence of God and say, My brother, my sister, I love you. I'm prepared to make your burdens my burden.

38:35 Because Christ died to free me from crass self-centeredness and individualism and picayunism that's prepared to take every foible and fault and magnify it into a wall of separation for Christ's sake and by His grace and blood and spirit. I love you. Can you say that? You're supposed to be able to.

39:01 In fact, God says you are sacramentally to express it every time you see your brothers and sisters. Greet one another with a holy kiss. In other words, make sure that the love is so real that even an embrace would not be a lie or mockery. We who are married, we can kid ourselves that everything's all right with our wives until we go to hold their hand when we pray with them.

39:29 That's why I always advise couples when you pray with your wife, hold her hand. I can't get it chapter and verse but it works because if there's any burr you feel unclean and hypocritical when you go to take her hand, don't you? And often going to take her hand becomes the very plug that pulls out the issue that needs to get dealt with. I think that's why Paul said greet one another with a holy kiss.

39:54 He didn't just say love one another. He did say that. But he said let your love be so genuine that you feel comfortable expressing it tangibly. I didn't write that in the Bible.

40:08 God the Holy Ghost could you with unfamed love I'm your brother and sister now representative brother and sister and I say to you not only do you love me but can you embrace me without it being hypocrisy and sham? You feel uncomfortable with that question do you? If so you better have dealings with God my friend. And you better have dealings with God before you come to this table because Jesus died so to work in you and in me that you could answer an unfamed yes to those questions.

40:48 That's why he drank the cup of the cassemonade that there would be a community on Earth with all of the things that could keep them at swords points and at distance from one another who by their unfamed love and intimate unity expressed in willingness to bear one another's burdens weep with those who weep would be a living monument of the power of the grace Gethsemane. Oh, may God write upon our hearts then this secondary message of the shadow of Calvary,

Postscript: Taking Initiative in Companionship and Communication

41:32 and may, by his grace, we become not only more appreciative of the Lord Jesus in his sinlessness, but more fervent and real in the genuineness of our love for one another, for Christ's sake. Let us pray. The prayer that originally followed the message has been deleted, and in its place we are going to give several thoughts that were shared by Pastor Nichols immediately following the conclusion of the message by Pastor Martin when we gathered to the Lord's table. We felt that the thoughts were significant enough to be included in the message. Pastor Nichols pointed out in what he called a postscript to the message that there were several sides to this whole matter of the communication between those who enter into more intimate friendships and companionships, and the points that he made were these. First of all, that Jesus took the initiative to take the disciples with him in his hour of need. In other words, our Lord made it very plain that he was

42:49 prepared to seek human companionship. He did not wait around hoping that the disciples would come to him, and then bemoan the fact that he was friendless in the hour of his need. Rather, he took the initiative in establishing that companionship, and likewise so must we. The second point that Pastor Nichols made was that Jesus then communicated with those who became his more intimate companions and confidants. Once more, the Lord Jesus did not expect the disciples to be able to read his message. He did not expect them to read his message. He did not expect them to read his mind, but he spoke to them. He took the initiative to communicate with them in general, and then in the third place, the text makes it abundantly clear that in the time of his specific need and trial, Jesus specifically expressed the nature of that trial to those who were his more intimate companions and friends. Based then upon those observations, Pastor Nichols exhorted us as the

43:57 people of the world to be more intimate with one another, and to be more intimate with one another. Not to expect that we shall know the benefits of human companionship, and also some of the disappointments that come from it, if we are unwilling to do those things which our Lord Jesus obviously did, and as were underscored in the brief comments made by Pastor Nichols. Once again, we simply underscore the fact that we felt that these thoughts were so significant in the whole area of our life. We felt that these thoughts were so significant in the whole area of our life, of concern that formed the focal point of the sermon, that in our attempts to be like our Lord Jesus by the strength and power of the Holy Spirit, that these dimensions of the chemistry of companionship ought also to enter into our thinking and into our actions, as well as those that were opened up and highlighted in the exposition.