Could Jesus have escaped? (Mark 14:32 - 42)

Short teachings from Hillcrest Church exploring the background, context, meaning, and significance of the account of Jesus of Nazareth in the book of Mark.

Transcript

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Hey, how are you doing? Tim here, and we are diving deep into the Book of Mark for Lent. So we after Jesus predicts Peter's denial, we talked about that in the last episode. What happens next is Jesus and his apprentices, they actually that so they've left Jerusalem, the city proper. They've crossed the Kidron Valley just to the east of Jerusalem, and then they've gone up onto the hillside of the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives has occurred multiple times. That's the mountain that Jesus came over when he came into Jerusalem. If you go over the Mount of Olives, that's where the road to Jericho goes. You go downhill to Jericho, Bethany, where Jesus has been staying, is over the Mount of Olives. And so Jesus is now kind of on the Jerusalem side of the Mount of Olives, closer to Jerusalem in this place. And we're told that he goes to this place called Gethsemane, Mark chapter 14, verse 32. They went to a place called Gethsemane. And Jesus said to his disciples, Sit here while I pray. Gethsemane in Aramaic means oil press. And so very likely olive grove, olive trees, maybe a cave where the owner had an oil press where they would crush the um crush the olives to extract the oil, which of course it's this appropriate image of the way. This is a crushing place for what Jesus is about to go through. And so we're told that he took Peter, James, and John, these three close apprentices to him, and began to be deeply distressed and troubled. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. He said, Stay here and keep watch. And going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible, this hour might pass from him. I mean, you know, throughout Mark in the way section, in particular, three times, Jesus very directly predicted, he prophesied that he would be, that he would be arrested by the leaders, publicly tortured to death, killed, and then arise on the third day. But he knows that before any rising comes this public torture, rejection, betrayal, abandonment, and ultimately the spiritual side of this, of carrying the weight of uh human sin on his shoulders. Um and so uh he prays, um, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible, the hour might pass from him. Abba Father, he said, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. And then, of course, he goes back. Um, and the apprentices, the disciples, they've fallen asleep. They're not staying awake and watching. And I don't know if you remember, but when we we talked about in Mark 13, the this kind of interesting juxtaposition of Jesus saying, stay awake, watch. But here we see the disciples not staying awake, not watching, falling asleep. Um and then uh he goes back and he prays a second time and he prays a third time, um, and then his betrayer, um Judas Iscariot with a band of thugs shows up. But I want to just I just want to reflect for a moment um on Jesus, that crushing experience of praying in the Garden of Gethsemane at night, alone, his friends have fallen asleep, um, and he knows what's coming. I don't know, um, I don't know what, if you think back in your life, the hardest uh right thing you've ever had to do. That that moment in your life when you knew the right thing to do, but you knew it would cost you, and the moments of decision leading up to that. It would cost you reputation, it would cost you money, it would cost you shame, it would cost you conflict, you knew this was the right thing, and it is gonna cost. Jesus is uh in the garden um and he's praying. He knows his Abba's heart that uh that that that he is the Son of God, um, has come to bear the weight of the sin of the world, that he um has come to rescue um and he sees what it's going to cost him. And the cost, I think we in our human imagination can't even imagine the cost, the infinite weight of bearing uh the sin of all humankind. And um, and I want to just reflect on the fact of how easy it would have been for Jesus to walk away. The Garden of Gethsemane is on the Mount of Olives. Just less than a week earlier, Jesus traveled from Jericho and he traveled up through the Judean wilderness, which is the wilderness where Jesus spent 40 days. That's right where he spent his 40 days of temptation at the beginning of his public ministry, the beginning of the book of Mark. 40 days in the wilderness. It's the Judean wilderness between Jerusalem and Jericho. So he's he travels up the road to Jericho through the Judean wilderness where he knows how to survive, past Bethany, where he's lived during this week, over the Mount of Olives, and then down past the Garden of Gethsemane and then into Jerusalem. That's how he came into the city. And now he's at that Garden of Gethsemane. He knows, he knows the road back over the Mount of Olives. He knows the path back to Bethany, he knows the road to the Judean wilderness, where he knows he has the ability to survive in that wilderness for weeks and weeks and weeks on his own, unfound by anybody. He knows the road back to Jericho if he wants, and then he knows the road up the Rift Valley back to Galilee. Let me put it very simply. Jesus could have slipped away into the night, and no one would have found him again if he didn't want to be found. When Jesus was at the Garden of Gethsemane, he was just hours walk away from a wilderness that he could have disappeared into and nobody could have found him. There would have been no challenge for Jesus just to vanish on this Thursday night, two thousand years ago. And so the the choice before him was very real. Do I stay or do I disappear and flee from all the pain and shame and rejection and physical suffering and spiritual suffering that is to come? And when Jesus prays, when he calls out to his Abba, we see this the very simple result that Jesus chose to stay. Every ability to run away, a full understanding of the immensity of pain that would be coming towards him. An understanding of his Abba's heart and his own heart to rescue people from the cost of sin and the pain of death and the hold of Satan. And Jesus chose to stay. And so, brothers and sisters, as we come in these final weeks of Lent, you know, if you end up joining us for a Good Friday service and we reflect on these moments and these moments in Gethsemane, um I think uh I would hope ringing in your ears and ringing in your heart is that the Son of God, when the most difficult choice and the immensity of suffering was looming before him, he chose to stay. He chose to stay for you, he chose to stay for me, he chose to stay that any who would trust in him might know his love and be rescued for all eternity.