Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham
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Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham
Luke 22:39-46; Grief in the Garden
Jason Sterling March 23, 2025 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin
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If you have a copy of God's Word, look with me to the Gospel of Luke. So go to your New Testament. We're going to be looking at Luke, chapter 22, this morning. We've been studying the Gospel of Luke this year in our church and in the past couple of weeks we have been preparing our hearts for Easter, and so we're walking with Jesus through the last week of His life, looking at different events of the last week of his life. Last week we looked at Passover. This morning we're going to look at his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and that's what it's referred to in other Gospels. Here, you'll notice it's called the Mount of Olives. Same place, the Garden of Gethsemane, is on the Mount of Olives. At the base of the Mount of Olives, it's Thursday night. Jesus and his disciples have just celebrated Passover. Jesus has predicted that he will be betrayed. Jesus has told Peter that he will deny him. Jesus has told the disciples they will abandon him when he needs them the most. And now Jesus goes out to the Mount of Olives to pray.
Speaker 1:Charles Spurgeon said that we should take our shoes off this morning, that your shoes should come off when you come to this scene in the Gospels, because this is holy ground and I think you'll see exactly what he means as we read this is God's Word Luke 22, 39 through 46. It'll be on the screen behind me. It's also in your bulletin this morning. And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed, saying Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him and being in agony. He prayed more earnestly and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow. And he said to them why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation. This is God's word. Let's pray and ask for the Spirit's help this morning. Please bow with me in prayer. Father, you brought us here this morning and some of us have heard this passage, read this passage, for many, many years, growing up, in the church, wherever we're coming from. This morning, would we not be unmoved by what we learn and see and read in this passage? I pray that you would move us all closer to Jesus, that Jesus would be more beautiful to us as a result of what we see him doing in this passage. Would you do that in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:This is a very intense and a very emotional scene in the Gospels. However, please note, the point here is not for us to pity Jesus. The point is not for us to look and say poor Jesus, look at how sad Jesus is that he had to die for your sins. Now you should treat him better, you should go, be more obedient. No, the focus of this passage is on what Jesus has done for you.
Speaker 1:Jesus in this passage is taking on something. Jesus is enacting something here. He's accomplishing something, and what Jesus is doing is he is accomplishing or, I'm sorry, absorbing our greatest fear. He is accomplishing or, I'm sorry, absorbing our greatest fear abandonment, so that if you are in Christ, you will never ultimately be abandoned. God will never leave you nor forsake you. Jesus here in the garden is taking our place and we need to keep that in mind on the forefront or we miss the point of the passage this morning. And so let's look at three things this morning in this passage the agony of Jesus, number one. Secondly, the cup of Jesus. Lastly, the work of Jesus the agony, the cup, the work. So let's look at number one in our outline, the agony of Jesus. Look at verses 39 and 40. Also, look at verse 46 as well. We're just going to walk through this passage. We'll make some application along the way.
Speaker 1:But Jesus goes to pray at the garden of Gethsemane with his disciples and notice what he says pray that you may not enter into temptation. So let's stop there. What is he talking about? What is the temptation? Well, remember the context. Jesus has just told his disciples that one of them will betray him. He's just told Peter that he's going to deny him three times, and the others that they will also abandon him. And so Jesus is saying here that the way you stand up under pressure, the pressure that's going to be coming in on them, the way you stand up under the temptation to compromise and to leave Jesus, to leave him when the going gets tough, is to pray.
Speaker 1:And I love this. There's some simplicity here. Obviously, it's very difficult to live out in reality, but I love the simplicity in which this and what we see here, jesus, he's saying here you don't have to have a seminary degree, you don't have to have certain amounts of theological training or greater coping skills when the going gets tough and the suffering and hardships of life come. No, rather, you just need to simply pray. Because what is prayer? It's an act of dependence, and when we pray, when we don't pray, it's depending on self. And so he says pray and cry out for God to strengthen you, strengthen your faith, in the midst of whatever circumstances and suffering that you are experiencing or will experience in the future. Friends, we live in a world where it is increasingly difficult to be a Christian, and we have lots of prayers, don't we? And we have lots of things on our prayer list that we pray for. We pray for all sorts of things, but do you pray for God to strengthen you? Do you pray that he would strengthen you so that you would not compromise and enter into temptation? Do you pray that he would strengthen your faith so that you will be able to stand when life and the world presses in on you? Do you pray that God would hold you when you encounter and embrace the sufferings of this world. Pray that you might not enter into temptation. Jesus says that you'll be able to stand. Verse 41,. He withdrew about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed On Mark's account of this passage.
Speaker 1:He says that Peter James and John are with him. Remember, peter James and John were with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration in Mark, chapter 9, and they saw Jesus full on in glory and deity. And now he's in the garden and Jesus is now. They see Jesus not in full deity, in full humanity here, not in full deity, in full humanity here. And once Jesus gets away with his closest friends we see in this passage he completely falls apart. He's undone. Look at verse 44. And, being in agony, his sweat becomes like great drops of blood. Jesus is sweating not because it's hot outside. We know in the scene after this that Peter will warm himself by a fire. So it's not because of the temperatures. Jesus is sweating because he is so distressed. Up until this point in the Gospels you read, jesus is full of confidence, he's poised. And now Jesus is undone. Jesus is coming apart. Matthew 26, 39,. Matthew's account of this says after going a little further, jesus falls on his face.
Speaker 1:I have a friend and pastor who lost his nine-year-old daughter a couple of years ago in a very tragic way. I'm in a pastor's group with him and he was sharing about this and he said that he and his wife were so completely undone they couldn't drive themselves home from the hospital. And he said so. A friend brings them home, pulls up into the front of their house, lets them out and he says we're walking up to the front door of our house and he says my wife and I just completely, we are so overcome with grief. We went first to our knees in the front yard and then we just fell over on our face, weeping because we're so overcome with the grief of losing our daughter. That's the picture. Jesus is in agony, jesus is having a come apart, he is breaking down and the question is okay, so what? What does that have to do with you sitting here in the pews right now this morning? Well, a couple of things.
Speaker 1:One thing I think this shows us and means by way of application is that this teaches you to pray your pain, to pray your grief and your sorrow. Jesus is in distress, grief and sorrow. We have these images of Jesus, maybe from movies or from pictures, and Jesus is often presented as a robot, often presented very stoic. Jesus is not stoic. The God-man here doesn't suppress his most desperate moments, but he experiences them in a very deep way we see here and he brings them to God, his Father. When you experience desperate moments, what do you do with them? You experience desperate moments. What do you do with them? Do you take them to God in prayer or do you suppress them and feel like you have to smile and say the right thing in your prayers and do the right things and immediately respond. With God works all things together for good. With God works all things together for good. So bring our pain. I think is one of the things that we see in this passage that God welcomes that. And the other thing and it's obvious, but Jesus knows what it's like and understands your darkest hours. Hebrews 4, verse 15,. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.
Speaker 1:Some of you know these moments. If you haven't experienced these moments, you live long enough and you will. But you know the moments where you get the phone call and it's really late or really early in the morning and you look at your phone and you immediately have this pit in your stomach and you're thinking this is not good. Or maybe the doctor walks in after the round of testing and he says I got some really bad news about your diagnosis. Or maybe it's a knock at the door. Or maybe it's the news, the gut-wrenching news, that's like a kick in the stomach and it's the thing that undoes you on the spot. You fall on your face in the living room floor.
Speaker 1:The trauma, the emotional breakdown in your life, the thing in your life that gets you in the fetal position. You have a Savior, friends, that knows exactly what that's like, a Savior who's been there, and in those moments you think Jesus is furthest away. Friends, this scene, this scene in the garden, assures you that he's actually the closest in those moments, because he knows exactly what that's like. He assures you that you're never alone in your grief and your sorrow and that he gets it and he understands. And did you catch verse 43?
Speaker 1:I thought about this verse all week and there, in this moment, appeared to him Jesus. Appeared to Jesus, an angel of heaven, strengthening him. Notice here the strengthening does not bring relief from the agony. The strengthening, though, strengthens Jesus to continue walking through it. No doubt this is unique to Jesus, but isn't this the pattern of God's people? Don't God's people experience these kinds of things all the time?
Speaker 1:Ralph Davis, a commentator, listened to this quote how often do God's people find heaven's resources suddenly appear for earth's emergencies? Let me read that again how often do God's people find heaven's resources suddenly appear for earth's emergencies? And you've maybe experienced this. If not, you've seen someone who has. But if I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times.
Speaker 1:Someone is going through something grueling, some sort of suffering. They are hanging on by a thread and you're looking at this or maybe you're feeling this because you're going through it and you say how in the world do you make it? How are you still standing through this? And what does the person say? By the grace of God, in a way that they don't fully even understand, they say God sustained me, god is sustaining me, he's given me strength to put one foot in front of the other. For Jesus, it's an angel For us. Get this for you. The strengthening comes from the risen Jesus himself, who is with you through his spirit, giving you strength and endurance to get through whatever it is that you're going through at the moment. Friends, we live in a hard world, full of brokenness and agony, and oftentimes we don't get a lot of answers, but we have a God who has experienced the agony for us and with us, and he gives us resources to endure and he promises to be with us to the end.
Speaker 1:Secondly, the cup of Jesus. So why is Jesus so undone? Why is he sweating drops of blood? Well, look at verse 42. He's afraid of the cup. Remember, jesus is talking to the disciples at one point in the gospels. Maybe you remember this story and they're like Jesus we got it, we'll drink the cup. And you remember what Jesus says to them. He says and you remember what Jesus says to them. He says you have no idea. You have no idea what you're asking, because, you see, jesus is not talking about the cup of blessing, he's talking about the cup of judgment and wrath.
Speaker 1:And the Old Testament prophets talked a lot about this cup Isaiah 51, 17,. Awake, awake, jerusalem. You have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of wrath, you who have drained it to the dregs. When you drain it to the dregs, it will make people stagger, and so the cup that Jesus is talking about is filled to the brim with God's wrath and judgment for our sin and rebellion. Drinking this cup meant shame and separation from God, and please don't miss here who is sliding the cup across the table. Drinking this cup meant shame and separation from God, and please don't miss here who is sliding the cup across the table. It's not the enemy, it's his Father, and this is at the heart of what crushes Jesus. Every other time Jesus has been welcomed in prayer by the most intimate fellowship of the Father, son and Holy Spirit, but this time the Father slides a cup to him that has the stench of death and it fills his nostrils and it makes Jesus shudder.
Speaker 1:Bill Lane is a commentator and I want you to listen closely to this quote. He says the dreadful sorrow and anxiety that Jesus Christ experienced in prayer for the passing of the cup was not just an expression of fear before a dark destiny, nor a shrinking from the prospect of physical suffering and death. It is rather and here's what I want you to hear it is rather the horror of one who had lived a perfect holy life for the father but then found hell rather than heaven opened before him and he staggered. And it's interesting if you read the stories of the martyrs throughout church history. Go read the Fox's book of church martyrs throughout church history, and one of the things that you'll see if you read about martyrs is they approach their death much more courageously than we see Jesus approaching his death here in this scene. And the question is why? You know why? Because the martyrs were looking to the welcome of the Father and Jesus is looking at the wrath of the Father. The martyrs were looking to the fellowship that they would have with God.
Speaker 1:Jesus is undone because he knows that he's about to be separated from God. You see the difference? And added to that, verse 45 and 46, his closest friends can't even stay awake. Jesus is utterly alone. Jesus has no one. That's the difference.
Speaker 1:And so how does he respond to the sliding of the cup across the table? Verse 42, father, if you're willing, please remove this cup from me. And then he says I think it's significant, the order. Then he says yet not my will, but yours be done. Notice again honesty here. He doesn't immediately go like we do. He doesn't immediately go to not my will, but yours be done. He doesn't start there, he begs God to remove the cup. And I think that's significant as we think about our own prayer life. It's okay for you to pray, god. Please take this suffering away. Please change my circumstances, please remove my hardships. However, at the same time, jesus shows us that the goal of prayer is not to bend God's will to ours, but to conform our will to his. Jesus knows the pain of unanswered prayers. He asked for the cup to be removed, but he longed so much more to be obedient to his Father. And so, in that light, he says not my will, father, but yours be done. And so Jesus takes the cup and drinks it to the bottom.
Speaker 1:It's interesting just to connect some dots in the Bible. In the garden, with the first adam, the first adam rebels against god's commands right, and says no, my will, adam says, will be done. And what happened to the world? It was blown to bits by sin and death. But in this garden, jesus the second Adam submits to God and is obedient to God, and it's through that obedience that life and joy come to those who trust in Christ.
Speaker 1:And so how is he able to do this? What enables him to say not my will, but yours be done? Well, we get a hint with the first word. Did you notice how he begins his appeal. What's he say? Father? Jesus says I trust you, you are my father, I trust you, even though I want you to take this cup away. I trust you and I know that you love me, and I think that's helpful for us. Pray, god, take this away, remove my sorrow. But at the same time, we hold our sorrow and our pain open-handedly. But at the same time, we hold our sorrow and our pain open-handedly and we say, god, I know you're a good father who loves me. And so you're able to say in that moment not my will but yours, be done. Because, god, I know you're tender and I know you're good and you have my best interest in mind. So it allows us to say the exact same thing best interest in mind. So it allows us to say the exact same thing. Lastly, the work of Jesus. Why is Jesus going through all this? Why is God making him drink this cup of wrath in judgment? Well, simply put, it's part of the mission, it's all part of the rescue plan.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're familiar with the movie. You've seen the Mel Gibson's movie, the Passion of the Christ, and if you remember, there's the scene when Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and he resolves to stick to the plan and, if you remember this scene, he stands up. And then what does he do? He takes his foot and he crushes the head of the serpent. That's not actually in the Gospels, and so why does Mel Gibson put it in the movie? Well, because it's an allusion to the promise made in another garden, the Garden of Eden.
Speaker 1:In Genesis, chapter 3, humanity's put in the garden to flourish, to commune with God forever. Adam and Eve are tempted by the snake, by the serpent. Adam and Eve are tempted by the snake, by the serpent. They push God away and commit cosmic treason and sin enters into the world. But here's the amazing thing God immediately institutes a rescue plan and a rescue mission.
Speaker 1:Genesis, chapter 3, verse 15. We have the first promise of the gospel A redeemer is promised, one who would come and defeat sin once and for all. Who would come? And what does it say? Crush the head of the serpent. And we know, because we live in this point in redemptive history, that promised one who crushes the head of the serpent is the Lord Jesus himself. Jesus here is committed to the mission to crushing the enemy, sin and death, once and for all.
Speaker 1:How did Jesus do it? By drinking the cup. Jesus does it by going to a cross and drinking the full strength of God's wrath. He takes the punishment that we deserve, the wrath that we deserve. He gets the cup of judgment and wrath so that you, if you trust in Jesus, get the cup of joy and blessing forever. The cup of joy and blessing forever. Jesus does that to bring us back to that garden, the garden of Eden, the place of life where we will commune and have peace with God forever. That's the plan and that's how the Bible ends in Revelation 22,. The new heavens and new earth, the city of Jerusalem, new Jerusalem comes down. And what's in the middle of that city? A garden. The Bible begins with a garden and ends with a garden, and we are in perfect fellowship with God. But here's what I don't want you to miss. Please see this. This is the point the bridge between those two gardens is this garden, the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus resolves himself to go and die for you and for his family and for his people. I'll close with this.
Speaker 1:Anne Lamott tells a story about an eight-year-old boy who had a younger sister who was six, who was dying of leukemia, and this little boy was told that without a blood transfusion that his sister would die. But if he, this little boy, was willing to give his sister a pint of his own blood, that she might survive. And so this boy is being told this and you can imagine as an eight-year-old boy. This is really scary, and he doesn't completely understand all that's happening and all that this means in the moment. And so he looks at his parents and he says I'm going to need the night to think this over. And so the next day he wakes up and he tells his parents I'm willing to donate my blood. And so they take him to the hospital and will him in on a gurney and he's sitting next to his sister. They're both hooked up to IVs and in his IV you see the blood from his IV dripping down. And the young boy says in the silence how long before I start to die. You see he didn't completely understand, but can you imagine? Can you imagine what was going on inside of this boy the previous night as he was thinking through all of this and as he comes to that decision? I love my sister enough to die for her. What is going on inside of Jesus as he is staring death in the face. What is Jesus thinking about in this moment in the garden, sweating drops of blood? Thinking about the cup of wrath? Thinking about his father turning his face away? What is going on inside of Jesus? What is he thinking about you? He's thinking about his family that he loves enough that he's willing to die for.
Speaker 1:Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 2, for the joy set before him. Who's the joy? You? For the joy set before him. Jesus endured the cross, despising its shame. The phrase God loves you gets said a lot that might sound trite to you this morning or that might be empty to you this morning, but this scene in the Garden of Gethsemane says otherwise. You think about that. Let's pray, father. Thank you for loving us enough to drink the cup of wrath so that we could get the cup of blessing. Thank you for the gospel. Would you forgive us for our lack of commitment, our lack of love? Commitment or lack of love? Father, would you help us to trust you and trust your deep love for us, so that we're able to say, in the midst of whatever it is that we're going through, not my will but yours be done. Only you can do that through your Spirit in our hearts. Would you do that in Jesus' name, amen.