Monthly Archives: September 2020

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – THE BATTLE TO PRESERVE UNITY

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THE BATTLE TO PRESERVE UNITY

32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”
35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
39 Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. 40 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.
41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer Mark 14:32-42

Jesus’ hour was very near. He began to feel the weight of the ordeal He was entering. Gethsemane was the olive grove where olives were grown and processed for their oil. How appropriate that it was here that Jesus prayed and fought His greatest battle. Gethsemane means “press”, the place of the press, the name that is forever connected to Jesus and His prayer, “Not what I want but what you want.”

The gospels record two of Jesus’ great personal battles, one at the beginning of His public ministry and the other at the end. They represent the reversal of Adam’s failure in the Garden of Eden. Adam was lured into mistrusting God’s love and stepping out of his ECHAD with God by believing that being like God was being free to make his own rules.

Satan tried the same trick on Jesus but with no success because Jesus knew the meaning and value of being one with the Father. The devil tried to lure Him into independence and disobedience in the wilderness with no success, and now here in the olive grove He was pressed with the weight of the world’s sin to the extent that He wanted out.

What was at the heart of the struggle? To remain one with the Father in spite of the cost to Himself. This was not about reluctant submission or resignation to the inevitable. This was about willingly embracing the Father’s will so that they could go through the whole process of His death as an atoning sacrifice together. It was through the eternal Spirit that He offered Himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God.

In this war to maintain ECHAD with God, we have a three-fold enemy: the world, the flesh and the devil. Each of these has one end in view – to break our ECHAD with God and lure us into acting independently of Him. Obedience to God’s will is the tangible evidence of the oneness we have with him. Like Jesus, our greatest battle is to preserve that unity through trust and obedience.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – THE FLESH IS WEAK

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THE FLESH IS WEAK

32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”
35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that, if possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
39 Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. 40 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.
41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer Mark 14:32-42

We can’t really blame the disciples for going to sleep while Jesus went off to pray. In spite of His many warnings, they didn’t know what lay up ahead for them. They had drunk wine at their Passover supper and it was late at night. They had not yet learned to be vigilant over their souls. They were perhaps not yet aware of the nature and intensity of the war they were in. While Jesus was fully aware of His struggle, they were not. It would only be on hindsight that the whole terrible picture would become clear to them.

Had we been any of them would we have been any different? Apart from their immediate circumstances, their minds were out of sync with Jesus and would remain stuck in their rut until the Holy Spirit came to dwell in them and to lead them into all truth.

Throughout their journey with the human Jesus, how much praying had they ever done? They were deeply impressed by His prayer life and begged Him to teach them to pray, but no amount of instruction would take the place of actually praying. It seems that they had not yet reached that stage of maturity in their walk with God. They were still spectators, watching and admiring Jesus, but not yet fully in the game themselves.

Is it any wonder that He told them that it was to their benefit that He would leave them? How were they ever going to become involved if He were always there to live the life for them? They needed to be thrown into the deep end, to be aware of their vulnerability when He was no longer with them, so that they would learn to lean hard on God through the Holy Spirit’s presence in them. Jesus was the only one, at this moment, who understood the struggle between flesh and spirit. To the one who simply follows the dictates of the flesh, there is no struggle, but to the one who sincerely desires to live for God, the war is on and only the power of God can give victory over the flesh.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – DESTINED TO FALL

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DESTINED TO FALL

27 “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written:
“‘I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep will be scattered.’
28 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”
29 Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.”
30 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.”
31 But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the others said the same. Mark 14:27-31

There are two ways of being ready for all eventualities; either through blustering self-confidence or by being alert and forearmed for danger. Peter was full of arrogant self-confidence, not really hearing Jesus’ warning but feeling that he could handle anything. Mark added that the other disciples were not far behind Peter.

The trouble with this kind of attitude is that it hears nothing but the sound of its own voice. It is too full of itself to listen to the warning and to be aware of its own weakness, much less to be on the alert and follow the counsel of the Holy Spirit… This is a set-up for a very necessary exposure of pride and a wake-up call to face reality. Jesus understood human nature and even if He did not have the foresight about Peter’s crash (which He did), it was inevitable because it was the devil’s modus operandi. He had warned Peter once before but it is clear that Peter was deaf to His words.

How does this process of exposure work? Jesus put it in a nutshell. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” Perhaps Peter was sincere in his expression of loyalty to Jesus but he did not know himself or how weak his flesh was when it was threatened or challenged. The only way he could understand his true self would be to fall into the trap his own words has set.

Jesus’ attitude is amazing. He did not look upon Peter’s failure as an irreparable disaster but as part of Peter’s journey. This was about Peter and about the process he needed to go through to become an imitator of Jesus. It always is, but for Jesus it was a welcome hurdle Peter had to get over, and Jesus was there to accompany him so that he would not crash out as Judas had done through his own blindness. Jesus’ tender restoration of Peter on the shores of the Sea of Galilee reflects again the character of the Father, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and full of love and faithfulness.

Peter learned his lesson well. We must not forget that the apostles wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, out of a wealth of personal experience. Paul, for example, could say, “I have learned…” and “We know…”  Peter learned humility and submission the hard way, but it was a lesson he never forgot. O yes, failure, not success and achievement, is always the best teacher.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – MY BODY…MY BLOOD

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MY BODY…MY BLOOD

22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”
23 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
24 “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. 25 “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
26 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Mark 14:22-26

How powerfully Jesus’ simple words must have impacted the men who penned the gospels and some of the letters that are included in Holy Scriptures. The memory of their last Passover meal with Him must have replayed over and over in their minds, especially during those three terrible days when their Master lay cold and lifeless in the tomb. What did this all mean? It happened so fast, leaving them bewildered and reeling with the pain of their grief and loss. How often did His words echo in their minds, “This is my body, this is my blood,” leaving them with a million unanswered questions.

Jesus tried to warn them, to prepare them for the coming events but they refused to listen. They stuck stubbornly to their conviction that He would set them free from Rome and give them back the glory of David’s kingdom. Perhaps Judas’ action was an attempt to force His hand. But Jesus knew His destiny. He had seen every detail unfolding before the foundation of the world. He was now playing out in time what had already taken place in eternity.

The disciples were speechless. Not even Peter had anything to say at that moment. They simply gazed at Him and tried to take it all in. What an amazing experience for them when they finally began to understand! For John, He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; for Peter a lamb without spot or blemish; for Matthew the Son of God whose death released natural upheavals in response to their Creator. It’s as though all heaven held its breath and waited to see whether they would finally understand. On these eleven men hung the success or failure of Jesus’ mission – plus the Holy Spirit!

At this point, the disciples must have felt like passengers on a bullet train – they could neither stop nor disembark! They were caught up in something over which they had no control. Perhaps they just wanted to stop the world, get off and run away but they couldn’t. They were in it, like it or not. Did they ever imagine, on that never-to-be-forgotten day when He called them to follow Him, what it would mean for the rest of their lives?

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – PASSOVER FULFILLED

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PASSOVER FULFILLED

22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”
23 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
24 “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. 25 “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
26 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Mark 14:22-26

In Luke 22:14, Jesus expressed His eager desire to share this final Passover meal with His disciples before He suffered. There is so much meaning packed into this ceremony. The entire Old Testament climaxed in that moment. Everything that Passover symbolised was being fulfilled.

The disciples, all Jews, would have understood the symbolism of the bread and wine, according to function and not form, not taking Jesus’ words literally, as some heretical branches of the church do, but interpreting what He was saying to express the stark reality of the events about to unfold. They may not have understood it all then, but after ave thanks. Pentecost it would all come alive to them. Then they would be able to “connect the dots” to see the whole picture clearly.

As we read the words of this simple ceremony, they don’t impact us a powerfully as they would have impacted those twelve men that night. Even Judas would have been riveted by Jesus’ disclosure. What thoughts ran through his mind as Jesus spoke of His broken body and poured out blood? How did he connect that with the dastardly act of betrayal that was already taking shape in his mind? Did he realise that he, in some perverted way, would play a part in the unfolding drama of redemption? His mind was probably fixed on the reward of his betrayal – a small fortune in a bag!

There is no fear, anxiety or distress in Jesus’ words. He disclosed the outcome of the next fateful hours with confidence, even expectation. He was not there to announce the end of His life but a transition into a new era with His friends – the kingdom of God. When would He share the Passover meal with them again? Would it be only after His return, when He wraps up this season of earth’s existence and restores everything to His original purpose? Perhaps, but is it not true that He shares that Passover experience with His people every time they celebrate the Lord’s Supper because, wherever His body is, there He is in the midst?