All of you will be made to stumble because of Me

 Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:

'I will strike the Shepherd,
And the sheep will be scattered.'

But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee."  Peter said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not be."  Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times."  But he spoke more vehemently, "If I have to die with You, I will not deny You!"  And they all said likewise.

Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples, "Sit here while I pray."  And He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be troubled and deeply distressed.  Then He said to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.  Stay here and watch."  He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him.  And He said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You.  Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will."  Then He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "Simon, are you sleeping?  Could you not watch one hour?  Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.  The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."  Again He went away and prayed, and spoke the same words.  And when He returned, He found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy; and they did not know what to answer Him.  Then He came the third time and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting?  It is enough!  The hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.  Rise, let us be going.  See, My betrayer is at hand."

- Mark 14:27-42

Yesterday, we read about the Last Supper, and the first Eucharist.  On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, "Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?"  And He sent out two of His disciples and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him.  Wherever he goes in, say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, "Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"'  Then he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared, there make ready for us."  So His disciples went out, and came into the city, and found it just as He had said to them; and they prepared the Passover.  In the evening He came with the twelve.  Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, "Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray me."  And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to Him one by one, "Is it I?"  And another said, "Is it I?"  He answered and said to them, "It is one of the twelve, who dips with Me in the dish.  The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!  It would have been good for that man if he had never been born."  And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."  Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it.  And He said to them, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.  Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."  And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

 Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:  'I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.'  But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee."  Peter said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not be."  Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times."  But he spoke more vehemently, "If I have to die with You, I will not deny You!"  And they all said likewise.  My study bible tells us:  "Peter still does not understand the need for divine help to remain faithful.  Peter's desire is right, but his source of strength -- himself -- is wrong."   Jesus' quotation here is from Zechariah 13:7.  My study bible's emphasis on the need for divine help goes further than we think here.  Clearly, God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and our ways are not God's ways.

Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples, "Sit here while I pray."   My study bible tells us:  "Gethsemane, meaning 'oil press,' is an orchard of olive trees at the foot of the Mount of Olives where oil was extracted from olives."  Olive oil is an important key to the Gospels; it's the basis for healing balms such as those given in mercy by the Good Samaritan.  More importantly, the word for "mercy" in the Greek sounds identical to the word for olive oil.  Anointing and mercy are inseparable in the concept of God's grace.  Christ's agony in the garden ("oil press") is a necessary part of the story of the gift of God's grace.

And He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be troubled and deeply distressed.  Then He said to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.  Stay here and watch."  He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him.  And He said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You.  Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will."   A note in my study bible says, "Abba in Aramaic is the familiar form for Father, equivalent to 'Daddy' or 'Papa,' indicating Christ's intimacy with God the Father.  Jesus prays to be spared this cup, His death by crucifixion, but obediently entrusts Himself to the will of God.  It is not as God that He asks the hour might pass, but as man.  His divinity cannot suffer; His humanity can and does."

Then He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "Simon, are you sleeping?  Could you not watch one hour?  Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.  The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."  Again He went away and prayed, and spoke the same words.  And when He returned, He found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy; and they did not know what to answer Him.  Then He came the third time and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting?  It is enough!  The hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.  Rise, let us be going.  See, My betrayer is at hand."  My study bible tells us:  "To watch and pray is the way to avoid entering into temptation -- at any time, anywhere.  The spirit of the disciples, their inner selves, is ready to die with Jesus, but their flesh, their physical bodies, is weak and given to sleep."

The agony in the Garden, Christ's prayers and difficulty at this time, is perhaps for all of us a model of suffering.  We know the anticipation and anxiety, the awareness of what is about to happen.  Christ's prayer, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You.  Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will" is a model of prayer for all of us when we are faced with our own difficulties and suffering.  But this scene recorded for us in the Gospels assures us of the real humanity of Jesus.  Who cannot relate to what He says when He tells the disciples, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death"?  To my mind, the words we're given here describing Jesus, that He was "troubled and deeply distressed" really don't do the Greek justice.   In the Greek, He's not just troubled, He's practically awe-struck, astonished, and we can imagine what that means in the context of what He's facing that He knows will come.  And "distressed" is also a mild word for what essentially means to lose power and strength, even to lose courage.  We note here that this scene is in a sense parallel and also a kind of negative (as in the old film strip negatives) vision of the Transfiguration, in which He also took Peter, James and John with Him.  But here, in the garden called "oil press," a kind of mercy is being played out against a tremendous sacrifice, and in this garden the very fully human Jesus faces His crisis.  This scene of the very deeply troubled and extremely distressed Jesus is given to us in the Gospels so that we very clearly understand that our Lord isn't only fully divine, but He was also profoundly human.  Whatever we have faced in our lives, God knows what we deal with.  It is God who has experienced fully what it is to be human, and has been right there with us no matter what we go through.  Perhaps there, really, is one very important essence of our faith, the thing that truly distinguishes Christianity:  God has been one of us, has suffered as one of us.  God, whose thoughts are not our thoughts, and whose ways so differ from our own, has given us a Savior -- has lived as a Savior -- who has suffered with us.  This is the "oil press" -- the way of salvation and mercy.  This sacrifice and suffering make all things possible for us.  In this context, Jesus' teaching, even here in the garden, that we must "watch and pray" becomes more powerful and more meaningful.  In His words teaching the disciples about this time in which we await His return and the end of the age, and teaching about the destruction to come in Jerusalem, Jesus repeatedly taught them to "watch and pray."  Here in this place of final crisis, and stumbling on the part of the disciples, He teaches the same thing.  They must watch and pray.  And so, Jesus' words here become the most profound teaching for any time of crisis or heartache or suffering that we, too, go through as human beings.  Watch and pray becomes the teaching for every time of our lives in which we may stumble, when we face a profound crisis and need courage, when we have decisions to make that take everything we have and more to make the right one.  Watch and pray in this profound place of crisis become our bywords for the ways in which we need to help ourselves by seeking God's help in all we do, and by remembering that it is God upon whom we depend for strength, and not our own will.  Christ, as God who is human, is not a man of pure steel, but a man who is in every sense fully a man.  He sets the example, and gives us His teaching.  Let us "watch and pray" and remember what is most needful in all circumstances.