In the Garden
Download MP3Reading is from Luke 22 verses 39 through 53. 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 temp 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 cap from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1:While he was still speaking, there came a crowd. And the man called Judas, one of the 12, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said, Judas, would you betray the son of man with a kiss? And when those who were around him saw that saw what would follow, they said, Lord, shall we strike with the sword? And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear.
Speaker 1:But Jesus said, no more of this. And he touched his ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief the chief priests and officers of the temple and the elders who had come out against them. Have you not come out as against a robber with swords and clubs? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me.
Speaker 1:But this is this is your hour and the power of darkness.
Joel Brooks:If you would, pray with me. Lord, there is so much depth here in the words that we just heard. Lord, I'm certain that I will fail in communicating all that needs to be communicated because of this great depth that is in there. Lord, I thank you that the dependence, of your word going forward, does not depend upon me. The words that I speak, the clarity in which I speak them, it depends upon your spirit pressing these truths deep into our lives, and so I ask that that would happen.
Joel Brooks:I don't ask that you overcome my weakness, I ask that you use it for your glory. Lord, what we are hearing is too important for us to bring stray thoughts into this place. It's too important for us to to be thinking about next week and all we have to do, and this moment, at this time, seize our attention. Nothing else matters but you and your word, for that is life. So God, I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, may your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. This is not an exaggeration when I say that probably more than any other passage in scripture, I have gone to this one most. When looking at, not just here in Luke, but also in Matthew and in Mark and in John concerning the the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus, during his time in the garden.
Joel Brooks:When I first started preaching years ago, I used to be able to preach like 20 minutes and after I thought 20 minutes, I can't get anything else out of this. Now it's probably about 13, 14 years ago. And and now I look at something like this, and over the years as layer and layer and layer have, have come out of this text, I really think we we could do, I don't know, 3, 4 months, we could land here. I'm not going to do that. But there is a lot here, and and I encourage you to dig into that.
Joel Brooks:More than any other text, this has shaped my view of the atonement. It's it's shaped my view as to what happened on the cross. It has shaped my my worship, is is as this text has begun to begin become unfolded before me. And I still think I've scratched just the surface. We're approaching the last moments before Jesus's death.
Joel Brooks:And it's in these moments that you find out what's in a person, when impending death is coming, and they know it. This is when their true character stands out. And one of the things that stands out to me about Jesus, when you first read this text, and maybe if you grew up outside of church and you're now looking at this text, is just how poorly Jesus faces his death here. How poorly he does, seemingly. And what I mean by that is, is there's been many, many people over the, the centuries, in the course of history who have died for different causes, who have died for their faith, their religious beliefs.
Joel Brooks:And a lot of these people, most of them all died courageously. They didn't flinch when death came knocking on their door. If you read through Fox's book of martyrs, you you have all these countless stories of of people actually extending their hands towards the lit flames. Of people lowering their heads so the executioner could get a a clean shot, and they die valiantly. A lot of times, they make very inspirational speeches, they're seen as heroic, they die with courage, But then you look at Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Jesus here, He looks like He is dying worse than all of His followers who will come later. When Jesus knew that His arrest was coming, you could say that he stumbles. Look at verse 44. Says, and being in agony, He prayed more earnestly and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. The gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus became increasingly sorrowful.
Joel Brooks:And what's happening here is he is so stressed. He is so stressed that he begins to sweat drops of blood, and this is something that can happen in very rare occasions, but only when the body is super stressed and it's actually in shock. Now, Rome crucified thousands of people, thousands of thousands, that Jesus's death is not different in that regards. But we don't have any records of Christians going to the cross like this. I mean, Jesus here look, He is scared and stressed and in agony to the point where he is sweating blood.
Joel Brooks:Matthew 26 says this, And taking with Him Peter and the 2 sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with Me. And you see here, something happens. Something happens to make Jesus very sorrowful.
Joel Brooks:Troubled. Even to the point of death. You could translate this as horrified. Horror hits him. So what was it?
Joel Brooks:When when thinking about me, how when I would get scared, it would be when some new information maybe I get could cause such a reaction. Maybe if I went to the doctor for a routine checkup, and the doctor says, actually, you have cancer, and it's terminal cancer. And this news out of the blue, just upon hearing this, I'd be scared. But but that's not what's happening here because Jesus, all along, has known this is his mission. He has said over and over, I have come to give my life as a ransom.
Joel Brooks:I have come to be killed by the religious leaders. All along, he has been saying this. So it's not that he all of a sudden received some new news that he didn't know about. Everything's happening exactly according to his plan. So it's not new information.
Joel Brooks:What I think is going on here is that Jesus is beginning to experience what awaits Him. He's beginning to, and I'm not talking about crucifixion. I'm not talking about agonizing death. That's that's not it. His what he's focusing on, what he's experiencing to the to a little degree here is the cup.
Joel Brooks:Look at what Jesus prays. He says, father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. This cup is not crucifixion. This cup is not death. That's not what he's saying.
Joel Brooks:Remove that from me. He's he's not saying, please, I don't want to die a painful death. What he is saying is, I don't want your cup of wrath to be poured out on me. That's what the cup represents throughout scripture. It's a cup of wrath.
Joel Brooks:It's the same cup of Ezekiel 23, when he says, you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, a cup of horror and desolation. And so throughout scripture, you see that there's this cup that someday God will pour out. And here, we see Jesus just getting His first taste. It's here that in this garden that He begins to experience the wrath of God. Luke adds a detail here that none of the other Gospels include.
Joel Brooks:As a matter of fact, a lot of the other manuscripts of Luke leave out this verse because they were embarrassed by it. They thought, no, no, that's that that we're just gonna leave this one out. And it's verse 43. Verse 43, it says, and there appeared to Him an angel from heaven strengthening. Scribes later, they felt they needed to take that verse out because they thought it made Jesus look too weak.
Joel Brooks:You know, Jesus, he he can't need an angel to come and strengthen him. No. No. No. That's that's too weak.
Joel Brooks:He's he's too he's too frail. Did he actually need strengthening before he endured the cross? And the answer to that is yes. Absolutely. Because what is happening to Jesus in this moment is so traumatic, so horrific that if He had not been strengthened, surely His sorrow would have been to death.
Joel Brooks:Surely He would not have lasted to the cross. He was beginning to experience the wrath of God. Jonathan Edwards has a very famous sermon on this text. Let me tell you what he says. It says, The agony that Jesus experienced in the garden was caused by a vivid, bright, full, immediate view of the wrath of God.
Joel Brooks:God, the Father, as it were, set the cup down before him, which was vastly more terrible than Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. He had a near view of that furnace into which he was about to be cast. He stood and viewed the raging flames, and he felt the glow of its heat, that he might know where he was going and what He was going to suffer. He felt what Ezekiel said, you shall drink the cup of ruin and desolation and tear your breast. He felt what Isaiah said, You shall drink the cup of fury and stagger.
Joel Brooks:And so what God the Father is doing here is He's allowing His Son, Jesus, to get a taste of what awaits Him on the cross. You know, and one of the reasons that this has deepened my worship is because now I know that Jesus did not go to the cross blind. He knew what awaited Him. He didn't go to the cross wondering, I wonder how bad could this be? He gets a taste of it, and just the taste makes him sweat blood.
Joel Brooks:Just a taste makes him stagger to his knees and beg his father, father, if there's any other way, remove this from me. Remove this cup from me. And and we know from the other gospels that he prays us not once or twice, but he prays us 3 times over the course of 3 hours. He is saying, God, if there's any other way, father, any other way than having to drink that cup to its dregs any other way. Please remove this.
Joel Brooks:And all the while he is praying this, his disciples, his his close friends, are asleep. I mean, this is Jesus's darkest hour. This is when He needs His friends with Him. In Matthew's account, He actually asked, He asked Peter and James and John. He says, Come come with me.
Joel Brooks:Be with me. And I really you just see Jesus's humanity shining through so much when he's like, I don't want to go through this alone. Okay? Well, would you just come? All I'm asking is just just stay awake with me during this time.
Joel Brooks:And yet, they fall asleep, repeatedly fall asleep. So we have, at this time, one of Jesus's friends is off about to betray him. We see his closest friends here, not even able to stay awake for him. We see him beginning to experience the wrath of God at this point, and you can almost hear Satan in this opportune time saying, You're going to go, you're going to go to the cross for them? For them?
Joel Brooks:This is just a taste, Jesus. A horrific taste and you're for them, you're gonna drink it to the dregs. They can't even stay awake. Jesus, He went to the cross, knowing fully what awaited Him, also knowing how sinful and pathetic we are. One of my favorite pastors and theologians, Tim, Tim Keller, he said many years ago that what you see in the garden is Jesus fulfilling perfectly the 2 greatest commandments.
Joel Brooks:He is loving the Lord his God with all of his heart, and all of his soul, and all of his might, and he is loving his neighbor as himself, when in both of those, he is seeing, at this point, nothing in return. And yet he loves both perfectly. I don't know if you've ever, noticed, but, in almost every painting of Jesus that depicts the garden, and, I grew up in a church that loved to have the paintings of Jesus everywhere, you know, the long brown hair, the the aura around him. And there was one of the pictures of him in the garden, and it was like all all the others I've seen. His hands are folded in prayer.
Joel Brooks:This is something that we've taught our kids to do, to fold their hands in prayer. I was taught that the reason we do that is to, you know, keep from hitting your brother or your sister when you prayed or to, you know, not be distracted. But but its roots actually come very early on in Christianity when Christians were being persecuted, they were being arrested, and they were being killed. And what would happen is when they would come and ask if they were a Christ follower, and if they said yes, they knew what that meant, it meant their death, what would happen is they would put their hands together and they would offer their hands. Go go ahead.
Joel Brooks:It's not my will, but it's the lord's will here. I'm bound to the lord, no matter what it means. And they offered their hands to, to be bound. And so when people would paint pictures of Jesus, they would paint His hands bound because that's what He's doing here is, Your will be done. I submit to Your sovereign will, no matter what.
Joel Brooks:You see here, I believe, what prayer is meant to be, which is a very honest pouring out of one's heart before the Lord. There's no pretending here by Jesus. Hey, this is gonna be a piece of cake, you know. Hey, I'm, you know, really, I'm looking forward to this. It's God.
Joel Brooks:Father, I don't want this. I don't want to go through this. And He pours out His heart, and looks at His Father, and He sees His Father is in control, absolute control, and He embraces His Father and His sovereign plan. And then He pours out His heart again, and then He embraces His Father's sovereign plan. And He does that over and over, and that's a great picture of prayer, lining up His will with His Father's.
Joel Brooks:Now what's going on here in the garden, Jesus submitting His will to the Lord, Jesus or to His Father, Jesus willing to go under the cup of God's wrath and not just be killed, but have the cup of wrath be poured on Him. All of this is completely lost on his disciples. It's it's lost obviously on Judas who's gone off to betray him but it's also lost on even the the head of the disciples, if you may, Peter. It's completely lost on both of them. They have no understanding about what Jesus has come to do, how He's come to take on the wrath of God.
Joel Brooks:Both of them completely missed the boat here. Both of them thought that Jesus was there to overthrow Roman rule through force. Both Peter and Judas thought this, that He was going to use the sword. The only difference between Peter and Judas is Peter thought Jesus was going to win using the sword. Judas thought Jesus was going to lose using the sword.
Joel Brooks:But both of them thought Jesus was gonna use the sword to get what He wants, and you see that clearly in this text. Peter thought that Jesus wanted to fight because when the people came, He drew out His sword, He cut off a man's ear named Malchus. Luke, once again, he spares us the detail that it was Peter, but we find out in the gospel of John that Peter's the one who did this. Sounds like something Peter would do. Peter thought, alright, the way to change the world, the way to bring a revolution, the way to bring the kingdom of god is to use the sword.
Joel Brooks:That's what I gotta do at this moment. That's how everybody comes into power. That's how people control other people. That's how you bring about change. It's the sword.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, however, is going to have none of it. And he tells Peter in verse 51, he says, No more of this. Now, what Jesus means by that phrase has actually really puzzled commentators and translators for 2000 years now that know more of this. Because actually, that's not what it is in Greek, those of you who have your Greek New Testament Bibles. And I know some of you bring it, it intimidates the heck out of me that you're reading out of that.
Joel Brooks:But look there, because literally it says, let go of this. Let go of this. Peter, let go of this. And the and the reason that the words aren't hard to translate, it's just that never before do you find in any Hebrew or Greek text around in the first century, you don't never find this phrase, let go of this. So so the translators don't know what it means.
Joel Brooks:What what does this phrase mean when He says this? Jesus is inventing a new phrase here. Let go of this. And I and I think there is a lot behind the statement. Jesus invents a statement.
Joel Brooks:You better believe there's a lot behind this statement. The obvious interpretation of this is that Jesus is saying, Peter, let go of your sword. Let go of your sword. But I believe there's a lot more than just that. I think He's telling Peter, don't just let go of the sword, Let go of everything it represents.
Joel Brooks:Everything. Let it go. Let let let go of all the the power, all of the influence, the desire to make people do whatever you want them to do, let go of your right to judge others, let go of all of that, and embrace the cross. Let go of this, Peter. The way to change the world is not through force, it's through the cross.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus perfectly demonstrates this, He had no political office, He had no army at His disposal, He had absolutely no wealth, He only has a handful of followers who desert Him, yet He changed the world. And we have to follow in those footsteps. He says, let any man who wishes to come after me deny himself. Take up his cross. Peter, let go of your sword.
Joel Brooks:Take up your cross. Follow me. Our entire lives are to be lived like we're going to the cross. You you see, when Peter, he brought out his sword and he brings it out, it shows that he he thought he could help Jesus in bringing salvation. Let me help you, Jesus, in bringing salvation.
Joel Brooks:It didn't cross his mind that he's the one who needs salvation. When he brings out the sword, he thinks, I've got the right to judge these people. I have the right. He doesn't know that he's the one who actually stands condemned before Jesus. He has no right to wield the sword.
Joel Brooks:It shows that Peter didn't understand that He needed a sacrifice. And so Jesus says, Let go of this. Let go of your pride, let go of your self sufficiency, let go of your self righteousness, let go of all of that, Peter. Embrace the path to the cross. Recognize where I'm going.
Joel Brooks:It's your only hope. Judas makes the same mistake as Peter. He clearly thought Jesus was going to wield the sword, that Jesus was going to put up a fight. We know this because Judas brought with Him a mob of armed people. Matthew says that there was a great crowd with Judas.
Joel Brooks:He didn't just come with 1 or 2 people, he brought a great crowd all armed. Jesus notes here that they all came with clubs and swords. They were expecting a fight. Judas, you know, he he he was expecting a a fight, but unlike Peter, he thought, Jesus can't win this fight. So that's why he switched sides.
Joel Brooks:We see this in the way that he betrayed Jesus, in which he kisses Jesus. The gospel of Matthew also says he greeted Jesus first. He said, Greetings, Rabbi, and he kissed Him. And a lot's been written about this kiss. In 1st century, a rabbi, he would have his disciples, and the disciples would never greet their rabbi first.
Joel Brooks:It was a sign of tremendous disrespect. They would they would always allow the superior to acknowledge them, to be the first to greet them. But what you see here is is when Judas comes and he says, Greetings, Rabbi, And he goes up and he kisses Jesus. He doesn't get in the bushes and point to all the people. There's Jesus.
Joel Brooks:No. He goes up and kisses Him, greets Him and kisses Him. What he's doing is mocking Jesus. He's saying, I know who You are, and You are in no way superior to me, Rabbi. I thought there's no way after spending time with Jesus and seeing maybe Jesus' humility and all those things, there's there's no way that this man can overcome from Rome.
Joel Brooks:No way. So he sells Jesus for silver. I think, actually, one of the reasons that Judas is overcome with remorse later, and he throws his money in the temple, and he goes and he hangs himself, is because he realizes he was wrong when he showed up with a mob armed to arrest Jesus, and Jesus offered no resistance. I think he realized in that moment, he was completely wrong. I don't think he repented, but he realized the horror of how he has misjudged this Messiah.
Joel Brooks:But neither Peter nor Judas understood who Jesus was, and that Jesus's plan was never to wield the sword. His plan was to go under the sword. His plan was not to bring judgment. His plan was to bear judgment. That's what you see here.
Joel Brooks:His plan is to drink the cup of wrath. Now, one more point of comparison about Peter and Judas, they're alike in a number of ways. They're alike in this too. Both of them sold Jesus. Both of them sold Jesus.
Joel Brooks:We typically think that, you know, obviously it was just Judas who sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Well, yes, obviously, you see that there, but Peter did the same thing. I think we do the same thing. We shouldn't look so down on Judas. Actually, we should probably more identify with Him.
Joel Brooks:You see, we buy things, and we buy into things that we think are going to benefit us. That's why we buy them. We buy stock when we think stock's gonna rise. We, we we buy jewelry when we think it's gonna make us beautiful. We we buy a car when we think it's gonna get us where we need to go, in comfort and style.
Joel Brooks:We we we buy those things thinking they're gonna benefit us. And when they don't benefit us anymore, we get rid of them. We sell them. That's what you see here with Peter. He he bought into Jesus because Jesus brought him happiness, made him feel good.
Joel Brooks:Jesus promised him heaven. Jesus promises him thrones. He's picturing overthrow of Rome, position of power. He's thinking all of these things, and so he buys into Jesus. And then all of a sudden, Jesus is different than who he thought.
Joel Brooks:All of a sudden, Jesus is taking a different path than He thought, and Jesus is inviting Peter to take that same path, and Peter's saying, I didn't buy into that. And so he sells Jesus. He gets rid of Jesus. That's not what I bought. And so he sells them off to the point that even when a little servant girl says, now, weren't you one of his followers?
Joel Brooks:He says, absolutely not. No. No. And we're, we're not different. Looking at my own life, I can see that my love for Jesus, many times, is greater when things are going so well.
Joel Brooks:You know, you get a good job, and you're earning a lot of money, and you have the freedom to spend that money however you want. You know, we buy into Jesus when when we're in this great relationship with the the man or woman of our dreams. Buy into that if he's gonna provide that. If we could get, you know, the respect of our family, the respect from our friends, we we we buy into that. But what happens when you lose your job or when Jesus tells you, Okay, yes, you've earned a lot of this money, but this one time here, I want you to give all that money away over here.
Joel Brooks:You're not free to do with what what you want. I want you to give that here. Well, like, I I don't like that, Jesus. That's not what I bought into. Or when Jesus says, you know, I know your relationship, you've thought it's been great.
Joel Brooks:There's a lot of problem areas there. You need to get rid of this man or woman of your dreams. Woah. Woah. Woah.
Joel Brooks:Woah. I didn't buy into that. We begin selling Jesus. No. I know.
Joel Brooks:No. That's not what I signed up for, and we sell them off. It's not what I bought. We're not that different. Be comforted to know that Jesus knows that.
Joel Brooks:He knows that you're not different. If you've trusted Christ, I mean, I mean, the difference here between a Judas and a Peter isn't so much in who they are, it's that Jesus prayed for Peter's faith. Said, Said, Yeah, you're gonna stumble, but you're not gonna lose your faith because I have prayed for you. And I don't lose any that's in my hand. None.
Joel Brooks:Jesus knows our knows us in our sinfulness. He knows how pathetic we are. And the comfort for us is Jesus, He looked at the horror, He experienced a taste of what awaited him, he saw us in our pathetic, sinful state, and know we would do it over and over and over again. He said, no. I'm still gonna go through with it.
Joel Brooks:No. I'm still gonna purchase them at tremendous sacrifice. You don't take away from this, man, we need to not be like Judas. We need to not be like Peter denying Jesus. That's not what you take away.
Joel Brooks:You take away the greatness of Jesus and His love for you. And knowing your sinful state, He still went through it. It. And in light of such love, To respond to Jesus in any other way besides absolute allegiance makes a mockery of what He did. And so we lay down everything.
Joel Brooks:He has given us everything, and we lay down everything in return. Pray with me. God, there is not one person in here that is a success story apart from You. Not one person here has the right to wield the sword and judgment of another. All of us would greatly abuse the power that we so often seek.
Joel Brooks:I pray that we would embrace the path of the cross. We would let go of our own righteousness, our own pride, our own money, our own dreams. We let go of those things, and we would embrace you. Thank you, Jesus, that when you hold on to us, the power of death, the power of hell cannot loosen your grip. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.
