Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello, I'm Josh.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the Gospel, we are studying the event Jesus prayer in Gethsemane. This is found In Matthew, chapter 26, verses 36 through 45.
In Mark, chapter 14, verses 32 through 42. And in Luke, chapter 22, verses 40 through 46. Follow along with us as we read.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray.
And taking with him Peter and the two 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 going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, so could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, for a second time, he went away and prayed. My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for a third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, sleep and take your rest later on.
See, the hour is at hand. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
In the Book of John, at least, we come to the different prayers. And then we come to this garden of Gethsemane. We just, in our last event, looked at the prayer. Jesus prayed for his disciples. And now Jesus is coming to pray for himself.
But he doesn't come alone. Jesus often goes off to pray alone. Why here is he not going to pray alone?
[00:02:54] Speaker B: It seems that the burden of sin that he is about to take upon himself, this burden is very heavy. In fact, Jesus Christ himself said, my soul in verse 38. My soul is very sorrowful even to death.
There are moments in life when we like to share that burden with someone, even if they are not close to us, even if we just see them in a distance, even if we just know that they pray for us. Jesus wanted his closest disciples and future leaders of the church to see what he's going through, to hear his words. And this is why we have them recorded, right? Because those three disciples heard Jesus prayer, Jesus conversation with his Father. And I think as human beings it is okay, or it is normal to need someone to be close to us, to uplift us, to support us, to encourage us, or at least to know that someone understands you are going through.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: And this is why when we become Christians, we're called into a community.
And the Christian church has organized its communities into churches. But really what each and each one of us needs are relationships with other Christians, close relationships that we can come to and turn to in times of need, that when we have something going on, we can have them pray for us and have them there. And this is what Jesus is needing here as he's going through this, this terrible time in his life. He needs his dearest friends, his, his core support group there praying for him.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: In the same way Daniel in Daniel chapter two, after the King, you know, started killing all those royal servants, wise men, magicians and so on, Daniel asked for time to pray. So he went to his friends, the other three friends, and they prayed. And overnight the Lord revealed to Daniel the dream and the meaning of it.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And so as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we need to be open to the thoughts and impressions we get. I think have thought of many times in my life where someone's name has popped in my head and I thought, well, I should pray for them. And so I just have a little prayer for them. And I think God does that on purpose so that we can pray. He reminds us of these people. I know other times in my life where people have prayed for me. They said your name came up. I think of one, I was going back from class, driving from Michigan to New York, and we got out of class at 5:00. And so this 13 hour drive, it's 2:00 in the morning. I'm getting close to my destination, but I'm so tired and just dozing off.
And a friend calls me and she says your name. You know, I was sleeping and your name came up and I felt the need to pray for you. And she talked with me the rest of the way to my destination. Had she not talked with me, I probably would have fallen asleep.
And so bad judgment on my part. But God uses these thoughts and this intercessory prayer that we pray for each other. And so Jesus here is asking his disciples to be here and pray.
Now you talked about this cup.
What is this cup? What's happening? What's the importance here?
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Jesus Christ started taking our sins upon himself in the Garden of Gethsemane in that prayer.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: And all the sins are filling this cup.
And this cup represents in Addition to our sins, God's reaction to sin, God's displeasure, God's indignation against sin. And Jesus knew how detestful sin is for his Father. And this is why he was reluctant to take the sins upon himself to become sin for us, as Second Corinthians 5, 21 says, because he knew that sin separates people from God.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Exactly. And so this is the first time in his existence he's eternal. Right? Jesus is eternal. He's a existed from forever. He will exist forever. This is the first time in his existence that he is experiencing separation from God.
It's not that he just took the sins of the world in a backpack, threw him on his back and took him to the cross. Second Corinthians tells us that for he has made him to be sin for us who, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. In Isaiah 53, 6 Galatians 3, 13, 1st Peter 2:24. These are all verses that talk about how Christ became sin, took out sin.
So Christ is experiencing for the first time in his existence what it means to be separated from God.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: So this time, from the garden of Gethsemane to the cross the next day and the Sunday of resurrection, in these three days, we really understand the meaning of the Gospel. The good news that Jesus Christ took our sins upon himself.
He became sin. He did that for us. And this is the good news that we don't have to drink that cup, we don't have to carry that cross. We don't have to go through this struggle of carrying our own sins and experiencing God's displeasure to sin. Because Jesus Christ took our sins upon himself.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
And this drinking of the cup is so intense, this separation from God, that on the cross we'll see this in a few episodes.
Jesus doesn't even sense the Father around him. He says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Well, God is right there. And in Luke, the Bible says that he sweats great drops of blood. You know, this, this intensity, this event at Gethsemane is so strong that Jesus is sweating great drops of blood.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: I like to connect this episode, this prayer, with the previous prayer in John chapter 17.
In John chapter 17, Jesus Christ addresses God with the title Father seven times. Father, Father, Father. This time is my Father. I like to, you know, provide some support. What you just said, how intense this moment was, my Father. And I like to link it to the prayer on the cross, quoting Psalm 22. My God, my God. It's again an appropriation of that relationship. It's personal, it is deep, it's very intense.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
Now the bottom line is Jesus takes this cup of sin and he drinks it.
We have a choice because we have filled up a cup of sin in our lives. We have wronged, we have erred, we have done iniquity.
And so there's this cup of sin that if we choose, we will end up drinking.
We have this choice. We can either allow God, Jesus to take our sins to the cross or we can pay for them ourselves.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: I remember one of the statements of the great philosopher Nietzsche, whose thesis was that God is dead, right? He was not a believer. He said, everyone suffers his own.
And that is such a profound statement. And many times in life I said, wow, Nietzsche was right. This is the only time when Nietzsche was wrong and he couldn't grasp this idea that even we as human beings, we have to suffer our own. Jesus Christ did not suffer his own.
He suffered instead of us. And this is the good news. It's the core of the gospel right there. On Thursday night before his arrest, Jesus Christ decided to do that. So in other words, he started to take our sins upon himself. And that was completed by Friday afternoon when the displeasure of God was manifested in that darkness that surrounded the cross and people around the cross.
We have one more question.
Why did Jesus prayed three times? For the same reason.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: In the Bible, for emphasis, words are repeated.
The new King James often uses verily, verily or surely, surely or truly, truly, truly, truly. And when we see this, it is of great emphasis, great importance. Like, pay attention here, Martha, Martha, Simon, Simon, don't forget this. This is very important to me. And so I imagine three times is even more important. And coming back truly, truly, truly.
Ecclesiastes talks about a three course strand. If two is strong, how much stronger is three?
And so I see this as such a burden to Jesus that he comes to the Father, he comes again, and he comes a third time. This should show us how, how destructive, how abhorrent, how detrimental sin is. Even little sins, we might think, you know, I was talking to someone the other day. Well, I'm overall a pretty good person. I don't kill people, I don't steal from them. Generally I'm a good person. I don't think I need God. Um, but even the little things, the just trying to take advantage of someone else, get ahead, those things are so destructive. And we see that through Jesus. In the garden here, let us pray. Father, we are so thankful that Jesus became sin for us so that we do not have to pay that final price.
And we're thankful, Father, that our job is to get to know you and to receive that free gift of salvation.
And I ask that, as we do, that you will do that work in us that changes us, that makes us hate sin and desire to do good.
Father, forgive us for our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Amen. Amen.
