Messiah - Gospel of Matthew - Week 32
Chris Cooke · Messiah
17 March 2024
https://media.glenabbey.church/talks/messiah-gospel-of-matthew-week-32

[0:00] We are in Matthew 26, if you're just joining us in our Messiah series, and Matthew 26 marks a transition in Matthew's gospel account.
[0:10] You'll see that if you have a Bible that has Jesus' words in red, you'll see that transition in that.
[0:15] We've had lots and lots and lots of words in red over the last couple of chapters, and now it changes to mainly black.
[0:21] It goes from speech back to story, and it's a transition marked as well at the beginning of this chapter by Matthew with the words that he says when Jesus had finished saying these things.
[0:33] Words we've seen in Matthew 7, in Matthew 19 as well.
[0:37] Words that Matthew uses to highlight a shift in what he's talking about here.
[0:42] And so begins our move over these next three weeks in the run-up to Easter through a carefully chosen series of scenes.
[0:50] There are nine in this chapter, as Heather mentioned, some of them there, moving towards the cross with the tension rising, seen on scene.
[1:02] And as Heather said, hopefully you have, with your Messiah series guide in hand this week, been reading through each of those scenes, making your way through, reading, reflecting, praying.
[1:15] And I wonder what scene or scenes have particularly struck you that maybe Heather mentioned there, maybe something new that you haven't seen before, Maybe something that has stood out in a way that is different or new to you.
[1:27] Maybe something that speaks into the circumstances that you find yourself in right now.
[1:35] We were up at an elders retreat last week, Friday over to Saturday.
[1:38] And before that, I managed to catch up for a walk on Port Stewart Strand with Gilbert.
[1:42] And we had a little bit of a conversation about this passage because he's teaching it elsewhere in the week in the run up to Easter.
[1:50] And he was saying how in his study, he'd been struck particularly by the two people, by the anonymity of the woman in Bethany who pours the perfume over Jesus' head in this incredible unrestrained act of worship.
[2:06] And then the same anonymity of the man who acts in simple obedience to give away a room in his house to Jesus and the disciples for the Passover meal.
[2:14] These stories of worship and love and faithfulness that are for an audience of one.
[2:23] No interest in being named.
[2:25] No interest in being acknowledged or recognized.
[2:27] Just interested in that audience of one.
[2:31] And as the guys have already mentioned, as I've spent time in this chapter, of course we can't cover nine scenes, and I've been drawn.
[2:38] I was drawn very quickly to this one in particular.
[2:41] The scene of the Garden of Gethsemane.
[2:44] And that's where we're going to spend our time this morning.
[2:46] And I just want to do three things while we're here together.
[2:50] I want to really dive into the story and just open up the story and spend time in it.
[2:56] I look back and we haven't often done that here in Glen Abbey.
[3:00] And then I want to draw two applications.
[3:02] Applications might be a bit strong.
[3:04] I suppose two responses that have been drawn out of me over the last couple of weeks as I've spent time in this scene.
[3:13] One for our heads and one for our hearts.
[3:17] So let's read this section together.
[3:19] It begins in verse 36.
[3:21] This is where we're gonna spend our time this morning.
[3:25] Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane.
[3:30] And he said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray.
[3:33] He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, that's James and John along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
[3:41] And then he said to them,
[3:43] my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death stay here and keep watch with me going a little farther he fell with his face to the ground and prayed my father if it is possible may this cup be taken from me yet not as I will but as you will
[4:13] and then he returned to his disciples, found them sleeping.
[4:17] Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour?
[4:20] He asked Peter.
[4:22] Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.
[4:25] The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
[4:28] He went away a second time and prayed.
[4:32] My father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it.
[4:39] May your will be done.
[4:41] And when he came back, he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy.
[4:45] So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time saying the same thing.
[4:51] Then he returned to the disciples instead to them, are you still sleeping and resting?
[4:56] Look, the hour has come and the son of man is delivered into the hands of sinners.
[5:02] Rise, let us go.
[5:05] Here comes my betrayer.
[5:11] Let's then just take some time to reflect on this scene.
[5:15] Jesus and his disciples have finished the Passover meal in the city of Jerusalem.
[5:22] Now he and the 11 disciples, because Judas has slunk off at some point in the evening, They make their way through the streets of Jerusalem in the quiet of the night, out through the eastern golden gate, across the Kidron Valley, and up into the Mount of Olives, a favorite retreat spot of quiet and peace for Jesus and his disciples.
[5:50] Into a cultivated area called Gethsemane, a word actually full of meaning given what we witness in this scene.
[5:59] It means olive press.
[6:02] The place for crushing the olives to extract their oil by lowering heavy stone slabs on their baskets to press, to crush them, and to get the oil from them.
[6:18] And Jesus directs most of the disciples to remain at or near the entrance to the garden, perhaps in and around a cave that is found there.
[6:26] But then he asked Peter and James and John, those three disciples who'd been with him at the transfiguration, those three disciples who he has this special close bond with, to accompany him further into the garden.
[6:44] And as they continue away from the other eight, it appears that almost immediately in those ascending steps, something happens to Jesus.
[6:55] something changes in him something comes over him and his whole emotional mental and spiritual state seems to be transformed almost instantaneously and Matthew records it here as he began to be sorrowful and troubled Jesus describes it himself to his friends as my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.
[7:22] Mark talks about distress in his account.
[7:25] Luke talks about anguish.
[7:26] These words try to capture something of it.
[7:29] Whatever has come over his mind and his spirit, this is torment.
[7:36] This is deeply, deeply distressing.
[7:40] This is sorrow so great that he is experiencing that it feels to Jesus as if it is actually crushing the very breath out of his lungs.
[7:52] and if we're honest when we read these words
[7:57] I've no doubt we find them disconcerting we find them disturbing we find them upsetting to read and imagine being there with them imagine the horror the sense of helplessness of Peter and James and John as they witness their normally so calm and serene rabbi in the grip of this overwhelming sorrow and distress and pain.
[8:26] Have you ever experienced it when the strong person in your life, you know those people, the ones that are the strongest, when they crumble emotionally, the impact it has on you.
[8:41] There's something of that in this scene.
[8:44] And whatever it is he's going through, Jesus deeply needs their presence in his full humanity.
[8:55] He needs them nearby.
[8:57] He needs the comfort in knowing, as so many of us do, it's so human, that those who love him most are close and he's not physically alone.
[9:08] Stay here, he says, and keep watch with me.
[9:13] And he goes on himself as stones through, and then he literally collapses, crushed under the weight of the pressure and agony and torment that he's feeling, falling, literally falling on his face, on the ground, and praying, my Father, Abba, Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me, if it is possible.
[9:39] Yet not as I will, but as you will.
[9:46] as I read this and as I read over the last couple of weeks I found myself asking what is it that's actually happening here what is it that's actually going on
[9:58] because at face value we could read it one way we could we could think is this simply fear in Jesus at the thought of physical suffering and dying and that that fear of that physical side of that is just completely overcoming him?
[10:14] Could it be said, as some critics have said about this passage after they've used it in this way, they've accused, saying that when it boils down to it, many people who would die for Jesus' name in the future were actually far more full of courage and strength than him, whether that be his own disciples or whether that be courageous martyrs.
[10:38] People like you, Latimer, saying to his Nicholas Ridley as they faced being burned at the stake in Oxford.
[10:47] There's that place in Broad Street there that I visited on a couple of occasions.
[10:52] He says to his friend, play the man, Master Ridley.
[10:55] We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out.
[11:03] Are Ridley and Latimer more courageous than their savior?
[11:06] Is that what's going on here?
[11:11] Well, to think that, to suggest that, well, that is an exercise in completely missing the point, in missing the sheer magnitude of what it is that's actually taking place here.
[11:27] Jesus isn't afraid of physical pain and death.
[11:31] This is so much more than that.
[11:34] And the key word he uses that unlocks us getting some understanding of the spiritual anguish that he is actually going through here is that word cup.
[11:46] My father, if it is possible, take this cup away from me, yet not as I will, but as you will.
[11:53] And in the Old Testament, then Jesus would have known exactly what he was saying when he used this word.
[11:59] This metaphor of a cup is used many, many times.
[12:03] Let me give you just three.
[12:05] Psalm 75, 8, in the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices.
[12:11] He pours it out and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.
[12:18] Job 21, 20, let their own eyes see their destruction.
[12:22] Let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty.
[12:27] Isaiah 51, 17, awake, awake, rise up Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord, the cup of his wrath.
[12:36] You who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes people stagger.
[12:45] This captures, these verses capture something of the cup.
[12:50] The cup is a symbol for judgment.
[12:55] The cup is a symbol for the righteous and holy wrath of God on the wicked.
[13:00] Do you see what is actually happening here.
[13:03] Jesus isn't saying to his father, take this cup of physical suffering and death away from me.
[13:08] He's saying, if it is possible, take this cup, this cup that I'm going to be given to drink as a substitute for those who actually deserve it, this cup full of your judgment, full of your righteous and holy wrath on the sins of the world, this bitter and terrifying and horrifying and soul-crushing cup.
[13:33] A cup that includes your forsakenness, Father.
[13:40] You're turning your face away from me, your son.
[13:42] Your silence, your separation.
[13:49] A silence, a separation, a forsakenness, an abyss where you, Father, have always been.
[13:59] A loss of perfect fellowship, relationship, perfect love that I, this is what Jesus would have been experiencing, that he would have known forever, for all eternity.
[14:11] In the beginning was the word.
[14:15] They've known this relationship from the beginning.
[14:22] And now Jesus being faced with experiencing something that he's never experienced before, he has never not had fellowship with the Father.
[14:32] That's what's happening.
[14:33] That's the cup that he's foreseeing.
[14:35] That's the cup that he is foretasting here in the garden.
[14:40] There's nothing comparable.
[14:43] There's nothing comparable in all of history, in all of humanity, and in any and every martyr's death that has ever happened to the cup that Jesus was now getting a bitter foretaste of.
[14:59] I think what Don Carson says about this sums it up well.
[15:02] As his death was unique,
[15:07] so also was his anguish.
[15:11] As his death was unique, so also was his anguish.
[15:15] And our best response,
[15:19] I think Heather's captured this in the songs that we've sung.
[15:22] Our best response to it is hushed worship.
[15:27] Hushed worship.
[15:30] The horror of the sin that would be placed on his shoulders, the staggering terror of the wrath of God, of our deserved punishment placed on him, on his body, on his mind, on his soul, the sheer agony of that forsakenness and separation from the Father.
[15:46] It is impossible for us to fathom, to get our heads around, to grasp what he was experiencing, what he was foreseeing and foretasting in the spiritual realm, those nameless horrors.
[16:04] That's the way it's put in the Gethsemane hymn that Stuart Townend and the Gettys write, nameless horrors that should have been ours, but which he made his in his love for us.
[16:18] Nameless horrors, which in his full humanity overwhelm him so emotionally that the experience feels as if it might crush the very life out of him.
[16:29] Here he is in the garden reeling, sweating,
[16:36] weeping, crying out, agonizing, and still, still, even in the very eye of the storm of horror and distress and sorrow as he pleads, if there is no other way, he still chooses to say every single time, yet not as I will, but as you will.
[16:59] In fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, as Hebrews 5 puts it, Jesus pleads, if there is some other way apart from this, Father, Please make it so.
[17:10] But if this is the only way to save people from their sins, then your will be done.
[17:17] I submit myself to it.
[17:22] He could have taken matters into his own hands, in his own power.
[17:26] He mentions that in the next scene.
[17:30] And the way Satan attempted him to do way back in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry, but he chooses to submit his will, the will of the Son to the will of the Father for our sake.
[17:42] And so imagine then,
[17:46] imagine the compounding of his anguish and his agony as he makes his way back in his pain to his disciples who he's asked to watch and pray and he finds them sleeping.
[18:03] You see, their sorrow at all that was happening, their sorrow at his sorrow hadn't led them into prayer.
[18:10] It had overwhelmed them and exhausted them into sleep.
[18:15] Can you keep watch with me for one hour?
[18:19] Watch and pray so you'll not fall into temptation.
[18:22] Don't you get this, Jesus says?
[18:27] Don't you get how crucial it is that you must pray?
[18:32] Don't you get how crucial it is to me right now as my friends and what I'm going through?
[18:38] But don't you know also how crucial it is to you for what is coming around the corner that you might be ready for that?
[18:48] Watch and pray.
[18:50] And he goes back and in his anguish, he prays alone a second time with very similar words.
[18:56] And he goes back again and they're sleeping.
[19:00] And he goes away a third time.
[19:03] these same words, if it is possible, yet not my will, but yours be done in some mysterious way.
[19:12] And maybe we can relate to that.
[19:16] The first time wasn't enough.
[19:19] The second time wasn't enough.
[19:21] The third time, it took three times of going back before Jesus was ready, before he brought his will fully in line with the will of the Father, before he was ready for all that was to come.
[19:40] And then perhaps he sees the glow of the flames of the torches in the distance making their way up from the foot of the mount.
[19:51] Perhaps he hears the hubbub of the crowd following Judas and he returns to his disciples for the third time and it's too late now for them.
[20:00] It's too late for them to get themselves ready.
[20:03] They've slept away all the time that they could have been praying and there's gentle irony here in Jesus' words to them in verse 45, capturing that sense that this crucial opportunity that they had has been lost.
[20:18] it's past
[20:21] because now the hours come and the son of man is about to be delivered into the hands of sinners
[20:29] but he's ready
[20:33] after going through all of this he's ready we see that in the remaining verses if you read them in the way that he responds to Judas
[20:43] do what you came for friend
[20:48] and the way that he responds when the high priest servant's ear is cut off i have i could have called he says on my father to send 12 legions of angels but how then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way he knows it must happen this way jesus has in these hours of agony come to terms with the reality that the only way for humankind to be saved was for him to go to the cross
[21:19] and to take God's judgment, to take God's wrath for our sin on his shoulders in those hours of distress and sorrow to the point of death in prayers of cries and tears.
[21:34] The son has brought his own will into line with the father's.
[21:37] As Hebrews 5 puts it, son, though he was, he learned obedience
[21:46] it's hard to get your head around he learned obedience from what he suffered and once made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him
[22:03] it's an incredible
[22:09] disturbing heartbreaking, moving, yet wonderful and beautiful scene.
[22:15] And as I've reflected on what responses this scene is evoking in me, because I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever looked at it in this depth before.
[22:27] And there's a lot here that I feel that I'm seeing for the first time.
[22:33] And as I said, there's one application for my head and there's one application for my heart.
[22:37] I'm just going to share those with you.
[22:38] And the one for my head is a very obvious one.
[22:42] You'll have picked it up already.
[22:43] Captured in this contrast between Jesus and the disciples here that we've just talked about.
[22:48] He prays, they sleep.
[22:53] He engages in the spiritual battle going on in the spiritual realm with the spiritual weapon of prayer.
[23:04] They allow the spiritual oppression and sorrow to overwhelm and paralyze them in their weakness and keep them from praying.
[23:15] He emerges from agony,
[23:19] ready and resolute and willing to fulfill the purposes of the Father.
[23:26] They emerge from their slumber completely unprepared, emotionally and spiritually bewildered, defenseless against their temptations, defenseless against their temptations to cut off ears, their temptations to run away, their temptations to deny they've ever known him with curses and swearing.
[23:48] They're not ready.
[23:51] He watched and prayed and was ready.
[23:53] They failed to heed his command to do the same thing So they fell into the very temptations that he told them would happen.
[24:02] And so the obvious question then for us, for me, emerges, am I watching and praying so that I won't fall into temptation?
[24:15] So that I'll be spiritually ready.
[24:19] That I'll be spiritually ready for whatever it is around the corner, the next trial.
[24:28] the next struggle the next suffering the next temptation whatever that might be so that I don't sleepwalk into it so that I don't flounder so that my response isn't driven by fear isn't driven by confusion isn't driven by a need for comfort
[24:49] but by spirit inspired spirit led courage and clarity and conviction.
[24:54] Things all are coming.
[25:02] But for me, I want to be ready in prayer so that my response, whenever they come, is not my will be done.
[25:11] But instead, before the Father, I've been ready to say your will be done.
[25:15] There was a unique spiritual battle taking place that night in the garden.
[25:23] Battle like no other, but there are two spiritual battles taking place in our lives.
[25:30] Many of our lives right now and in the life of this church every day.
[25:35] And we need to recognize that without going overboard with it.
[25:38] We must recognize it.
[25:39] We must acknowledge that reality and live in the light of what Paul says, the Ephesians, that our struggle is not against flesh and blood.
[25:49] It's against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
[26:05] And if we're to stand, Paul says, we need to put on the armor that God has given us, and you can read all about that in Ephesians 6, but he also says at the end of that, we need to be, we must be people of prayer.
[26:20] Pray, Paul says, in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
[26:26] Be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.
[26:31] Pray, he says, not pious prayers of box ticking.
[26:41] And what we think we should be saying, but real, honest, raw prayers of what it is that is actually in our hearts.
[26:52] Prayers, not that we've learned to pray in that pious way, but prayers that are modeled on the prayers of the psalmist first, but ultimately on the way Jesus prays here in the garden because we are praying to him as our great high priest
[27:13] who knows what it is that we are going through right now, who can sympathize with us in all our weaknesses,
[27:23] and who knows what it is that's coming around the corner
[27:28] and can hold us fast there too.
[27:33] Watch and pray.
[27:36] That's the head one.
[27:38] That's the head application that struck me.
[27:39] And there are many more I'm sure that you can bring out in your conversations in home groups and cell groups over the coming days.
[27:45] But then there's the heart one.
[27:50] And this is what, by his spirit, God has done in my heart over the last couple of weeks as I've spent time here reading and mulling over and meditating on this scene.
[28:05] And very simply, it's this.
[28:09] is that I've spent time here it's made me love him more
[28:16] it's made me love him more and in those words of Don Carson's it's led me into a different place of hushed worship
[28:33] amazed that this is my king and Savior.
[28:39] And you know, because I talk about them a lot, I'm always struck by the way Paul prays in his letters to the churches and the fact that every time he prays, he puts love, their love, at the center of it.
[28:53] Think of Philippians 1.
[28:54] This is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.
[29:01] That's what he wants as a foundation for everything in their lives as followers of Christ.
[29:07] Ephesians 3, I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
[29:28] That's what Paul prays for all the time in these people that he loves.
[29:33] And this scene for me,
[29:38] this scene plays a unique part in that depth of insight to our love.
[29:48] This scene of Jesus, the Son of God, the Word made flesh, God's Messiah, the King of kings, the Lord of Lords, fully God, yet fully man in his humanity,
[30:02] lying face down.
[30:07] Do we see this in spiritual and emotional and physical agony, crying out for seeing and for tasting the cup that would be his, the judgment, the wrath of a holy, holy, holy God for my sin being poured out on him for me
[30:31] so that I don't have to experience it that, so that I'm saved from that.
[30:35] The abandonment, the separation, the forsakenness of the Father, the severing of that relationship.
[30:47] That perfect, eternal connection being broken.
[30:53] Having that ripped away
[30:57] so that I never have to have it ripped away.
[31:04] The temptation to use his power to call down legions and be angels to spare him from this cup, but instead in the horror, in the agony, trusting and submitting to the Father and saying to the Father, for me and for you,
[31:24] so that we might be justified, so that we might be saved, your will be done.
[31:31] Your will be done.
[31:36] The second Adam,
[31:40] reversing the curse of the first Adam's, my will be done in the first garden.
[31:49] With his, your will be done in this second garden.
[31:58] Hushed worship
[32:03] is the only way to respond.
[32:07] I just want to invite the band back up as I finish.
[32:14] As I said, this scene gives us unique depth of insight that as we meditate on it, we might see and feel something of the reality, the intensity, the enormity of his love for us, that we might grasp something of the price of his love for us.
[32:33] Of what it cost him to see what was coming, to taste what was coming,
[32:42] To simply get silence back from heaven, but still say three times, your will be done.
[32:52] And we can't come face to face with this scene, I don't think, and not come away.
[32:56] If we truly open ourselves up to it, not loving him more, not trusting him more, not worshiping him more with our whole lives, not come away saying, if you, Jesus, were willing to go through this for my sake, then you far more than I can can be trusted with my life.
[33:18] I know you love me.
[33:20] I know you've saved me.
[33:22] I know your plans for me.
[33:24] I know true peace and hope is found in you and you alone.
[33:30] I know because you were willing to say to the Father, your will be done for my sake, that I can place my life fully in your hands and say to you,
[33:41] whatever the circumstances, today or tomorrow,
[33:48] or next week or next year,
[33:51] your will be done in my life, Jesus.
[33:54] There is no greater love than yours.
[33:55] There is no safer, stronger, more wonderful place to put my life than in your hands and your will.
[34:09] I give my life to you and I say your will be done in me