Okay.
I, there was a sound I heard this morning
that I was like, oh, it's one of my favorite sounds. Three little
kids right here in the front row just giggling with each other. I'm gonna
miss that a bit because Treehouse is gonna be starting up here in about six or seven
weeks. If that's something that you're interested in being a part of, let us know. But it's
usually during the summer we have just family
services, but then during the school year, most of the school year we have Treehouse. So,
I love having the little kids in here and hearing them giggle and just explore
and I love the nature of having a community that just kind of
parents all the kids and just supports all the kids.
That's not related to the message at all, I just wanted to say that. From the
beginning of this series I have been looking forward to doing
this particular location and for a couple reasons.
I mean, for one, it's because it's directly connected to something that we do
every week as a congregation. Every week
we share something we call communion or the table or the Eucharist
and every week we say something along the lines of
on the night that Jesus was betrayed and handed over to death on a cross.
Today's location is where that happened. It's
where Jesus was betrayed and handed over.
Second, I wanted to talk about this location because I've been there
in 2019. I was able to go to Israel and spent time
in Jerusalem and so today's location
happens to be a place that I was able to go to and take pictures of. So, Liam, if you'll put up that
first picture, this is what we're going to be talking about today. It is
the Garden of Gethsemane or just
Gethsemane. It is on a place called the Mount of Olives.
I sat and I prayed in a place that Jesus
presumably sat and prayed. And so, I thought
that we could look at this location and consider what we might learn
from what we see happen at this location. So, if
you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Matthew 26, if you want to go ahead
and open that up.
And it's going to be Matthew 26. If you have a digital Bible, it's easy to find.
If you have a physical Bible, it's the very first book in what's called the New Testament
or the Newer Testament. If you don't have a Bible and you would like one, they are
out on the bookshelf out in the lobby. You're welcome to take one, take it home.
It's yours. It's free. Otherwise, download one from any of the digital app
stores. Today, I'm going to be reading from the new international
readers version, the NIRV. The NIRV
is a very easy version to read. It also changes some words
that make it kind of a little more modern to make it easier to understand.
So, we have a tradition of giving the Scriptures a full attention here at the house.
One of the ways we do that is by standing as we read the Scriptures. If you are able
or would like to join me as I read from Matthew
26, starting in verse
36, it says this, then Jesus went with his disciples to a place
called Gethsemane and he said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray.
He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him and he began
to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, 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. Then he returned to his disciples and found them
sleeping. Couldn't you men keep watch with me for an hour? He asked
Peter, watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. He went away a second time
and prayed, my father, if it is not possible for you to take, for this cup to be taken
away unless I drink it, may your will be done. When he came back
again he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy.
So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time
saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, are you still
sleeping in resting? Look, the hour has come and the Son of Man
is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. Here comes
my betrayer. Let us pray. God of every
tribe, every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank you
for the scriptures that we have them, that they have persisted
throughout the millennia and I pray that today whatever you have for us to learn
pray that it would stick, pray that it would become a part of the framework of our faith,
that our faith would become stronger and that we would become
more like your son Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thanks all.
You can have a seat. Okay, before we get into the context of this passage a little bit
and some of the things that actually happened in the passage I want to ask the
question, was I really praying where Jesus
prayed? Is the current garden of
Gethsemane really where the garden was? The easy answer is
maybe.
We don't really know for sure. Let's put up this next picture of the
city. Tradition tells us that this is the spot where the red
circle is with the little red arrow. The garden, that garden
is directly across the Kidron Valley. You can see how
there's a separation between it and that blue rectangle is where the temple
is. That is the entire temple mount. The little
globe you see there is an Islamic temple that is on the mount now.
But the entire blue thing is the actual mount that is built up
that things could be built on. And that is, that mount
goes all the way back to the day of Jesus. It was never destroyed. It was never knocked
down. And so this is on the east side
of where the temple is. Let's put up the next picture.
I took this picture of the temple
wall. That's the east temple wall. I took this from the garden.
If you've heard of the wailing wall
where many Jews go religiously to pray,
that is on the far other side. And the reason that they go there is because
it's the only full wall that's actually accessible. Like that you can just walk
up to and there's a courtyard that's outside of it.
When you look at this, when you stand in that place, obviously there wouldn't have been
a cement wall with an iron rod gate right there. But you can imagine
that it's not that bad of a place to pray from.
A place where you're surrounded by trees that you can look up at the temple
that in your religion and Judaism that you've been taught
and you've known that this is the place that all of God's people are meant to come
and worship God in the different times
of the year. You can imagine that Jesus is standing there at night
only the moon illuminating anything. It wouldn't have
looked like that. You would have just seen a bit of moonlight outlining
the line of that temple wall.
It's a good story.
But we can't be sure. That's the truth.
I can romanticize this location but the truth
is that we don't know for sure.
That the Armenian church, the Greek church, the Latin church
and the Russian church all accept that this
olive grove is the most likely place of
Gethsemane. Well why? Because in the year 326
about less than 300 years after the ministry
death and resurrection of Jesus, Empress Helena
also later known as Saint Helena, the mother of
Saint Helena in the year 327, the first Christian
Roman emperor, she goes on what's called a pilgrimage.
She goes on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem intentionally
to find religious relics and to locate
the holy places that had been mentioned in
the gospels. So on that pilgrimage with the help of
local guides, with people, with Jewish individuals that had roots
throughout the century, this spot was determined to be the most
likely. Okay, why isn't that enough for us to know for sure?
Olive trees lived for thousands of years. How hard can it be
to find an olive grove near the temple that's on
a mount, right? But we have to remember that at least two different times
between the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and when
Saint Helena was there, at least two different times Rome had come through
and completely destroyed most of Jerusalem. Josephus, the historian
actually writes that one of those times that Rome intentionally
raised, burned and destroyed all vegetation in the city
because they didn't want anyone to have anything to eat or to live
off in the city because they were forcing and pushing all of the
Jews out of their city.
So we can't be sure because the trees that are there only
come back to at the oldest, the 12th century, when they had been
replanted. But this location,
based on Saint Helena's pilgrimage, tradition and
consensus of many different branches of the church is what we might call the most
probable location.
Also, it's important in the life of many Christians
and many traditions because according to Acts 1, this is also the location
that Jesus ascended to heaven from. You read Acts 1,
it says that he's talking to his disciples, he sends them to heaven, and then the angels
say, what are you looking for? He will return just as he is left.
And then it says, and then they left the Mount of Olives. So let's
this next photo, let's look at this. So on your left
is the garden, on your right is the temple mount, and
in front of you is a hill that's completely covered with what?
Those are
tombs. Every one of those boxes
has somebody in it. And the reason is because
it dates back to the, let's see, the 1700s
when in particular, because of the belief that Jesus would return,
some people interpret it as not just in the same way, but to the same
place, and because Christians believe that
when Christ returns that the dead in Christ shall rise and see him
and be with him, these people wanted to be the first
to rise and the first to see him. So they
painstakingly figured out how to be
buried basically on the east side
of the Kidron Valley, looking, facing
the temple. It's pretty
amazing. One sage wrote this about this
phenomenon. And they will sprout out of the city like
the grass of the field. How beautiful is that?
Alright, so other than the historical context of the location and
why it's probably, probably the right spot, what can we learn
from what we see happen at this location?
Right, so one, the first thing I want to point out, and I've brought this up
a number of times just very momentarily at the end of services when we're talking
about communion, the first thing I want to point out is the trust
that Jesus had for his Father. Today we sing
two different songs connected to the concept
of trusting the Father. We sing Good Plans, we sing a new song
Fear is Not My Future. Both are pointing us
to trust in God the same way that Jesus
trusted the Father. And we're not just singing our good intentions.
Christianity and singing and worship isn't trying
to brainwash ourselves into unrealistically being
optimistic. Why? Because the God
that we serve, we know, suffered and died on a cross.
No Christian should be under the delusion about whether
life includes some disappointment and pain.
But when we read the Gospels and the pages
that lead to this moment in the garden over and over
Jesus affirms the positive and healthy relationship
that he had with the Father.
That God had good plans.
That fear was never his motivating emotion.
Over and over Jesus talks about
the love that the Father had for him.
And then eventually Jesus turns that conversation in the book of John
in chapters 15 and 16 about how the Father loves him and turns it and says
and as the Father loves me, the Father loves you.
Jesus and the
Gospel writers want us to know that the relational
dynamic between God the Son and God the Father
is the same dynamic that can exist
between each of us and the Father.
Guys, this is huge.
This is so important for us to understand.
Jesus is telling us the dynamic between him and the Father
is what we can experience between us and God.
There will be moments
that we ask the Father to remove a challenge.
I mean no show of hands but I'm sure it would be every single hand.
You ever ask God to take away a challenge? Remove a challenge? Resolve a challenge?
There's gonna be moments where we ask God
to remove a challenge. To provide a different option.
An alternative path.
We may literally say, God
let this cup pass
and he won't.
But because of the example of Jesus
we're meant to learn that we can still trust him.
Because the situation does not
define God's character.
And as
the scriptures say and as we sum today, God can turn anything
for good. Jesus knew this as he was asking.
Jesus knew that even as he was asking that if the Father did not
provide a different path. So think about this.
Who might this remind us of elsewhere in the Bible?
Somebody being asked to
sacrifice something extremely important hoping that maybe there's gonna be
an alternative provided. Anyone?
I'm thinking of Abraham.
Abraham waiting and waiting and waiting to have his own
son from his wife right? And then there's the passage that
the Father says that God says I want you to go and offer your own son as a sacrifice
and our minds are blown because God has never asked for human sacrifice
before. So this is extremely odd. What in the world is going on? But what we're told
is that Abraham walked in faith believing that the Father would
offer a solution. Would offer something else.
And now he's gone up a mount. Now Jesus is on a mount
praying, hoping that the Father will offer a different solution.
Maybe we are meant to think oh of course God will offer
a different solution. Imagine you're reading the gospel for the first time you don't know how the story
is. There's these videos online.
These like video memes I guess where a guy standing in the circle or sitting in a circle for a Bible
study and he's never read the Bible before and people keep on like ruining the story.
They keep on going well we know you know like later Jesus is gonna die and they're like
ahhhh. They don't know any of the stories.
But if you're reading this especially in the early
church you're reading this for the very first time you don't know any of the story but you know
if you heard about Abraham you knew that story you're like oh yeah God's gonna make a different way.
And then he doesn't.
And Jesus still trusts him. Jesus still walks through it
and Jesus still trusts because he knows
that God can take anything and turn it
for good. Which brings me to the second thing
I see in this story. In the same place that we see
Jesus completely trusting his Father we also see him
offering trust to people that keep on
breaking it.
Hey guys a little bit ago we were at dinner
and I told you hey you know I'm gonna die.
One of you is gonna betray me. It's the one who drinks from the cup.
Why don't we go out
and pray. I'm under a lot of pressure. Let's go pray. You three
in particular come with me over here and pray with me.
What you can't, you guys can't stay awake?
Alright just stay awake. I'm gonna go pray. You guys stay awake. Pray for me.
I need it. Come back. Guys!
What is going on?
You didn't drink enough coffee earlier. What's going on? Come back a third time.
Alright guys my betrayer is right there. It's time to go.
We see Jesus trust the Father and then continue to
trust people that fail him.
Jesus knew that the Father would never
fail him while he knew that every one
of his followers would. And understood that though
everyone else around him would fail that because of
his trust for the Father he could continue to offer trust to the
people that would fail.
Those of you that are very like math equation minded
that all made perfect sense to you.
We should be realistic.
We should be honest and we should be realistic that every person
sitting in this room right now, we're all sitting going
to fail. Every person in this room will
at one point or another fail. Maybe even
fail you directly.
You may fail them.
If we give up on our community when that happens.
When? Everybody say when. This isn't an if.
It is when we fail each other.
If we give up on community and give up on each other when
we fail then we might be missing one of the messages of Jesus
in this passage. Because it wasn't the trust Jesus had for his disciples
that kept him from kicking them out when they failed.
It was the trust Jesus had for his Father.
That the Father would never fail him.
That shaped how Jesus treated the disciples.
When they failed.
I think there are plenty of people
that are really disappointed in God when what they're really
actually upset about is that the friends around them didn't live
up to their expectations or needs.
Which sometimes is fair.
They're probably right. Because we're human.
And we're flawed. Our friends are not going to be perfect all the time.
Jesus, listen to this one.
Jesus never puts the failures of his friends onto his Father.
Jesus never puts the failures of his friends.
He never projects those onto his Father.
Jesus had hopes for his disciples.
Jesus more than once throughout the gospels if you read
all the accounts of the gospels more than once he expressed
frustration towards them. But Jesus never lost
sight that they were only humans.
Jesus didn't withhold what was good from broken humans
because they were broken. Instead because they were broken
Jesus gave them what was good.
Maybe it's hard to
catch the scope of this. Right?
Somebody in this room at one point or another has felt like absolutely everyone has betrayed me.
Absolutely everyone has abandoned me.
Right?
And then there's Jesus who could actually say
everyone has abandoned me.
Everyone he trusted.
Left him and abandoned him to die but he didn't die
Listen, because of them
he died for them.
So what do we do
with any of this? How do we practice? How do we
participate? Well
there's a little secret that's hidden in the garden.
The word
Gethsemane means oil press.
It's one of the reasons that they felt confident that it was on the
Mount of Olives that the garden of Gethsemane had olive trees.
Part of the reason they knew what to be looking for, to be thinking about the history,
to asking people of where this might be. The word Gethsemane means
oil press. And when Luke tells this
same story of Jesus praying in the garden as
his disciples keep falling asleep, Luke being someone that
believed to be by tradition having been a medical doctor, he says
that Jesus, his sweat was like drops of blood.
The metaphor here, the illusion
that's being pointed at here, the connection
is almost sure that Luke is trying to get us
to connect to the idea that he is in the place called oil press
and that he is under so much pressure that his very life is being squeezed
out of him.
It's one of the best things that we can do, one of the best
ways that we can participate with this practice and participate
with this passage is for us to remember. Just look around for a
second. Just make eye contact with at least one other person that's
in this room. Ready? Yeah.
Everyone here, everyone you
need, every person is under some
kind of pressure.
Did they slip up?
Okay, well olive oil is slippery.
It's hard to stand firm
when you're standing on oil.
When it feels like your very life is being squeezed out the bottom of your feet.
It's hard to be perfect
and to make all the right decisions when the person in front of you doesn't know all the
pressures that you're under.
And it's also difficult to have the expectations of the person you're
looking at to be perfect when
you have not asked what pressures
that they currently feel.
Very few people that I know or have ever met
wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say to themselves, man I really
hope I let someone down today.
I'm gonna bullet journal my day and that's the first thing on my to do list.
As long as I get to the end of the day
I've let someone down I'll feel like I accomplished something.
It's not what anyone does.
Most of the people
that are currently or have failed us, they're just not
doing it on purpose. They're just under
a lot of pressure.
I've said it before and I'll say it probably
a hundred or a thousand more times that one of my favorite
things about the scriptures, one of my favorite things about
the Bible is that it spends zero time
trying to hide how flawed humans are.
And even more,
it spends zero time trying to hide the flawed humanity
of the people in the Bible that we turn into heroes of the faith.
The three that
were closest to Jesus, Peter, James and John. John was the one that in the book
John that he wrote, he's always describing himself as the one whom Jesus
loved. He's the one that fell asleep.
Couldn't stay awake for the one who loved him.
Peter. Peter was the one
who first said that you are the Messiah and Jesus said you are right.
You are the rock and on this rock I will build my kingdom.
The rock
fell asleep.
These are the people
that could not stay awake for an hour
and pray with the one they believed was
the answer.
But Jesus didn't write them off.
And we are going to be like Jesus. We have to keep
in mind that everyone is under pressure.
We can give them the same benefit of the doubt that we would want them
to give to us when we fail.
When we are under pressure
we can turn to the Father and I think that we're
meant to bring our friends along
and we're meant to remember that while those friends
may fail us in our moment of need
the Father has good plans.
His love will never fail. Even the failure
of our friends will be turned
into something good. Amen?
Let's pray.
God some of us have felt under pressure to the point that
life was pouring out of our skin.
We have felt that there are no more
options.
There is no possible way that this is still going to end up good.
Today we confess
that we sometimes if not often believe
a lie.
And instead today we choose to believe the truth.
That you
can turn all things together for good for those
who are true and are called according to your purpose.
I pray that you help us remember that every moment of every day.
That you help us to be
pressure informed, trauma informed when we are interacting with other people
that are failing. Maybe we don't take it so
personally. We think of what they might need.
How we might be a part of
turning something difficult to something good.
Amen.