Mark No.25 The Loneliness of the long suffering saviour

Introducing James to you, James Mothersdale. He's not quite as big as me, but he's still growing, aren't you? And he loves the Lord Jesus as his Saviour. How old are you? Thirteen.

Wow, this middle-aged man is going to be telling us a little bit about what the Lord means to him. Boys and girls, this is particularly special for me because it wasn't that long ago, oh well, it's got to be thirteen years, when I held him in my arms and dedicated him and his mum and dad to the Lord Jesus. Are you looking forward to seeing this? Yes.

You tell us. Good morning. As you know, today is the Sunday when we all remember those soldiers that died in the war to keep our country free.

They took a stand for their belief, and today I'm going to make a stand too. A stand that says I'm being baptised to show that I'm a Christian and follow Christ. It's hard to think of a point in my life when I actually became a Christian, as it's sort of been a natural extension to my life growing up in a Christian family and here at the Tab.

In fact, some of you probably recognise me as the small boy, always first with his hand up at the front. One particular time, which some of you may remember, was when my younger brother Thomas was born, and Mr Sergeant invited me up the front and asked me what little addition have the Mothersdale family just received. I proudly stated that it was a goldfish that I'd won at the fair.

There's one time that I particularly remember that I can say did mean something to me, and that's when we had J. John here to speak. I came up to the front then as well, but that time for a different reason. And then from then on I went to Bible classes with my friend Luke, and that's made a great change in my life.

I can think of something that has sort of stuck with me throughout my life, and that's the story of the footprints in the sand, which I'd now like to read to you. One night I had a dream. I dreamed I was walking along the beach with God, and across the sky flashed scenes from my life.

For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand. One belonged to me and the other to God. When the last scene of my life flashed before us, I looked back at the footprints in the sand.

I noticed that at times along the path of life there was only one set of footprints. I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of my life. This really bothered me, and I questioned God about it.

God, you said that once I decided to follow you, you would walk with me all the way. But I noticed that during the most troublesome times of my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why, in times when I needed you most, you would leave me.

God replied, my precious, precious child, as you know I love you and I would never, never leave you during your times of trials and suffering. When you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you. I do know that by making this stand here today, I am taking the next step in my Christian life.

I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that I belong to Christ and that he is always with me and that I can call on him whenever I want. I'll probably let him down along the way as well, but if I ask for his forgiveness and solemnly mean it, it will all be perfect again. Some of you may wish you were my age, but believe you me, it's hard out there today to be a Christian at 13.

And perhaps some of you could remember me and some of my Christian friends in your prayers. And that's it really, no shaft of light or big moment, just a natural progression. I hope that by doing this today, others will realize that they want to become a Christian and be baptized, so that Christianity is the right path to take.

Thanks very much. You know, there was a poll in the New York Times taken earlier this year, and it asked what Americans feared in life. And at number two came death, and at number one came speaking in public, which means that most Americans would rather die than have to speak in public, I guess.

But it just shows how much it means to those who come up here and declare their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and tell you about how they've got to this point. And the second of our candidates is Michael, Michael Cave, and he's going to tell you how he became a Christian now. Good morning.

I too was brought up in a Christian family. I went to Sunday school to the age of 10 or 11. In fact, one of my first Sunday schools, I was invited to climb a Bible mountain.

And flabbergasted, my mother said I required hiking boots and a rucksack and a rope for next week's lesson, which of course was a Bible verse mountain. I left Sunday school about 10 or 11. Other things took my interest, football, girls, Arsenal, and carried on, unfortunately, that sort of vein until three and a half years ago when my grandmother died.

I was absolutely devastated, and I just felt emptiness, which I tried to fill with other things was still there. I didn't know what to do or who to turn to. And then I remembered the happy days of my Sunday school years when the Lord loved me and was kind to me and blessed me.

I got on my hands and knees and wept two or three times and asked him to come back into my life. I confessed my sin to him, and two or three hours later, I was relaxing, reading the Bible, and I felt a great sense of love and warmth come over me, of the peace that I once knew returned to me. And I knew that Lord was back in my life, and he was my Savior again.

I started going to the church on the corner from us, West Worthing Baptist Church, and Bob Brown started coming around and giving me discipleship class and invited me to start coming to the tab, which I duly did, and I felt myself spiritually lifted. I've now felt a real sense of love that God has given me for the people of Worthing, and now I'm going to become a member of Tim's pastoral care team, knocking on the door, Ministry in Worthing. And I knew that baptism now was right for me, even though I was christened as a baby, because the Lord wanted me to do it, that I was actually buried with Christ and then resurrected with him for his great love.

And I saw a lovely text in the Christian bookshop a few weeks ago, which was someone talking to our Lord, saying, Lord, how much do you love me? And the Lord replied, Child, I love you so much, I stretch out my arms and die for you. Thank you. Let me be yours and yours alone.

Our reading this morning comes from Mark chapter 14. Mark's Gospel, chapter 14. And we shall read from verses 27, through to 41.

one. You will all fall away, Jesus told them, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.

Peter declared, even if all fall away, I will not. I tell you the truth, Jesus answered, today, yes, tonight, before the rooster crows twice, you yourself will disown me three times. But Peter insisted emphatically, even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.

And all the others said the same. They went to a place called Gethsemane and Jesus said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. He took Peter, James and John along with him and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.

My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, he said to them. Stay here and keep watch. Going a little further, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.

Abba, Father, he said, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping.

Simon, he said to Peter, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak. Once more he went away and prayed the same thing.

When he came back, he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. Returning the third time, he said to them, are you still sleeping and resting? Enough.

The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go.

Here comes my betrayer. The Gospel of Mark in the fourteenth chapter. Here is our beloved Lord Jesus, the answer to the world's problems.

So long his gospel has been available, so blind are men not to respond in tens of thousands. Going a little further, verse twenty-thirty-five, going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. Abba, Father, he said, everything is possible for you.

Take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. Verse forty-one, enough. The hour has come.

Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. I went for quite a long run in the earlier hours of this morning, and as I was moving towards, at a reasonable pace, towards Ferring and East Preston, I thought of a book, which I think gave birth also to a film, called The Loneliness of the Long Distant Runner. This morning what I want to do is to shift our point of emphasis from the actual title given to this address, and to speak still with the same narrative and material matter, but to speak on the loneliness of the long-suffering Saviour.

The loneliness of the long-suffering Saviour. In the less than sophisticated circles in which I was brought up, we used to church to sing a little chorus. This was well before the birth of, at least before the advent of Graham Kendrick as a songwriter.

Alone, alone, he bore it all alone. He, the Lord Jesus, gave his life to save his own. He suffered, bled, and died.

Alone, alone. Amos chapter 2 and verse 10 says that the stout-hearted shall flee naked in that day, and I think that it's more than likely the Holy Spirit stimulated Amos to write that, having in mind the final hours in the life of our beloved Lord Jesus. The stout-hearted left him.

He looked for someone to have pity on him, and there was no man. Have you noticed, those of you who have been attending our studies from Mark's Gospel over these months on a Sunday morning, how Mark very often employs what I would say a triplet procedure in order to convey the point that he wants to get across. In other words, he brings together three stories, and the first one will anticipate the second one, and the third one will reflect back upon the second and bring out its teaching.

And this is the case here, because in the 27th verse through to the 31st, there is the prediction of the denial by the disciples of our beloved Lord. And then from the 32nd verse through to the 42nd, to some degree there is the fulfillment of that. And then even more so from the 43rd until the end of the chapter, you get the consequences of the denial and the arrest of our beloved Lord portrayed.

You see, here he is anticipating all that is around the corner. He has got his disciples with him. You will all fall away, says the Lord Jesus.

You will all be scandalized by me. And, of course, Peter objects. Not just Peter, but the rest of the disciples, but Peter in particular.

And if you read the account in Luke's gospel, you will discover that Peter is addressed twice by the Lord Jesus in terms of the name that Peter was given by his father Zebedee, Simon Simon. You see, when our Lord brought Peter into his service, he renamed him and called him Peter the Rock. Peter was the name of his call.

Simon, if you please, is the name of his fall. For what will happen here, as our Lord Jesus accurately predicts, will show that as high as the call of Peter was, so conversely low was his fall. Though all men are scandalized by you, Jesus, you can count on this.

I, Peter, will stand by you. No, says our Lord Jesus Christ. It is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.

Our Lord was not only the son of the Father's heart. He was also the student of the Father's book. And he knew that in those final days and those final hours, he would be on his own, the loneliness of the long-suffering Savior.

So, and this will occupy the major part of our time as I try to expound this passage. We move from his prediction to, and in some degree to the fulfillment of it. As in the 32nd verse onwards, we trace the events as our Lord takes the disciples to Gethsemane and three of them into the very heart of the garden.

Gethsemane? Well, you know, that's the place of the olive press, that's what it really means. It's a strange thing that the new municipality of Jerusalem had a regulation that you could not bring manure into the holy city. And probably as a consequence of this and also the fact that it was a populous area, there were no gardens in Jerusalem.

Sometimes when I'm in East Africa, I call in a garden, I call and visit colleagues in FEBA and AIM in Nairobi, and I've got to know not just Europeans working there, but some of the leaders of the national church, especially the Africa Inland Church. Some of these men who live in Nairobi, they have what they call a shamba out in the countryside. And that, if you please, is an illustration of what happened in Jerusalem.

Some of the more wealthy people who had no gardens in the holy city, they had their own tract of land, they had their own garden across the Bukidron and towards the slopes that tower up that we now call the Mount of Olives. And our beloved Lord, if you read the accounts in Luke's gospel and John's gospel, seems at times when he didn't go to the warm reception that he could have enjoyed in Bethany at night, he sometimes would have recourse to one of these gardens. One of the rich folk in Jerusalem had made it available to him.

So there would have been nothing unusual as far as the disciples were concerned when they heard our Lord Jesus suggesting to them, presumably, that they went and spent that night in Gethsemane. They went into that quiet place, the Garden of Olives. And there our Lord Jesus instructed eight of the disciples to wait on the edge.

And as he had when he was ministering to Jairus and comes to his house and goes to the bedroom of his daughter, he requests that Peter, James, and John, the sort of inner three of the disciples, accompany him to the heart of the garden. There are, of course, reasons for this. You see, our Lord knows that his ministry is rising to its climax.

Peter, he's a man who has a sort of glib confidence in himself. He gives his oath of devotion. Soon it will be an oath of denial.

From the same lips within ours, Peter will confess Christ and then protest that he never knew the man. So Jesus brings him to this holy scene in the heart of the garden. And as for James and John, well, they had said, Lord, when you come into your kingdom, their mother speaking for them, one side me, the other side the other.

Lord, my two boys, fine lads they are. When you come to the full regality that is obviously yours, the right hand and the left, you couldn't have better men have my lads. And the boys agreed.

The cup that I am about to drink, can you drink? Oh yes, we can. All right, says Jesus, here is your opportunity. Come into the garden and watch me drink this cup and see then what your reaction will be.

Sometimes we have to be shattered of our glib confidence in ourselves. I see not only Peter. I see not only James and John.

I see myself, don't you? So many times we have professed in easy circumstances our loyalty to the Christ, but when the going has got tough, when the shepherd has been smitten again, the sheep scatter. So our Lord issues his own warning to these three as they find themselves in the garden. He tells them to stay and watch.

There is a time to sleep. There is a time to eat. There is a time to rejoice.

But this night of all nights, it is a time to watch. It is a time to pray. Whenever you find our beloved Lord in Mark's gospel described as spending a night in prayer, not only do you feel in the text of scripture that the presence of God is manifest but also the presence of evil.

Do you remember John Keats, that great poet from Chichester? Talks of St. Agnes Eve, how bitter chill it was, the owl for all her feathers was a-cold, the hairlimps trembling through the snowy glade and silent was the flock in woolly fold. He builds up a picture of this strange, beautiful, silent, uncanny, dangerous, mysterious night. Well this is the eve of the arrest of our beloved Lord.

It's not a time for sleeping. It's not a time for rejoicing. It's a time to watch.

It's a time to pray because the malevolent forces of evil are so active, having imprisoned certain men who have hatred in their heart towards the Christ. Sit here while I pray. And then in this thirty-fourth verse our Lord lets fall from his lips some words which constitute, I believe, one of the most incredible, if not the most incredible verse in the whole of scripture.

Here is God's own Son telling us something of the psychology of his own heart. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. You see, our Lord knows.

What's around the corner will not take him by surprise. At the baptism, three years ago, he has said that he will identify himself with the sinfulness of men. Whenever he refers to his death, as he frequently does in his public ministry, he's also aware of the nasty nature of that death.

He sets his face to Jerusalem as a flint and amazes his disciples because they've got some idea that an unpleasant reception ultimately will await the Lord Jesus. But now all his predications are about to be fulfilled. And his humanity, thank God for the reality of it, he's more than man.

He's not just man, not only man. Man truly but not man only. But don't forget our Lord Jesus was human.

My soul, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Why is he so afraid? Clumsy commentators make a mess of it at times. They talk about him being afraid of the physical aspects of crucifixion.

I do not believe that for one moment. He had seen men die. This was a bloody Roman civilization in which the Lord Jesus was reared.

I believe that the Savior was the most courageous of all men. Caught in battle fire, there was no funk. There was no cowardice.

But you see, something that was almost incomprehensible even for him, I speak with respect, was just round the corner. If ever a man needed friends, it was our Lord at this place in his life. Someone to talk to, someone to offload.

Thank God for a friend. Thank God for a little group of friends who stay with you and still love you despite your inadequacies and your inconsistencies. But as the hour of the passion comes closer, so the confusion of the disciples grows even more and more.

And in a stupefied state, the disciples here are attending this scene. They are asleep. They are detached from the importance of what is happening.

And our Lord is on his own. But no, I'm not alone. I always have the Father with me.

He always did. He always would. But the awful feeling dawns that what he has always known, now he will not.

My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death. Turn on the clock if you dare. Turn on the clock if you dare.

Gethsemane has sufficient horror, but can you take in Calvary as well? And listen to the words, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabaxani. Overwhelmed to the point of death. Why, blessed Christ, why are you so strained? The Father forsaking me.

I looked for someone to have pity on me and there was no man. I looked for the Father and in the Father's eyes I have become the essence of sin. That's what happened on the cross.

And the awfulness of this is anticipated by our beloved Lord. So he moves further into the heart and he prays, Father, if possible, let this hour pass. This cup, this cup of suffering of which Isaiah speaks and the psalmist speaks.

Lord, is it not conceivable that there could be another way? Anything but not dislocation between you and me? They don't understand. My mother doesn't understand. The leaders on Jerusalem don't understand, but you always have, you, me, always together in an intercourse of prayer.

Is there not some other way than me draining the cup of your wrath and becoming obnoxious in your sight? I have a love relationship with him. I have a love relationship with him that deepens in terms of my convictions as the years go by and what to God that I worked it through in a greater obedience and faithfulness in terms of my discipleship. I would have thought that our Lord would have had every reason just to be concerned about himself and the agony in that garden, but you read in verse 37, then, then he returned to his disciples with all hell anticipated and in some degree let loose in the garden.

He went to minister to his disciples and he finds them asleep. Our Lord who came into the garden to be with his father for an interlude before his betrayal, yet founds hell waiting rather than heaven opened. Not only staggers, but he lurches towards his disciples who equally are in trouble or not equally, but they are in trouble to the extent that they do not understand what is happening and he says, fellows, are you asleep at this time? Not at time for sleeping, a time for watching, a time for praying.

The spirit is willing, but the body is weak. He goes away and on three occasions he returns to this scene and ministers to his own and then, and then when you come to verse 41, you discover that the climax has indeed reached its pinnacle. It's arrived, the hour, the hour of betrayal, the hour which is synonymous to the son of man being betrayed and handed over into the power of sinful people and any idea of the cup being changed fades.

There is only one way in which human sinfulness can be forgiven and it will be by the death and the shedding of the blood of our Lord Jesus. If it be possible, but if not, the controlling factor is, despite the horror of being away from you, your will be done. You see my point? You see why it wasn't just fancy this morning when I was reflecting on this some few miles away from where I live? The loneliness of the long-suffering Savior.

The prediction and the fulfillment and the aftermath, well, we can deal with this not cavalierly, but rather quickly as we prepare to come around the table of our beloved Savior. Satan's hour has dawned. Our Lord Jesus Christ is accosted by Judas who also is synonymous for the word traitor or treachery and out from the garden of Eden Jesus goes into that cycle of events which will culminate in his horrific crucifixion.

Have you ever thought it all started in a garden? I mean here was Adam, the beginning of time. The garden was the garden of Eden and as a result of Adam's rebellion and that of Eve, they're expelled from the garden. They will not submit to the purposes of God and the consequences of what follow shall be catastrophic, including not only the recent world wars, but all the wars and all the depravity and all the sinfulness as a result of man's disobedience in a garden.

But here is the greater than Adam, the last Adam and he leaves the garden with a verbal submission to the will of the Father and as a result of his obedience in this garden, the disobedience that was enacted in the first garden shall be put to rights. Oh look, this cannot be fanciful speculation. This is pure logic.

It's scripture's own inner testimony as to its inspiration. Our Lord is led off as a lonely man and the sheep are scattered. Peter, after I have been led off, I will have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.

Don't you love him more? When you think of the infinite concern that our Lord Jesus had for his disciples, knowing what was in front of him, he still makes an appointment with Peter. Peter who three times is told that evening to keep awake and three times will deny the Lord. We'll have an interview with the Lord Jesus in the same place where the Lord accosted him three years ago and instead of excommunicating Peter from the college of his followers, he'll make him the president.

Peter, I prayed for you. Satan, he would sift you. He would shake you.

John, James, you say you can take my cup. You don't understand what it's all about. You don't understand the weight of what you're saying, but I appreciate you John and James and the rest of you in Galilee where I met up with the majority.

I will re-meet with you after my death and my resurrection and then we will talk about the future. And so I see him going off on his own, a solitary runner, welded to the purposes of God, no one to take compassion on him, looking towards that damnable experience when even his sense of father's presence will be, he will be deprived of. And yet he goes into the lair of the religious authorities and the political, hunted, hounded, treated, flogged, spat on as a common criminal.

And then he dies as Gethsemane anticipates on that cross and three days later he's raised from the dead, his blood having been spilt for your sins and for my sins, his resurrection incontrovertible proof that he's more than just a man, man truly, but not man only, raised in the power of an endless life, a man who came to bring salvation to the world, to make it possible for someone to look into the jaws of death, to make it possible for a soldier who faces the bullet of the enemy nonetheless to still hang on even though he's taken through death itself believing that Jesus Christ has guaranteed his eternal salvation. When will we ever learn that God has spoken to this world through Jesus Christ and there is nothing else to say and the history of men and women away from God has increasingly been a history of despair and confusion. And the essence of common sense is not just when our Queen and Prime Minister stand before the cenotaph in recollection of all those who died though we can honour rightly their passing.

The essence of common sense is when our Queen and Prime Minister and Archbishops call us back to a recognition of this God and who he is and what he has done for us in the form of our beloved Lord Jesus. So I leave you with a thought of the loneliness of the long-suffering Saviour who anticipated his death on the cross at Gethsemane's Garden and nonetheless still went through to fulfil God's plan, bringing eternal life as a possibility for you and me provided we do what our best baptismal candidates themselves have done at different points in their lives, confessing him as Saviour. Let's sing King of my life I crown thee Lord.

It's 97 in the supplement King of my life I crown thee now lest I forget Gethsemane, 97. King of my life I crown thee now lest I forget Gethsemane, 97. Lest I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary.

Lead us to where love was made, tenderly mourned, angels in robes of light arrayed. Proudly he watched us stand, lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary. Spirits carry me through the gloom, come with a hymn to Thee.

Show to me now the empty tomb, lead me to Calvary. Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary. May the King really go to hell, may He be my cross for me.

He and my God are brave to share, Thou hast done all for me. Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thy love for me, lest I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary. Help me, O Lord, when I desire of Thee.

Then touch my lips with holy love to speak of Calvary. Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary. Let's pray.

Thank you, Father, for today, a day in your house worth a thousand spent amongst the ungodly. Praise you for your word. Praise you for Michael, for James, and for all who've confessed Jesus as Lord in recent days.

Thank you for one another. Bless you for the tie which binds our hearts in Christian love. Lord, continue with us.

Thank you, blessed Christ. Thank you for enduring the loneliness of a long-suffering Savior. Thank you for the triumph of your work on the cross.

Now, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost dismiss us with your blessing. Always. Amen.

Amen. Amen.