Exploring My Strange Bible - Panic Attack - Gospel of Matthew Part 33

Episode Date: January 13, 2019

We’ve come to (from my perspective) one of the most profound, mysterious, and almost terrifying stories of the Gospel. It is the story of Jesus right before he gets arrested and executed. He took his friends and followers to a small olive grove and he was disappointed by their inability to stay awake… his closest people fail him at the moment that he needs them the most. So then Jesus turns to God and multiple times he asks that he not have to go through the arrest and execution. It was so scary that Jesus actually experienced a panic attack. This story tells us so much about Jesus’ experience with God and it blows my mind. Listen in and we’ll learn together.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. Well, in this episode of the podcast, we are continuing to explore the gospel according to Matthew. We've come to what is, for me personally, one of the most profound, mysterious, and almost terrifying stories in the gospel.

It's the story of Jesus right before he gets arrested and executed. He took his closest friends and followers to a small olive garden, olive grove, and he was disappointed by their inability to stay awake. His closest friends fail him at the moment that he needed them the most. And so he turns to his heavenly father in a famous set of prayers, and multiple times Jesus asks the father that he not have to go through with everything that's about to happen. This is so profound that Jesus wasn't like a divine robot on his mission, he was fully human, and he grieved and experienced a panic attack right here in the garden before everything hit the fan. What this story tells us about the nature of Jesus' experience of the Father and his experience of our common humanity did. This story just blows my mind every time I ponder it. So I'm going to unleash it on you all,

and let's ponder together what it meant for Jesus to face his coming death. So there you go. Let's open our hearts and minds, and we'll learn together. We're going to do what we always do right now for this time in our gatherings, which is open up the scriptures. So I invite you to get out a Bible or turn one on and go with me to the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 26. Gospel according to Matthew. And while you're doing that, I'll give a small public service announcement, just in case you didn't already know.

It's February 21st, and the year is 2016. And here in our land, every four years, we are all participants in this amazing process called the United States of America Presidential Election Campaigns. Yes? So, don't freak out. I'm not going to say anything stupid right now. That's not what the Sunday gathering is for.

But it's a very interesting experience that we go through. And, you know, as the years go by and I experience more of these and so do you, it's fascinating, a big cultural experiment. And just to observe how it all goes down. And here is one thing that never happens. In, oh, my many whatever, in my late 30s, you know, how many of these have I ever really watched. But I've never seen this happen, and my hunch is that neither have you,

is that none of the presidential candidates, and they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on these campaigns to promote themselves. And what none of them ever does is make as a big part of their campaign deal to highlight the ways that they've been inconsistent and the ways that they've had major failures throughout their political career up to this point. Have you ever met or seen that commercial before? You've seen that commercial by their opponents, right? That's the hope, right?

That's the joy that they have, lampooning each other. But like no one ever makes that. Like, the joy that they have lampooning each other. But like, no one ever makes that. Like, hell, vote for me. I said this 10 months ago, but now I'm saying a different thing. Vote for me. You know, like, that doesn't happen, even if it's true. It usually is, right? But that's not, like, and we get that. It's intuitive. Self-promotion. If you are in a place of leadership and you want people to follow you, how it works in our culture is you minimize your failures and you maximize your strengths. And we all get that. And the presidential campaign is just a big, huge, huge example of that value that we have. And none of us are surprised that, you know, people hide their weaknesses. So here's something that's interesting. And to me, you know, since Ben and I became Christians in the summer of 95, something that

I still remember really standing out to me when I, as a young adult, I'm a new Christian, I'm reading the accounts of the life of Jesus. And something that struck me, look down. I asked you to open up the Bible to the gospel according to what? Matthew. Who's Matthew? Well, we met him once in the story. He actually appears in the book that has his name attached to it. He was a tax collector. And he was one of the people that Jesus called and recruited into his closest circle of the

twelve disciples who became called the apostles. And if you go to all four of the accounts of Jesus that are in the New Testament, they're in there because all four of them stem back to the eyewitness memories and the memorized teachings of people from that circle, four people from that circle. Mark and Luke, the Gospel according to Mark and Luke, they were not themselves part of that circle of the twelve. They were co-workers and associates with the twelve. So all four of these accounts come right from the circle of Jesus' closest followers, and after Jesus' resurrection, they became the leaders of the movement. Like Matthew and Peter would go

start new church communities, and you would hear Peter and so on. And here's what stuck out to me, even as a new Christian, was that when you read and think about the portrayal of these 12 in the story itself, they are highlighted and emphasized in bright colors as absolute failures. Absolute failures at following Jesus. Have you ever noticed that before? How would your name attached to a story that portrays you as a bumbling idiot? And you're trying to forward a movement through these very documents that have your name on them and that portray you as an idiot.

That is remarkable. Are you with me? I don't know if you've ever thought about that before. But to me, it's absolutely remarkable. I mean, in any culture, leaders promote themselves, maximize their strengths, minimize or hide their failures as much as possible. And with the history of Christianity, it's exactly the opposite. It's from the very beginning, this is a movement that highlighted the failures of its leaders. Not the failure of Jesus, the failure of the people

who lead the movement of people trying to follow Jesus. And the story that we're going to reflect on today is the pinnacle story of the failure of the leaders of the Jesus movement. And so I just want you to just hold that idea, because it's extremely important, and I think there's big implications for us as disciples of Jesus, as a community of his disciples, because it says something about us. It says something about what we're doing right now and what this is, the church. But it at the same time says something about Jesus. And this is one of the most powerful stories for me through the years and still today. What we're going to read is one of the most powerful, important stories that we have about Jesus. And it takes place in a garden.

Matthew chapter 26, verse 31. Then Jesus told them, they just finished the Last Supper. I don't know if you've been following with us or if you're a visitor here today. Welcome, if you're a visitor. But we've been going through the Gospel of Matthew. We're in the last night before the cross. You just had the last supper, the last Passover meal. Then Jesus told them,

this very night you all are going to fall away on account of me. It's kind of a downer. It's a downer, but that's what he says. For it's written in the scriptures, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But, Jesus follows up, after I've risen,

I'm going to go ahead of you into Galilee. They've finished the last Passover meal where he was trying to tell them, I'm going to die. He's been telling them that for weeks now, and they don't get it. So then he used these symbols to try and communicate it of the bread and the cup at the Passover meal. And then they leave that meal and they're going up to the Mount of Olives, which we'll talk about a little more. And he says it again, like, so this is going to be a bad night. It's a really bad night ahead. And you all are going to fail me big time. And he says, it's a shocking thing to say, but he's not surprised by it.

For Jesus, this actually fits in to what the ancient scriptures all said would happen. And he quotes from one of the ancient Hebrew prophets. Do you have a little footnote telling you where he's quoting from? The shepherd striking sheep stuff? Where's he quoting from? Yeah, from the prophet Zechariah, which I'm sure you were all just reading just last night. It's a bizarre collection of dreams and poems from the prophet Zechariah. It's one of the strangest books in the Bible, I think, and I could go on for hours. It's

the most amazing book of the Bible, too, but I won't go on for hours. Here's all I'm going to say. Right from the beginning of the story of Israel, it's the story of God rescuing these people out of slavery in Egypt, and he brings them to safety, enters a covenant relationship with them, and what is, what, what do the people do, like, days into this new covenant relationship? Is they betray and fail and reject the God who saved them. It's called the story of the golden calf in the book of Exodus. And kind of starting from that moment, it just sets the tone for the whole story of Israel and their God, where he continues to do things for them and provide for them, and they continue to reject and betray and fail that God.

and provide for them, and they continue to reject and betray and fail that God. And so that goes on for half a millennia. And it ends poorly. The story ends poorly. And so the prophets, they know that what the people need is a leader who will both challenge them and lead them to become the kinds of people who actually accept their God and accept His love and what He wants to do for them. And that figure comes to be called the new David or the Messiah or the Messianic King. But the prophets like Zechariah or similar to Zechariah like Isaiah, they weren't optimistic about that king either. Not about the king, but about the people. And so just like Israel had

been rejecting its God, so they could see that Israel would treat this king no differently, that they would reject this king. But paradoxically, it's through the striking and the rejection of this king that this king would save his people. That's all I'm going to say about the book of Zechariah. Go read it and be bewildered. I've been trying to read it for 20 years now, and I think I'm beginning to understand it anyway. So Jesus alludes to that whole storyline from the Hebrew Scriptures. But it's not the end of the story, because he says, listen, I'm going to rise from the dead, and I'm going to go ahead of you into Galilee, and we're going to meet up again.

And Peter is going to reply, and you realize they, they're not hearing any of this. Look at Peter's reply. Peter replied, you know, even if all these other guys fall away on account of you, Jesus, not me. I never will. Not me. He sounds like a presidential candidate. All these other guys, they're going to let you down. Right? You can't count on them. But you can count on me, Jesus. I'll be here for you.

Listen, Jesus answered. That's my paraphrase. Listen to the truth, Peter. This very night, before sunrise, before the rooster even crows, you specifically are going to disown me three times. Peter declared, oh no, no, I'm with you to the end, Jesus. Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you. And then all the other disciples chime in. Oh, me too, Jesus. Yeah, me too, me too. They all said the same. Do you see what's happening here? It's a remarkable story. Because you're just like, what? No, no. They're going to

fail. Big time. And Peter, you can feel him thumping his chest. You know what I mean? He's just like, I got you, Jesus. Like, you can count on me, even if it means my life. And he doesn't know it, but he's betraying himself, as he says those very words. Where do they go from here? Jesus went with his disciples

to a place called what it's hard to say in English isn't it Gethsemane it's easier to say in Hebrew than it is in Gethsemane is how you say it in Hebrew Gethsemane something about the T-H-S anyway Gethsemane

this is a famous spot you've heard of this place before? It's an iconic spot. You guys, there are defining moments in the history of Christianity, in the history of the Jesus movement. Jesus' execution is one of them. The resurrection is one of them. What happened at Pentecost is one of them. And on that list is Gethsemane. And I don't know if that's true for your understanding of the Christian faith, but let's change that today. What happened this night is one of the most important moments for the history of the entire Jesus movement. If we didn't have this story that follows,

our understanding of Jesus would be impoverished. We would know a lot about Jesus, but we wouldn't know the unique thing that this story reveals to us about Jesus that you don't learn in any other part of his life story. And personally, just sharing personally, this story has been so meaningful to me over the last 20 years.

And it's been meaningful to me as a pastor and inviting people into this story and to find themselves with Jesus in it. And you'll see what I mean. But this story is worth much, much more time than we can even give it in our Sunday gathering. I recommend many cups of tea and quiet mornings praying and pondering this story.

They go to a place called Gethsemane. And we're told it's near the Mount of Olives. And it's an olive grove. Let me show you a picture of the area. So I've shown you lots of pictures of this part of the city of Jerusalem and maps and so on over the last couple of months. So you're standing in a valley looking south. And you can see up on the right, those are the walls of Jerusalem,

of where the Temple Mount was, those high walls. The walls used to be higher, and you can't see them very well in this photo, but the bottom walls of that large wall at the upper right, the bottom stones of that were the stones that Jesus would have seen. They're that old. And it goes down into a valley called Kidron, and you can see it just slopes down from here. And then off to the left, you can't see it, but is the Mount of Olives. It slopes up like the Mount Tabor here. And back then, it was covered with olive groves, and even still today, there are scattered olive groves. So picture, like this is the setting right here. This is it, Gethsemane. It's a quiet orchard full of olive trees. Just left, up on the slope of the Mount of Olives,

there's a church. It's a Catholic church that commemorates this story and where this took place. In the next picture, you'll see it. You can see the building on the upper left. It's a cool cathedral. And then what they have is about two dozen olive trees in this quiet prayer garden. And you can go there any time of day and pray and read and think, and it's really remarkable. The olive trees that are there now, you can go see them today. They're about 500 years old, which is incredibly old. And this is a really, really incredible place. And this is the scene for the story.

So they walk into this orchard, Gethsemane. It means olive oil press, Gethsemane does. And here's what he says to them, to the 12. He says, you guys sit here, like by this tree, and I'm going to go over here to this tree, and I'm going to pray. And Jesus has done this before. After really intense moments, we've watched it multiple times. He has something intense happens, and he retreats, usually with his closest followers, and he goes to pray for a day or two. So he just said, you guys sit here.

But then he takes along, he picks out who, especially? Peter, chest thumper, right? Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. Who's that? James and John. These are the three fishermen that he recruited at the very beginning of his movement. And he's taken these three along

on a handful of other occasions. It's like he had the 12, that's his crew, and then he has these three, and they're his boys. They're like his safe circle. And so he takes them with him. And then it all starts to unfold. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along.

They together go to another tree. And he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Now, those English words, sorrowful. Did you use that word in the last week? So, no. No, you didn't. Troubled. You might have used troubled.

Some of you have a different translation. What do you have? He began to be distressed? Anybody have agitated? Yeah, there you go. Yes, agitated. So my hunch is that those are words you've maybe used in the last week. Stress, for sure. Our culture is obsessed with it.

And distressed, agitation. I think to put it at its most bluntly and in light of what happens, Jesus has a panic attack. And I'm not joking. He breaks right here. He's sorrowful. He's agitated. He's distressed. And then he said to the three of them in private, he says, you guys, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. I just need you guys to stay right here

and keep watch with me. Just stay awake and be here with me. We have seen Jesus up to this point, every story. He's a rock, you know? He's confident and he's calm. We've seen Jesus get angry. We've seen Jesus full of joy. We've seen Jesus full of compassion. But he always had composure. And this is the first moment in the story where he falls apart. He just absolutely crumbles.

It's the middle of the night. He's with his safest circle of friends, and he is unglued. I mean, just imagine. I don't know if you have a memory of the first time you saw maybe one of your parents break. Depending on your family story, it might have been quite early, you know,

that you saw that. For me, it wasn't until a while. I remember I was like eight, seven or eight years old, and I remember, you know, your perception of many people's perception, if your parents were there for you, is that they're like the stability of the universe, you know? Or you

had someone in your life, I hope, who represented that, and then to watch that person break, and to watch them weep and be in the fetal position, like that's really intense. And for many of us, if you're a disciple of Jesus, Jesus is stability in the universe for us. Jesus is stability in the universe for us. And here he is. He falls to pieces. And what's remarkable is that he's actually so agitated, he's so crushed under the weight of what's about to happen,

when he tries to verbalize what he's feeling, he doesn't even use his own words. I don't know if you have a footnote when he says, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. You should have a footnote because these aren't his words. He's speaking the words of Psalm 42, which we need to read because it's revealing why Jesus would speak the words from this poem. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about grieving, oppressed by the enemy? My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me. They're saying to me It's remarkable because For I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. It's remarkable because look at the arc of the poem itself.

This movement of the poem, the poet's unglued. He's being made fun of. He's afraid for his life. He has enemies. And they're making fun of him. And then he enters this stage of self-talk, you know, talking to himself. Like, why? Oh, my self, my being, like, why are you becoming so unglued? Like, put your hope in God, but that doesn't for one second negate all of the emotions and the feelings that he has. Are you with me here?

This is like, this is about the journey of working through your confusion and fear and your suffering. And this is, these are the words that come to Jesus's mouth when he tries to verbalize what he's feeling. And he doesn't want his disciples to do anything except stay awake and to be with him. Like, he doesn't say, make me dinner or something, you know, bring some tissue. This point is like, don't go anywhere. I just need you to stay awake with me. And then he went a little farther, verse 39, and he fell with his face to the ground.

I don't know if you've ever done that. My hunch is that some of us here have felt like we needed to do that. It's the sign of somebody whose body gives out. Because of the fear and the grief. Jesus falls to his face. And he prays. My father. Jesus falls to his face and he prays, My Father, if it's possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.

That's his prayer. He'll pray a couple different forms of it before we leave the garden. Do you recognize elements of this prayer? My Father, your will be done. Have you heard these words before? Yeah. Yeah. There's a prayer that he taught his disciples to pray every day, I think. And I don't

know if you've said it yet today, so let's do that. Let's fix that right now. Say it with me. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. May your kingdom come, may your will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. He actually never said that last part, but that's okay. It's a

beautiful part of the prayer. The kingdom and glory and so on. So what's Jesus doing right here? Jesus is at his darkest moment of his life. What's happening here? He has a panic attack and he doesn't even know what he needs. He just needs his closest friends to be with him. He has a panic attack, and he doesn't even know what he needs. He just needs his closest friends to be with him. He doesn't even know what to say, so he says the words that he grew up on from the Psalms. And then when he does finally verbalize it, what he verbalizes is words from the prayer that he taught us to pray. And this is remarkable too, because you go back and you realize that prayer that he gave us, it's not that he was lecturing us. Like, here's how you pray. He gave us his prayer. The Lord's prayer is Jesus' prayer. It's the prayer that he went to in his dark moments

of wondering, like, what's happening? And who am I? And what am I supposed to be doing right now? And this prayer became his sense of stability. These are the words that he used to give him guidance as he processed through his emotions. Listen, is it news to Jesus that he's going to die? No. He's been saying it for a solid 15 pages in my Bible,

chapter 16, like he's been talking about it. And his closest friends have not been understanding it, but this is not news to Jesus. He's not learning a new fact about God's will. What he's doing, he's a human. I don't care what you believe about Jesus. You know, the historic confession about Jesus is that he's God become human. But he's human. And we're watching Jesus, a human. We're watching his emotions unravel. And his will and his emotion are catching up to his brain right now.

He's not learning a new fact about God's will. He's coming to term with his whole person. About his. Strange. Difficult calling and vocation. As the messianic king. And that somehow he's going. To save.

And to rescue. By himself. Not being rescued. And by being killed brutally. And it's a calling that he doesn't want at this moment. He just says it straight up. You know, hey, Father, I know you love me. You said it at my baptism.

And if it's possible, is there another way here? You know, for a while now I've been saying to everybody that I have to die. But maybe we can figure something else out real quick. And that's what he wants. He says, that's what I want. Could this happen a different way? I don't want to drink this cup, he says. And so here we go once again.

Jesus is raised on the scriptures. And when he talks, he speaks the language of scripture. And this is another, the cup. If, you know, I could go on for a long time and I won't. Here's what I'll do. Note takers, go read Psalm 75. Go read Isaiah 51. Go read Jeremiah 25.

And I could name five more other important passages. The Hebrew prophets and poets, they describe God's judgment and God's justice when he confronts and judges evil in the world. They describe it with lots of metaphors. And one of the most significant, common ones is of the cup, the cup of God's justice or the cup of God's wrath, even Psalm 75 calls it. And here's the image. Psalm 75, in God's hand is a cup. Think a big chalice, jewels and all that, you know? And it's foaming and bubbling with high alcohol content wine. Spices mixed. I mean, the whole point is,

it's what, people love this. It's what people love. We want it, you know? And you might not think it's good for you, you might enjoy it now and then or whatever, but it's desirable. It's a paradox. It's God's judgment on human evil, but it takes the form of something that we would

want. And then what God does in these poems is he forces people to drink it to the bottom. And then they walk away like, whoa, staggering, and then they stumble and come to ruin because of something that they want that God gave to them. And there's lots of ways of exploring the meaning of God's judgment in the scriptures. They're all profound. We typically think of the ones that are, they happen occasionally in the Bible, but they're more rooted in Greek mythology of Zeus throwing lightning bolts at people because he doesn't like them. And that, there's something like that, but very different at the same time in the Bible, occasionally. But way more often is this image of the cup. And Paul the Apostle put words to it without the image. He describes it in Romans 1. He says it's the wrath of God, which he describes

as God giving people over to the consequences of the things that they choose. And what we choose are things that destroy us, things that aren't good for us. And that's the image that Jesus uses right here, that there's a cup of God's justice that is meant to be poured out on God's own people for their five centuries, and even more by Jesus' time of rejection and rebellion and moral corruption and injustice. And so Jesus, as Israel's king, it's his calling to drink the cup on behalf of his people so that they don't have to. Now, this all sounds abstract to us, maybe, and it's not abstract. Like, think of what Jesus was doing.

He was offering the kingdom of God, but the way he offered it and what it meant to follow Jesus the king was all crazy upside down because what this king does with his enemies is forgive them. And what this king does with his enemies is, you know, the Roman soldier forces you to carry his gear one mile. And you're a follower of Jesus and a part of the kingdom of God. Then you carry it two miles. And then when you've carried it and his mind's blown, you put it down and you ask him if there's any prayer requests he has. And you pray for that soldier.

And then when he thinks you're stupid and he slaps you on one cheek, you say, I can see you're angry today. Do you need to get a little more out? And you turn the other, I mean, right? This is Jesus. This is the most memorable teachings. And they were so, they sounded so stupid in his day. But that was the nature of the kingdom that he came to offer. But that was the nature of the kingdom that he came to offer. And now here it comes down to it. Israel's leaders have rejected Jesus and his offer of the kingdom. And it's not the way of peace.

And so Jesus said, that's what form this cup is going to take. It's going to take, Israel will choose what it wants, which is not the way of Jesus. It's the way that most humans take, which is violence, which is military revolt against people that you don't like or that have killed your people. And it's all going to come to a collusion as the cup of Rome's wrath is poured out on Jerusalem, which Jesus predicted two pages ago,

that the city would be destroyed and that Israel would drink the cup of God's wrath, which was the wrath of Rome. But it doesn't have to happen that way. And so Jesus in the garden, he reckons with this. He's like, I don't want to drink the cup. These people don't like me. They've rejected me. The Pharisees hate me, most of them. And like, I don't, I'm over it right now. I don't want to do this for them. That's how he feels. And then watch, he moves. He's on the same journey as the poem that he quotes from, but then he comes around the bend and he says, yeah, what I want is to not do this. But then he reminds himself with the words of his own prayer that he taught us,

but this is not about what I want. My life is not about what I want. I find myself caught up in this story of what God's doing, in his will, in his purpose. And so here's what I want, Father. I entrust what I want to what you want. And he lays it right there. I entrust what I want to what you want. And he lays it right there. And just imagine having to go through that. It's an hour. He's on his face, crying, weeping.

And he gets up and he walks over to the tree. And he returns to his disciples and what are they doing? Couldn't you guys stay awake with me for an hour he says then he asked peter peter sheesh man wake up you need to be on your face too because tonight your trial's coming too like your dark night of the soul is about to happen in a few hours and you're asleep. You need to be praying too so that you don't fall into temptation.

Using the words of his prayer again. The spirit is willing, Peter, but the flesh is weak. Even if everybody abandons you tonight, Jesus, not me, I got you. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, right, Peter. He went away a second time, back on his face, and he prayed.

My father, if it's not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done. Now, stop. Was that the same prayer? Look down. Was it the same prayer as the first time? It's different.

Did you see the difference? Look at the difference. It's really significant. The first time, it's all like, if it's possible, I don't want this, please take the cup away. Not what I want, but you want. But here's what I want, is to not do this. And do you see,

like, the second time of the prayer, he's moved forward. It's not possible for me to avoid this, is it? Okay. May your will be done. You can see this. He's beginning to reckon with his emotions. He's reckoning with his calling. And he's coming to terms with it. And he doesn't think that it's because the Father doesn't love him. He still calls him my Father. He's recognizing that he's being called to live out the upside-down kingdom that he's been talking about for all this time. He came back again, and he finds Peter and the others. Their eyes were heavy, that's why.

Look at that little detail. Why do you think they were sleeping? Because their eyes were heavy. I mean, of course they were. Right? The flesh is weak. You and I, my goodness. We think much too highly of ourselves, don't we?

So he left them and went away another time. He prayed a third time. He said all the same stuff. Look at this, you guys. This is Jesus. This is the same calm, confident Jesus who's the stability of the universe and this is his dark night of the soul.

He's a broken man. And he's facing the human condition. He's facing his existence as a whole human. And he's not learning anything new. His emotions are catching up to his brain. And this is so profound. I mean, this is so profound, you guys. There's the Jesus who gives his life for us. There's the Jesus who victoriously conquers death and sin on our behalf. There's the Jesus that comes to be personally present with all of his followers in Pentecost and the Spirit. But then there's this Jesus. And this is like weak, frail Jesus

who meets his greatest moment of fear and confusion and pain. And some of you know these nights, and I know it. Some of you have been through these nights before. And to me, the unbelievable power of this story is that Jesus, like our conviction is that he's God, become human. And God joins us in our dark nights of the soul. God joins us in this moment, in Jesus, in these moments where your world is unraveling, and your prayers hit the ceiling, and you're convinced that nobody's listening, and nobody cares, and everybody in your life is asleep on you. And you know,

some of you have been there, and some of you are there right now in your life. And the absolute power of this story is that it's not even that Jesus is with you. It's that when you're in those moments, you are with Jesus. Do you hear that? Like, Jesus is no stranger to the utter fear and pain of the human condition. He knows it, and I'd wager to say he actually knows it to a degree and a depth that few of us ever will. And this is also Jesus. He knows you, and he knows your story, and he's been there. But he moves through it.

Like everybody fails him, but Jesus doesn't fail. Because look, he emerges out of the garden, and look at this Jesus that emerges from the prayer. Verse 45, he went back to his disciples. You're still sleeping, aren't you guys? Verse 45, you're still sleeping and resting. The hour's come. The Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Let's get up, you guys. Let's go meet the moment. Here comes Judas. And it's calm, confident, resolute Jesus again.

Which doesn't mean that he doesn't have moments of doubt and struggle. It's somehow precisely through those moments that he becomes calm and confident once more. While he said the words, verse 47, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer, it's Judas, had arranged a signal with the crowd and the people armed with swords. The one that I kiss is the man, arrest him. It's normal Middle Eastern greeting, men kissing each other, so on. So there's the point. It's dark. It's not Hollywood. There's no brights on the garden, you know, or spotlights or anything.

So it's dark. There's just, you know, some torches. We're coming to arrest one person in a group of 13, you know, now in this garden. Which one is it? And so Judas arranges the signal, right? It's the greeting of welcome and hospitality. And the poetic irony here. It's unbelievable.

And look at Jesus' last words to Judas. Hey friend. Do what you've come for. Some of you have a different translation. Actually, I'm guessing there's multiple translations. What Jesus actually says here is really dense and ambiguous. He just says, friend, for what you've come.

Then the men stepped forward and they seized Jesus and they arrested him. Now, when that happened, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword. Who's that? Yeah, Matthew doesn't say who it is. The Gospel of John tells us it's Peter. Oh, Peter. Oh, Peter. Look at the contrast. He fails Jesus by doing nothing, falling asleep. Now he's awake, and he finally does something, and he fails Jesus again. Whether he does something or does nothing, he fails Jesus. He pulls out his sword, and he struck the servant of the high priest where? Now, I don't know if you've ever, you know, thought about that for 20 seconds, but

if you're, think of the moment. Do you think that's what he was aiming for? Like, really think about that. Do you think that's what he meant to do? Of course that's not what he meant to do. What was he aiming for? Clearly more of an angle, right? He's going for the guy's head. The head of whom? The servant of the high priest. So this is executive vice president, you know what I'm saying?

This is number two. This is executive assistant of the most important leader. So he goes right for the representative of number one in the group, and he can't even do that right. He can't even kill anybody, right? It's just, it's ridiculous. And this, this is one of the most important leaders of the early church. Peter visits your city and visits your brand new church, and then this story is read about him, and then he gets up to speak, you know? And you're just like, you're an idiot. Like, why would I listen to you, you know? And that is the story presented of the leaders of the early Christian movement. Absolute failures. And he doesn't fail because he didn't aim right, right? Look at Jesus

lays into him. Put it back, Peter. What do you think you're doing? Put your sword back in its place. Jesus said to him, for all who draw the sword die by the sword. Don't you think I can defend myself if I need to? Don't you think I can call my father? He would at once put at my disposal 12 legions of angels. But how then would the story of the prophets of Zechariah and Isaiah, how would all of that come to the moment of the king rejected by his people so that he can paradoxically save them? No, this is how it's supposed to happen, Peter. So Jesus, he's living the Sermon on the Mount right now, and Peter betrays him yet again

by doing exactly the opposite of what Jesus has been teaching his followers to do, By doing exactly the opposite of what Jesus has been teaching his followers to do. Which is to not kill your enemies. And he says, why? He just says, listen, man, you chop off that guy's head. You contribute and participate in the spiral. Right? The spiral of violence that breeds more hatred and revenge and violence. And it just does this.

And we call this human history. And the kingdom of God just cuts right through it. And it says it stops somewhere. It stops with the kingdom of God. And it stops here. In this moment of the kingdom of God confronting and exposing human evil for what it is by allowing evil to defeat him. I don't know if that sounds like a good idea to you, but that was Jesus' plan.

And he says, you're absolutely betraying everything that we stand for as you aim for that guy's head. Stop it. And then Jesus addresses the crowd. Verse 55. So you guys have come out here with swords and clubs to capture me like I'm a terrorist. He says I'm leading rebellion. But that's what he means. Like I'm a military violent threat to our city and our people.

I think every day of the last week, I've been out in public in the temple courts teaching people, love God, love your neighbor. And you guys didn't see fit to arrest me then, but you are now in this way. But this has all taken place so that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.

This is the last time Jesus will speak up for himself. And really, it's not even to defend himself, it's just to expose the absurdity of what's happening in this moment. And look at the last line of this scene. Read it yourself. What do all of the disciples do?

They desert him and they flee. The story began with all of them saying, no, we're with you, Jesus, to the end, the bitter end. We got your back. You can count on us. And the whole story culminates in all of them doing exactly the opposite. They betray Jesus by their apathy and their inaction. They betray Jesus by the actions that they do take,

and they eventually just betray and abandon him altogether. They flee to save their own lives. How are you guys doing? This story is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. Try and think of a religious movement or political movement, whatever, that has as a part of its foundation documents

portraying the absolute failure and lack of integrity of its most important leaders. It's so incredible. And the point isn't just to like make, you know, be down on them. Like they're going to grow and get better at this following Jesus thing. And they go on to do really incredible things. But there's something about camping out and highlighting this paradox of the utter failure of Jesus' disciples contrasted with Jesus. He comes out as strong and consistent and confident as he has been, but he does it precisely through this total moment of being broken and weakness. And even Jesus isn't, you know, he's not Genghis Khan, you know. He's not Muhammad. He's different. He's a human. And he knows pain, and he knows grief, and he's overtaken by his

emotions, and he doesn't want to have to do what he knows needs to be done for us. But there's something driving him that we look at him and we like Jesus' stability in the universe for us. It's his love. It's his absolute confidence

in the Father's love and commitment to him, that even though the horror of drinking this cup, it will kill him. And he trusts with all his being that death won't have the final word, and that he's going to meet up again in Galilee with these same failures, and we're going to reboot the story and try again. It is exactly what happens. What does this mean for us? And what does it mean for us to have a time where we pray and worship and take the bread and the cup together? Two things come to mind, and it's these two contrasting portraits of Jesus as the rock that shatters and

then is put together again, and then the leaders of the early Christian movement being highlighted as absolute failures. There's a comfort and a realism here. Like, who are we? You know, there's hundreds of thousands of communities of Jesus followers gathering today, all over the planet, billions of people. And what are we doing? And who do we think that we are? And we're setting ourselves up for huge shattered expectations if our faith and our hope is in us?

The local church is a sacred, vital part of being a follower of Jesus. I don't think it's possible to actually grow and mature as a follower of Jesus without committing yourself to a local community of his disciples and people committing themselves to you. But at the same time, this movement is not called churchianity, is it? Right? You're not a churchian, right? You're a Christian. You're a follower of Jesus, and we're part of the movement of Jesus' spirit and people. And so there's something really important there to recognize. Like, it's absolutely vital that we go to the garden together and that we, like, open up our failures and allow our failures to be exposed and challenged by each other

so that we can grow. And we should probably see a pattern of less failure and less betrayal of Jesus as time goes on. I think we should be optimistic and pray and hope for that, that Jesus' Spirit will do that in us. But at the end of the day, our hope is not, my hope is not in you, and your hope's not in me,

because I'm like Peter, and so are you. And I'm like Matthew, and so are you. Like, at our best, Jesus' followers sometimes get it right. And that's not a scandal. It's actually so important, a part of who we are as followers of Jesus, that let's write that story into our foundation documents. You know what I'm saying? That's remarkable that Paul the Apostle, the most successful church planter of the first decades of the church,

nears the end of his life, and all he can do is just say, you know what, at the end of the day, I just can't believe that Jesus loves me because I'm like the worst person you'll ever meet. He calls himself the chief of sinners. And that's near the end of his life, a whole journey of being faithful to Jesus. And he's like, yeah, I'm not that great of a guy. And that's unique. That's unique to the Jesus movement. And we're close to the heartbeat of the thing. That this isn't about self-loathing and hating ourselves, whatever, but it is about recognizing we're a community of the weak. And that we're a community that creates space for us to fail so that we can grow together. And if we don't, the moment that we start idolizing each other or setting the church up as the thing that

makes my faith in Jesus stable for me, there's just a healthy sense of awareness of how frail all of this is. You guys with me? But Jesus isn't frail. He has his dark night of the soul, but he passed the test. Peter didn't. I usually don't. But Jesus did.

And my hope and my faith is in Jesus. And it's precisely his love and his commitment that drove him through his most lonely moment of agony and pain. Why did he do that? Because he loves me and because he knows the Father loves him and because he knows that the Father loves me and loves you and loves our world.

So I don't know what you need to hear from this. Maybe there's a failure you need to bring to Jesus when we take the bread and the cup. And you need to come like Peter is going to come, you know, after all this goes down. And come with repentance and humility, knowing that Jesus will embrace you. Some of us might have other things that we need to work through. Some of us might just simply need to know that Jesus is kneeling alongside,

that you are kneeling alongside Jesus as you go through your dark night of the soul. This story is unbelievable, and I trust that the Spirit will take it and bury it deep in our minds and hearts. Thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible. We'll be back with another episode next time, exploring the gospel according to Matthew.

So we'll see you then.