Mark 14:27-50 — Strike the Shepherd

FRANK EDWARDS: "He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name." Tonight in Mark, the sheep are certain they can find their own way, and every one of them loses it. The Shepherd walks the right path alone, on his face in a garden. And the last words of that line, for the sake of His name, turn out to be the only reason any of the sheep come home. LINDA BROWN: Welcome to Dig Deeper. I'm Linda Brown, here with Frank Edwards, and this is step twelve of our sixteen steps through Psalm 23. Last time Jesus and the Twelve sang a hymn and walked out to the Mount of Olives after the Last Supper. Today picks up on the way there. Mark chapter fourteen, verses twenty-seven to fifty. Then Jesus said to them, "You will all fall away, 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 never will." "Truly I tell you," Jesus replied, "this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times." But Peter kept insisting, "Even if I have to die with You, I will never deny You." And all the others said the same thing. Then they came to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus told His disciples, "Sit here while I pray." He took with Him Peter, James, and John, and began to be deeply troubled and distressed. Then He said to them, "My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch." Going a little farther, He fell to the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour would pass from Him. "Abba, Father," He said, "all things are possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will." Then Jesus returned and found them sleeping. "Simon, are you asleep?" He asked. "Were you not able to keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak." Again He went away and prayed, saying the same thing. And again Jesus returned and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And they did not know what to answer Him. When Jesus returned the third time, He said, "Are you still sleeping and resting? That is enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. See, My betrayer is approaching!" While Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, scribes, and elders. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: "The One I kiss is the man; arrest Him and lead Him away securely." Going directly to Jesus, he said, "Rabbi!" and kissed Him. Then the men seized Jesus and arrested Him. And one of the bystanders drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Jesus asked the crowd, "Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me as you would an outlaw? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest Me. But this has happened that the Scriptures would be fulfilled." Then everyone deserted Him and fled. FRANK EDWARDS: On step four we heard that "paths" in Psalm 23:3 is ma'gal, a track worn into the ground. The verb "guides" is nachah, the word Exodus 13 uses for the pillar of cloud: "the LORD went before them in a pillar of cloud to guide their way." A guide who goes in front. Tonight that picture is everywhere, and it starts with the first sentence Jesus says on the road. LINDA BROWN: "I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." That is a quotation, isn't it? FRANK EDWARDS: From Zechariah 13, and in Zechariah it is the LORD himself who gives the order: "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, against the man who is My Companion." The Father's own Shepherd, struck by the Father's own decree. And what happens to sheep without a shepherd is what always happens. They scatter. Isaiah 53 says that is the human condition anyway: "We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way." LINDA BROWN: Even before they scatter, though, he tells them where to find him. "But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee." FRANK EDWARDS: The verb is proago, to go on ahead, and it is the picture of a shepherd walking in front of his flock. Jesus uses the image himself in John 10: "he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice." He names the road back before they have even run off it. That is what a guide does, and it is the first sign tonight that the psalm line is going to hold. LINDA BROWN: Peter does not want a road back, though. He says, "Even if all fall away, I never will." And Luke records that Jesus had already told him, "I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." Jesus planned for Peter's return before Peter had even fallen. FRANK EDWARDS: Peter trusts his own sense of direction. Then he says it again, louder: "Even if I have to die with You, I will never deny You." And Mark adds, "all the others said the same thing." Jeremiah 10 has a sentence for that moment: "I know, O LORD, that a man's way is not his own; no one who walks directs his own steps." Proverbs 14 is blunter: "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." LINDA BROWN: Then they reach Gethsemane. Where was it? FRANK EDWARDS: John says Jesus "went out with His disciples across the Kidron Valley, where they entered a garden," on the slope facing the temple. Gethsemane means oil press, so it was likely an olive grove. John adds that Judas "knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with His disciples." It was Passover, so the moon was full. Two people were leading others to that garden that night. Jesus led his friends there to pray. Judas was leading an armed crowd to the same spot. LINDA BROWN: Mark describes Jesus there in strong words. "Deeply troubled and distressed." Hebrews 5 remembers that hour too: he "offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death." FRANK EDWARDS: Deeply troubled is a word only Mark uses in the New Testament, a word for being overwhelmed with alarm. Then Jesus says, "My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death." On step ten we heard that "consumed with sorrow" is used in Mark only for Herod at his banquet and for Jesus here. Herod's sorrow gave way to his guests. Jesus' sorrow is about to give way to his Father. LINDA BROWN: Then the prayer itself. "Abba, Father," He said, "all things are possible for You. Take this cup from Me." FRANK EDWARDS: Abba is the Aramaic word a child used for his father, and Mark keeps it untranslated. Jesus does not hide what he wants. Then comes the sentence that turns the night: "Yet not what I will, but what You will." There is the path of righteousness, walked by the Shepherd himself. David prayed in Psalm 143, "Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God. May Your good Spirit lead me on level ground." In the garden, the Son of David prays it at the edge of the hardest ground there is. LINDA BROWN: So the Shepherd who guides his sheep on the right path is first a Shepherd who chooses it himself. FRANK EDWARDS: Your point is the heart of the episode. Paul says in Romans 5, "just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." The paths of righteousness are open to the sheep because the Shepherd walked them in their place. Hebrews 5 says, "Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered." LINDA BROWN: Then the last words of the psalm line. "For the sake of His name." David asks for exactly that in Psalm 31: "lead me and guide me for the sake of Your name." How do those words fit a garden at night? FRANK EDWARDS: On step four we heard that when God acts for the sake of his name, he acts in keeping with who he is. Psalm 106 says he saved Israel "for the sake of His name." John's Gospel records Jesus a few days before this, facing the same hour: "Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? No, it is for this purpose that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name!" The path was chosen for the Father's name. Gethsemane is that prayer prayed on the ground. LINDA BROWN: Meanwhile the disciples keep falling asleep. Three times he comes back and finds them sleeping. He asked only three of them to stay close, the same three who saw him on the mountain, and even they could not keep their eyes open. FRANK EDWARDS: Look how gently he speaks to Peter. "Simon, are you asleep? Were you not able to keep watch for one hour?" He calls him Simon, his old name, not Peter, the rock. Then, "Watch and pray so that you will not enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak." He is not mocking them. He knows the sheep cannot keep themselves on the path for even one hour. Mark adds, "they did not know what to answer Him." LINDA BROWN: Then he wakes them a final time. "Rise, let us go. See, My betrayer is approaching!" FRANK EDWARDS: Even now the Shepherd walks in front. He does not wait to be dragged out of the garden. He leads his friends out to meet the crowd. And at the head of the crowd is Judas, with "swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, scribes, and elders." He had arranged a signal: "The One I kiss is the man." He greets Jesus with "Rabbi!" and a kiss, the sign of a disciple greeting his teacher. LINDA BROWN: Someone draws a sword. Mark calls him "one of the bystanders," but John says it was Peter. FRANK EDWARDS: Peter, choosing his own path again. John 18 even names the servant, Malchus. Jesus tells Peter, "Put your sword back in its sheath! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given Me?" In Mark, Jesus says to the crowd, "But this has happened that the Scriptures would be fulfilled." The road was laid out long before the garden, and the Shepherd keeps to it. LINDA BROWN: John records one more thing Jesus said at the arrest. "So if you are looking for Me, let these men go." FRANK EDWARDS: Then John explains, "This was to fulfill the word He had spoken: 'I have not lost one of those You have given Me.'" Earlier that same night, in his prayer in John 17, Jesus had said, "I protected and preserved them by Your name." For the sake of His name, and by His name, he guards the sheep even as he is being taken. LINDA BROWN: And then the line that ends the reading. "Then everyone deserted Him and fled." FRANK EDWARDS: Every one of them, exactly as he said. If the Shepherd's guidance depended on the sheep, the story would end here. It does not, because of the last words of Psalm 23:3. For the sake of His name. David prays in Psalm 25, "For the sake of Your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, for it is great." And Peter, who ran that night, later wrote to scattered believers, "you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." Hear Jesus' promise again, and then the psalm. "But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee." He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name. [long pause] LINDA BROWN: For a way to take this into an ordinary week, the Apply This Today section in the app picks it up. Next time, Mark fifteen and the cross: darkness at noon, the cry of the forsaken, and the end of verse four, "Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." FRANK EDWARDS: Dig Deeper is a free app, and you can find it at dig deeper dot A I. LINDA BROWN: Thanks for listening, and for keeping watch in Gethsemane today.