Sermon for Holy Monday
+ Mark 14:1-15:47 +
Let’s focus for a moment this evening on Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. As Jesus told His disciples there in the Garden, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. All alone the Son of God would bear the sins of the world. Before He does it, before He can do it, there’s something He must do: He has to pray. He prays: Abba, Father. “Abba” is just “Father” in Aramaic, the first language spoken by Jews at that time. St. Mark otherwise wrote in Greek, but here is this little Aramaic word thrown in to give us a vivid glimpse of Gethsemane, the first word that poured from Jesus’ lips, straight from the heart, in the agony of His soul. “Abba.” Father. No matter how painful the cross, no matter how difficult was the task before Him, Jesus knew that nothing could happen that was outside of the will and permission of His Father, who had declared twice that He was well-pleased with His beloved Son. So Jesus knows His prayer will be heard and will be pleasing to His Father, because it is uttered in faith. Abba, Father.
St. Paul writes to the Roman Christians, You received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit of Jesus who lives in you enables you to pray just like Jesus, because you have been clothed with Him in Holy Baptism. So turn to your Father! Don’t neglect this beautiful gift called prayer! Jesus, the very Son of God, couldn’t go on, couldn’t face the cross without it. Don’t imagine for a moment that you can.
All things are possible for You, Jesus prayed. That’s at the heart of every prayer, or it should be: that God has the power to do anything, from small to big, from simple to miraculous. It’s possible for God to make the sun stand still in the sky. Or to cause the storm to be stilled, or to make the dead rise. Surely it was possible for God the Father to thwart the betrayal of Judas and the plans of the murderous Jews. Surely He could save His Son from condemnation and from crucifixion and from death.
Take this cup away from Me. This cup, this course upon which Jesus had been placed by His Father, was, of course, the very reason why Jesus had taken on human flesh in the first place. This course of betrayal, condemnation, crucifixion and death had been laid out for the Son of God since before the foundations of the world were laid. The Scriptures had to be fulfilled, and Jesus knew it. Indeed, Jesus had just a short time ago blessed the cup of the New Testament in His blood, which He had already given to His disciples to drink. He knew this cup was already poured out for Him. And yet still He prays, “Take it away from Me.”
Jesus earnestly prayed, “Take this cup away from Me.” But He just as earnestly added: Nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will. Jesus wouldn’t put the cup down without His Father’s permission. See, there are levels of willing or wanting. You may want, on some level, to be at home right now resting or getting housework done. But more than that, you wanted to come here to hear the Word of Christ. So, too, Jesus wanted to avoid the cross. But more than that, He wanted to do His Father’s will, to obey His Father, to serve His Father, and in the process, to serve us.
In the same way, the Father didn’t want His Son to suffer. But even more than that, He didn’t want us sinners to suffer eternally for our sins. He preferred our eternal salvation to saving Jesus from the cross. And so St. Paul can write: He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? Because Jesus yielded to His Father’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane, the answer to that question is, No one! Amen.
