An Unbearable Burden
Mark 14:26-42
She is the most famous celebrity whose name you don’t know: the actress who plays Flo in all those Progressive commercials. Yes, she is a real person.
As told in the New York Times, Flo, whose real name is Stephanie Courtney, was once a struggling comedian trying to make it big, sending in tapes of her performances to Saturday Night Live. Driving to failed auditions in a car that didn’t go in reverse – and unable to pay to get it fixed. She eventually landed a small role for an insurance ad as a cashier.
Fast forward to today and her comedy career is still non-existent, but she makes millions of dollars a year doing what she never wanted to do for a living. Courtney may have more zeros at the end of her pay check, but her story is far from unique. Youthful aspirations so often erode into some version of settling with the hand life (and God?) has dealt you.
NYT reporter Caity Weaver asked, “Who has a better job than you?” Courtney said, “There are times when I ask myself that. The miserable me who didn’t get to audition for ‘S.N.L.’ never would have known, how good life could be when she was denied what she wanted. I hope that’s coming through. I’m screaming it in your face.”[i]
Why do we pray? Do we pray to praise and glorify God and show our gratitude for all God has done? Yes! Do we pray because we or someone we know is facing a challenging situation and we’re asking God to act on their behalf – so we pray for healing, or strength, or provision. Of course! The Bible tells us that there is no reason too great, or too tiny and insignificant, to bring to God in prayer. But there’s a type of prayer that many of us find ourselves unable or unwilling to pray – the prayer of surrender.
One of the primary reasons to pray is to surrender our wills, our selves, our plans, and our desires to God and to his will. And that gets really difficult when God is asking me to let him lead me through the valley of the shadow of death. When I’m fairly certain that the way God is leading me is going to cost me greatly, require sacrifice or the lifting of a heavy burden. When God asks me to let him lead me through the most difficult and challenging circumstances I can imagine, trusting that God has purpose in it. When the burden feels unbearable. The prayer of surrender is one of the most difficult, excruciating prayers to pray. But its also the kind of prayer that leads to joy in the midst of even the worst trials, and freedom and peace in the most trying circumstances.
Turn with me to Mark 14:26-42. Let’s join Jesus and his disciples on the way to, and in, the Garden of Gethsemane. We’re going to start with Vv. 26-31.
Pride, arrogance, and a sense of self-sufficiency are the opposite of surrender. Jesus has again made it clear to his disciples that the coming days are going to be the most trying that any of them have faced in their lives. Everything they thought they knew about who Jesus was and what he was about was going to be obliterated. Any remaining hope of a militant messiah who would lead them in an uprising to miraculously defeat Rome was going to be swept away. In fact, their lives were going to be in danger because of their association with Jesus.
And they appear to have accepted that. They claim to be ready to die alongside Jesus. So when Jesus tells them that they will all fall away, they’re adamant that they will not. They double down on self-confidence.
Do you think you can handle the temptation to give in or give up on just the strength of your own will-power? If so, you’re probably setting yourself up for a crash. That’s not just advice from the Bible. It also comes from current scientific research.
Dr. Loran Nordgren, a senior lecturer at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, ran a series of experiments that placed college students in “tempting situations” to smoke, eat junk food, or forgo studying. The research found that we often display what’s called a “restraint bias.” Basically, it means we think we’re emotionally and mentally stronger than we actually are. When we’re not in the heat of the moment – tempted to give in, quit, or flee – we tend to overestimate how much self-control we have. Our “restraint bias” causes us to think that we can handle more temptation than we actually can. Dr. Nordgren warned that “Those who are most confident about their self-control are the most likely to give in to temptation.”
How do we deal with out deluded sense of self-control? Dr. Nordgren, who works for a secular university, offered some biblically sound advice: “The key is simply to avoid any situations where vices and other weaknesses thrive and, most importantly, for individuals to keep a humble view of their willpower.”[ii]
Peter actually places himself above the other disciples. In fact, he seems to assume that they WILL fail. “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” Your words may be true of them Jesus, but not me. “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.’ And they all said the same.” They think they have what it takes. And they still see themselves, surrounded by enemies, standing shoulder to shoulder and back to back with Jesus, fighting a physical battle for Israel. They’re still full of self, and as long as we’re full of self, we can’t surrender ourselves into the will of God. To do that, we have to die to self.
Now, look at Vv. 32-36. Gethsemane simply means “olive press.” It was an olive grove at the base of the Mount of Olives. And there in the grove, Jesus stops, and asks his disciples to wait while he goes further in to pray. And then he takes Peter, James, and John with him, and that’s significant, and goes further into the grove. He stops again, asking them to stay there and watch, while he goes further on, falls to the ground in anguish, and prays a prayer of surrender.
Mark tells us that Jesus went “a little farther” before falling on the ground and praying. Peter, James, and John can see and hear him. It was actually almost universally prayed aloud in the ancient world. So this prayer is likely pretty much what Jesus actually said, as heard by these three men. Three men who had made bold predictions about their ability to stay faithful to Jesus when things fell apart. Much more so than any of the others.
We’ve just heard Peter say that while all the others might fall away, he most certainly would not. Earlier in his ministry, James and John had approached Jesus, daring to ask that they be seated on his right and left in his coming kingdom. Those were positions of honor and glory. They were trying to one-up Peter, who had a tendency to brag and want more influence and position than the others. They were also doing what Peter tended to do, trying to place themselves above the rest of the group. So Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup that he was going to have to drink. He was referring to a symbolic “cup of suffering” often talked about by the Old Testament prophets. And they said they would certainly be able to drink any cup that he had to drink. And they knew the symbolism. They knew he wasn’t talking about a physical cup.
So Jesus takes the three who tended to be the most arrogant, the most full of themselves, with him further. He wants them to face the reality of what was coming, to see what true surrender to the will of God looks like. He wants them to acknowledge the frailty of their human resolve. These three had been alone with Jesus when amazing things happened before. They were the only ones with him in the home of Jairus the first time he raised someone from the dead, when he raised Jairus’ daughter. They were the only ones with him on the Mount of Transfiguration, where they saw Jesus in his unfiltered heavenly glory. And now they were the only ones with him here to witness the depth of his agony at what was to come. His directive was quite simple: Stay awake. Watch.
And then he moves a short distance away, falls to the ground, and pours his heart out to God in a prayer of surrender. His request is simple: take this cup from me. Jesus, facing the fullness of what was to come, had come to the end of himself and there was a part of him, a really strong part of him in the moment, that said “I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this.” And he asked God to figure out another way. He wasn’t questioning God’s goal. But as he faced the fullness of the cross, his physical and spiritual death and separation from the Father – in other words, hell, he found that he was struggling to follow through.
The prayer of surrender begins not with pride but with humility. It begins with, “God, this is more than I can bear. I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. Please, is there another way?” Unlike his disciples, who in pride and arrogance believed they were fully able to handle whatever was about to be thrown at them, Jesus confesses that there was a very real part of him that would rather not walk the path God was leading him toward. The path that was the reason he had come. The path that every event in his life had been moving him toward. The path he had been resolutely striding toward for years, preparing his disciples for for years. And yet, when he stared it in the face, a part of him didn’t want to walk it.
Why? Mark doesn’t tell us. Pastors and scholars have been offering suggestions for centuries. But the Bible is silent on the issue. Was it the weight of the burden – the sin and rebellion of every human soul that had ever lived or would ever live being placed on him? Was it the unbearable physical suffering that he would have to endure – a level of suffering that would kill many men before they made it to their execution? Was it the thought of enduring something no human soul had yet had to endure – separation from the presence of God? It could have been any of those things. It was probably all of them.
But he doesn’t stop with just, “Father, please, remove this. Find another way.” He goes on. “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” The prayer of surrender begins with humility. But it is also a prayer of hope and confidence in God. “If this is the path I must walk, I will submit to your plan.” If this is the only way, I’ll do it. I will submit myself to you in this, regardless of the cost to me. Regardless of the pain I must face. Even if it costs me everything. Even if it costs me my life.
Here’s the thing: Jesus would walk this path alone. Jesus would face the justice of God on behalf of every broken sinner who ever lived (and that’s all of us) truly alone. And its because he faced it alone that we don’t have to. Jesus faced death apart from God. We don’t have to. Because of Jesus, there is no part of even the most difficult, challenging, excruciating path that God may lead us to that we have to walk alone. He will walk with us through it all. Even through death and into the presence of the Father.
Humility and then surrender. That is the essence of the prayer of surrender. If this is the path I must walk, I will walk it, knowing that unlike you, I will not face one step of it alone.
Now, look what happens next. Look at Vv. 37-42. The focus shifts from the details of Jesus’ prayer to the state of the disciples. Jesus goes to his disciples and finds them asleep. The three of them are asleep, but he addresses Peter. Now, look at what Mark does here. “And he said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you asleep?’” Mark reminds us that Peter, the disciple formerly known as Simon, has a new identity. He is no longer Simon, a reed. He is now Peter, the rock. But he emphasizes something here. The words “Peter” and “Simon” appear right next to one another. He’s supposed to be Peter, living in a new identity in the kingdom of God. But Jesus calls him “Simon.” He isn’t living in his new identity.
He’s supposed to be watching. Not so much physically but spiritually. He’s supposed to be learning from Jesus as he prays. He’s supposed to be spiritually awake and alert. He’s just said he would never fall away from Jesus. He can’t even stay awake while his Lord is obviously in mental and emotional agony. They’ve never seen Jesus in this much emotional pain. They should have been paying attention, but they weren’t. He was supposed to be Peter. He was being Simon. A foreshadowing of things to come, and for the three of them, a warning. “Don’t be so full of yourselves. Don’t be so arrogant. Approach what is to come humbly, aware of your tendency to fail.” He reminds Peter of what he is, unfortunately, capable of. “Simon …” Even though he’s now Peter. Only as he dies to himself and submits himself to the Father can he go through life as Peter. In Luke 9:23-24, Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” That’s a call to pray the prayer of surrender. Deny yourself. What does the self want? “Remove this cup from me.” And take up your cross. “Yet now what I will, but what you will.” And then go where Jesus is leading you, knowing that he’s right there, leading you.
There’s grace in the heart of Jesus as he keeps coming back to them, finding them asleep. If they can’t even stay awake while he’s in agony, how do they think they’ll stick with him when lives are on the line? He’s inviting them to crucify their pride and arrogance and take a humble look at themselves.
Now, look at what happens next. Look at V. 42. Jesus has surrendered himself fully to the will of the Father. He is willing to go where the Father leads, regardless of the cost to himself. And in his case, the cost would be the highest price ever paid – facing death without the presence and support of the Father. A broken trinity. But he moves TOWARD it. “Let us be going.” Literally, it reads “Let’s meet them.” He meets the challenge head on. He moves forward, following the Father’s reading. He’s surrendered, and he will follow.
Friends, churches are full of people willing to follow Jesus across sun-kissed meadows and along shaded garden paths. But those who will follow him where they don’t want to go? Through the valley of the shadow of death? Surrendering their plans, their hopes, their dreams for their lives to the Father? There are a lot fewer of those. That’s what it means to follow Jesus, by the way. Here’s the thing. It is in the valley of the shadow of death, following Jesus to places you don’t necessarily WANT to go, that you find life. Joy. Peace. The peace that passes understanding is only possible in settings in which having peace doesn’t make sense to someone living outside the kingdom of God. In cancer wards. In poor neighborhoods. On dangerous streets. In dangerous places.
Earlier this week I was driving into town and there was a car in front of me that had a sticker in the back window that had a palm tree on it, and under the palm tree it said “No bad days.” Good luck with that. I have a sticker on the back window of my truck too. It has the handprint of a little boy on it along with the date of his birth, and the date of his death with and the words “Touched by Zeke.” The handprint is his. That sticker says, “There are bad days.” Really bad days. Really bad weeks. Really bad months. Really bad years. We live in a godforsaken world that bears the mark of Good Friday still.
When we face the darkness, when we are overcome with agony, anger, and fear, when we’re alone and facing the silence of God; when we cry out with Jesus “Why God?” our story merges with his story. Jesus faced the darkest of dark moments so that, when we feel like we’re abandoned and alone and barely hanging on, in a silence that is very real God is holding us in a firm grip that will not fail. Let us pray.
[i] Adapted from Todd Brewer, “Flo Settles for Contentment,” Mockingbird (12-12-23); Caity Weaver, “Everybody Knows Flo From Progressive. Who Is Stephanie Courtney?” The New York Times (11-25-23)
[ii] Jeanna Bryner, “Temptation Harder to Resist Than You Think, Study Suggests,” Live Science (8-3-09)
