Rejected and Abandoned

Mark 14:43-72

Fear is a very powerful motivator. If we let it, fear can cause us to do things we might never in a million years think we were capable of doing – abandon a friend; lie, cheat, or steal; hurt someone; take a life. Or it can paralyze us. Stop us from doing something we know we should do.

Gary Haugen is the founder of International Justice Mission, a Christian organization that frees people trapped in sex trafficking. As he planned to launch the now global ministry, he was almost paralyzed by fear. He says:

I vividly remember when I finally had to make a decision to abandon my career at the U.S. Department of Justice to become the first employee of a not-for-profit organization that didn’t yet actually exist called International Justice Mission. I had worked for three years with friends on the idea of IJM and was very excited, in theory, about this dream of following Jesus in the work of justice in the world. But then I had to actually act. I had to walk into the Department of Justice and turn in my badge …. I tried to be very brave and very safe. That is to say, I walked in and asked my bosses for a yearlong leave of absence …. My bosses politely declined.

I was suddenly feeling very nervous …. What was I really afraid of? As I thought about it, I feared humiliation. If my little justice ministry idea didn’t work, no one was going to die. If IJM turned out to be a bad idea and collapsed, my kids weren’t going to starve. We’d probably just have to live with my parents for a while until I could find another job, but with my education, odds are I would soon find a job. The fact is, I would be terribly embarrassed. Having told everybody about my great idea, they would know that it was a bad idea or that I was a bad leader. Either way, it would be humiliating.

So there it was. My boundary of fear. I sensed God inviting me to an extraordinary adventure of service, but deep inside I was afraid of looking like a fool and a loser. This was actually very helpful to see, because it helped me get past it. When I am [older], do I really want to look back and say, Yeah, I sensed that God was calling me to lead a movement to bring rescue to people who desperately need an advocate in the world, but I was afraid of getting embarrassed and so I never even tried?[i]

Now, don’t get me wrong. It is completely normal to feel afraid at times. If you never feel afraid, there’s something wrong with you. Healthy fear is supposed to keep us from doing dumb things, keep us alive. But when fear keeps us from doing what we know we should do, even though we know it’s going to cost us, it becomes a problem. Turn with me to Mark 14:43-72. We’ll start with Vv. 43-52.

Things are moving fast now, and Mark makes sure we understand this. Jesus has been praying in the Garden of Gethsemane with Peter, James, and John close by. The rest of the disciples were there too, but a little bit farther off. He’s been wrestling with the fullness of what God was asking him to do. The weight of it all. The coming physical, emotional, and spiritual agony he would have to endure.

In his humanity, he shrank from the coming storm. He asked God, pleaded with God, that the storm might pass without harming him, if there another way for the Father to accomplish the purpose for which the Son came, he was all for it. But if no other way was possible, he would walk headlong into this storm. “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet now what I will, but what you will.” As Jesus prayed that prayer, he surrendered himself to the will of God and then, gathering his disciples, he walked resolutely toward the approaching storm. “Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

And then Mark tells us, “Immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came …” No time for us to catch our breath. No time for a scene change. No break. No pause. Just … “Immediately, while he was still speaking …”

Judas approaches with the greeting and customary kiss of a disciple who has been away and is rejoining his rabbi. It is a greeting of affection and respect. The irony is that this is anything but an affectionate, respectful greeting. It’s his pre-arranged signal to the temple guard with him so that they’d know which one to arrest and drag back to the home of the high priest.

Jesus’ words as they seize him are telling. Look at Vv. 48-49. Historically, the Christian church, in all of its forms, has celebrated Holy Week – the week leading up to Easter, and Easter itself, over the course of a single week, beginning on Palm Sunday and ending with Easter. But in reality, Jesus was more likely in Jerusalem for at least a couple of weeks before his arrest. And he makes it clear that while he had been laying low at night, staying with friends in a nearby village, not in Jerusalem itself, he had been teaching in the temple courts every day.

They could have easily arrested him then, but they feared the people. They didn’t want to cause a riot that would blow up in their faces if the people sought to have Jesus set free. Not until they could shape the narrative first. They needed to do some things behind closed doors, out of the sight of the people, before parading Jesus to what they hoped would be his execution.

So they arrest him at night, in an olive grove while he prays. The one who had fed the hungry, healed the sick and the lame, touched lepers, cast out demons, and who had never committed a single act of violence, is arrested at night, under cover of darkness and while most people slept, by a group sent by the religious leaders, armed with clubs and swords.

Oh, one of the disciples did strike out. Mark only mentions that someone cut off the ear of one of the high priest’s personal servants. Others tell us that it was Peter who struck, and that Jesus told Peter firmly to stay his sword as he healed the man who was there to arrest him.

And it was there that the last vestiges of hope that Jesus would unite the people in an uprising against Rome died, for surely if there was going to be an uprising, this was the moment. If Peter struck out now, he would strike the first blow in Israel’s march toward freedom. But there would be no political or military uprising. That isn’t why Jesus came. Only the command to sheath his sword and a man’s ear healed.

And that’s when they all fled. Peter, who had said he was willing to die beside Jesus. James and John, who said they would be able to drink the cup Jesus would have to drink. The other disciples, who had echoed Peter’s willingness to die beside him. Even an unnamed young man, who, when seized by his linen garment, slipped out of the garment and ran away naked.

We don’t know for sure who this young man was, but because it has the ring of an eyewitness account, tradition from the earliest of church fathers says that it was Mark himself, who we know grew up in Jerusalem. According to that tradition, it was in the home of Mark that Jesus and his disciples had just eaten the Passover meal, what we call the “last supper.”

Regardless, they’re all gone. Jesus is now alone. They couldn’t overcome their fear, and they fled. Jesus had refused to be created in their image, live up to their version of what the messiah should be, from the beginning of his ministry. When uncertainty hit, when the inconceivable happened, they ran. Jesus had been preparing them for this moment, but they’d been spiritually asleep, a reality seen most clearly in Gethsemane.

But they’d been asleep at the wheel for pretty much all of Jesus’ public ministry – consistently misunderstanding. Constantly missing the point. Not because they were bad, but because what God was doing was so incredibly different than what anyone expected that they struggled to wrap their minds around it all. That’s the thing about life in the kingdom of God. It is the opposite of pretty much everything this world stands for. As the uncertainty they experienced in this moment overwhelmed them, fear enveloped them, and they fled. How we handle uncertainty often dictates how we respond to fear.

Author Elizabeth L. Silver wrote a very personal memoir called  The Tincture of Time. It is about her then baby daughter’s stroke at six weeks and the trauma and uncertainty for a full year before she recovered.

She also spoke to many people during the pandemic and found their biggest concern was fear – not of illness, financial loss, or death, but living with uncertainty. She also interviewed many people living with various diseases – living with medical uncertainty.

This is what she learned:

How we approach uncertainty in our health is a litmus test for how we approach life. Uncertainty is living outside of life and within it. It is the baseline of experience, of joy, of energy, of possibility, of fear. And uncertainty – especially in a pandemic – reflects how we as a society and we as individuals are.

She contrasts how most people deal with a medical crisis compared to doctors and nurses. Talking to non-medical people she “asked each person for the first word that came to mind when they hear the phrase ‘uncertainty in medicine.’ The overwhelming response was ‘fear’ or ‘blindness’ or ‘powerlessness.’”

Yet when she asked scientists and health care professionals the same question, their first response was “challenge” or “reality.” The difference was that they understood and expected this uncertainty; it is part of their professional worldview, and it is no different now. Health professionals and experts know that we don’t know much about this novel coronavirus. “The difficulty now lies in convincing the rest of us that uncertainty is something we can and must live with.”[ii]

Now, look at what happens next. Look at Vv. 53-65. Jesus undergoes a sham of a trial, a kangaroo court. This trial isn’t happening in the light of day for all to see. There’s no transparency here. It’s happening at night, behind closed doors, shrouded in darkness and secrecy.

Now look! Look carefully at Vv. 60-62. Jesus’ silence forces the high priest to make an unwitting confession. To admit a truth he’d rather deny. He asks Jesus point blank, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” That’s just another way of saying “The Son of God.” He didn’t ask “Do you claim to be the Christ …” He asked, “ARE YOU the Christ?” Are you the messiah? His question is an unintentional confession. Jesus need only answer “I am.”

And then they spit on him. Blindfolded him and struck him. The guards pummeled him. An imprisoned, abandoned, helpless messiah was inconceivable to … everyone. It was as inconceivable to his disciples who loved him as it was to the high priest and other religious leaders who were now beating him. To the disciples, it seemed evidence that they had been wrong. To the high priest, it was evidence that he was a sham. A bound messiah? Bloodied and beaten? They saw it as evidence that it was all a farce. But it wasn’t. Somehow, the words of the prophet Isaiah, which they knew well, didn’t figure in.

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? (Isaiah 53:5-8).

This passage was happening right in front of them, and no one could see it. They understood it as a messianic prophecy, and it was happening right there, and they couldn’t, or more likely wouldn’t allow themselves to see it. Bloodied and beaten in battle with Rome? Sure. But by them? By us? THAT didn’t compute. He endured a kangaroo court, lies and false accusations, abuse … as the first steps toward the cross for you and for me. The one who died in our place to satisfy the justice of God – and if God isn’t just, God isn’t loving. Love requires justice. If God isn’t just, it means God doesn’t care about the bad you have to endure, or the bad that others have to endure because of you. And the one who died in our place to satisfy the justice of  God for us is forced to undergo an unjust trial.

Now, there’s an interesting verse inserted into this trial section. It’s V. 54. Mark wants us to realize that what Jesus is enduring and what’s happening with Peter are happening at exactly the same time. So what’s happening with Peter? Look at Vv. 66-72.

Peter does exactly what he swore he would never do, what Jesus had told him he WOULD do. He denied even knowing Jesus 3 times. A servant girl thought she recognized him. And the fact that it was a servant girl was significant.

In that culture, the testimony of a female wasn’t allowed in court. Jesus himself took a very different approach to women than this. His interaction with a Samaritan woman transformed her entire village. She led her entire village to Jesus. The first witnesses of the resurrected Christ were women, and the disciples responded to their tale of their encounter with Jesus by running to see. The kingdom of God doesn’t draw a line of higher value and lower value between men and women, or rich and poor, or healthy and sick, the way this world does.

In THAT culture, the testimony of a female wasn’t permissible as evidence in court. Jesus would begin to change all of that, but that’s the way it was in the culture at large. Peter was in no real danger here. But he withers under her accusing words. “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” And then a bit later, “This man is one of them” from the same servant girl. And then later, some other bystanders recognized his Galilean accent, and said, “Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.”

Jesus is faithful under extreme duress and legitimate threat. Peter withers under the light pressure of a servant girl and a few onlookers. Fear is a powerful motivator. He thought he could suffer for Jesus. He thought he had what it took. They all did. And now they are gone. Oh, rest assured, they’d learn the lesson they needed to learn. They approached the rest of their lives with less self-assurance and more confidence in what God could empower them to do through the Holy Spirit, and they’d never again quake in their boots under pressure. But on this night, they did. And Jesus is left alone.

A nameless woman anoints him for burial. A bystander carries his cross. A pagan, Roman centurion confesses that he is the Christ. A Jewish council member buries him. The women in his group go later to anoint him in his tomb. Where are the disciples? Where is the one who said he would die beside Jesus? Where are the two who said they could drink the cup he would have to drink? Where are the rest, who echoed Peter, James, and John? Nowhere to be found.

In the year 1505, an artist named Hieronymus Bosch painted Christ carrying his cross. In that painting, Christ was surrounded by such ghoulish and revolting characters that we would have difficulty identifying with those that crowded around him while he carried his cross. Snaggle-toothed with a grotesque caricature of Semitic features. It would be hard for us, in our imaginations, to insert ourselves into the scene that Bosch painted of Christ carrying the cross.

Maybe that’s why he painted it as he did. To make us more comfortable. As long as those are so ugly and caricatured that we cannot identify with them, then it’s difficult for us to paint ourselves into that picture. We automatically assume that had we been on the scene we would have stood beside Christ rather than beside Caiaphas. But if we were to bring the trial of Jesus out of antiquity and make it for us the living Word of God, we must address this by putting ourselves into that picture of those gathered around the Christ.[iii] Or perhaps, more likely, those who abandoned him and his call.

Jesus is offensive. He offends the powerful, because he asks them to lay down their power and serve others. He offends the wealthy, because he asks them to give up to care for others. He offends the lazy, because he asks them to work hard. He offends the proud, because he asks them to walk humbly through this life. He offends the religious, because he asks them to lay down their rules and embrace grace. He offends the atheist, because our disbelief doesn’t affect the reality of his existence and glory, and the evidence for him is insurmountable. He offends the talented in the eyes of this world, because he asks them to use their talent for his glory, and not their own. He offends those who plan, because he asks them to submit their planning to his will. He offends every single one of us – man and woman, rich and poor, healthy and sick, liberal and conservative. He refuses to fit into our boxes.

Will we stand, when no one else does? Or will we allow our dislike of uncertainty to cause us to give in to fear and run? Would we, like Peter, be more comfortable with the crowd than with Jesus? Let’s pray.

[i] Gary Haugen, Just Courage (InterVarsity Press, 2008), pp. 129-130

[ii] Elizabeth Silver, “On Managing Acute Uncertainty in a Time of Medical Crisis,” Literary Hub, (5-8-20)

[iii] Joel C. Gregory, from the sermon The Final Week, Were You There?