Reverend Jonathan Waits
Sermon: You Are Not Alone (Mark 14:43-72)
Date: March 24, 2024
Misery loves company. Have you experienced that? When we are miserable, we want to know that we are not alone in our misery. This desire manifests itself primarily in a couple of different forms, one of which is more helpful than the other. The less helpful way that misery seeks company is for us to try to drag down the people around us so they are as miserable as we are. Have you ever been around somebody like that? They’re like a gloomy Eeyore all the time because they secretly hope that can make the people around them as morose about life as they are so there’s at least one other person as miserable as they are.
The other way this manifests is for us to seek out people who we know can empathize with our pain and misery. Even if they aren’t miserable in the moment, we know they’ve been miserable before, and therefore they know something of how we feel and can give us meaningful counsel and encouragement. Indeed, when someone who doesn’t have any idea what the pain you are facing is like, being told to buck up and push through it feels more like a slap in the face than anything particularly helpful. But when someone who has been there says, “I know how you feel; you can get through this,” that carries a great deal more weight.
This second approach is better all around and unlike the first can actually leave us feeling some better than we were before. Well, as we continue in our walk through the story of Jesus’ last week before His death on a Roman cross, today we are going to get a reminder that He is able to be company in our misery in a whole lot of different situations.
This morning finds us in the second-to-last stop on our Journey to the Cross with Mark. Well, that’s not quite right. We have one more step forward to take together this Good Friday evening before we celebrate with joy and gladness where this journey has been taking us all the while. Each week on this journey we have moved closer and closer to the cross and the empty tomb that were always the destination in which Jesus was heading. Along the way we have simply been letting Mark tell us what he has to say and thinking through what it might mean for us. We’ve been encouraged by the fact that Jesus has both the passion and the authority to make a way for us to get to God. We’ve been cautioned by the reminder that Jesus values godly humility over worldly greatness. The thing that impresses Him most is always our willingness to do what He says. Nate brought clarity for us out of Jesus’ often confusing prediction of future judgment both on Jerusalem and on the world as a whole. Jesus came to remove the old and bring in the new. Watch and stay awake for it. Then, just last week, as we saw the whole world seeming to have it out for Jesus, His example of faithful perseverance in spite of it all let us grapple with the fact that faithfulness is our call even when the world seems out to get us too. Sometimes life is hard and unfair; follow faithfully anyway.
As important of a reminder as that is, though, being given it without much in the way of context isn’t all that helpful. I mean, okay, Jesus kept going when the world was out to get Him, but from what we saw in the story last week, most of the world’s being out to get Jesus was still going on behind the scenes. Does He really know what it’s like when the mess of life hits the fan and sprays all over the place? Yes. Yes, He absolutely does. If you have a copy of the Scriptures handy this morning, find your way back to Mark 14 with me. When we left things last week, Jesus announced to the disciples that His betrayer was near. At this point, as far as the disciples understood it, the wheels fell off their whole effort.
Look with me at how this whole thing started in Mark 14:43. “While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, suddenly arrived. With him was a mob, with swords and clubs, from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. His betrayer had given them a signal. ‘The one I kiss,’ he said, ‘he’s the one; arrest him and take him away under guard.’ So when he came, immediately he went up to Jesus and said, ‘Rabbi!’ and kissed him. They took hold of him and arrested him. One of those who stood by drew his sword, struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his ear. Jesus said to them, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs, as if I were a criminal, to capture me? Every day I was among you, teaching in the temple, and you didn’t arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.’”
Have you ever been watching a mystery movie and finally gotten to that moment where everything started to click into place? The film, The Usual Suspects, is a great example. The suspense builds throughout the movie and it isn’t until the final three minutes or so of the story that you finally realize who the real villain is. The shock is a great payoff for sticking with the plot that had previously seemed wildly convoluted. Judas’ walking up with a mob had to be received like a bucket of cold water to the face by the other disciples. He was the one Jesus had been talking about? How could he do something like this?
Their shock and understandable outrage is probably what led to the scuffle that unfolded when the soldiers with Judas actually tried to arrest Jesus. The confusion and chaos of that moment was intense, but brief. Other Gospel accounts give a bit more of a picture of what all unfolded. The men with Judas were nervous about Jesus and what He might do. A man with the power to do the kinds of things He had done may have the power to do something that was the opposite of healing if He was threatened. Peter was the one who drew his sword. He knew enough to realize Jesus wasn’t going to defend Himself. He was going to have to do it for Him. This was exactly what he had in mind when he told Jesus that even if everybody else ran out on Him, he was going to stand firm to the end. But then Jesus commanded him to stop, and his sails deflated completely. These men were going to take Jesus and He wasn’t going to stop them? What was there left for them to do?
“Then they all deserted him and ran away.” How could they stand if Jesus was going to give Himself up? He was their strength. He was their confidence. He was their security. If He wasn’t going to fight, then there was nothing left to fight for. As soon as their fight response was neutered by Jesus’ command to stop resisting, their flight response took over and they all ran for their lives. And this wasn’t just the original twelve disciples either. There were others of Jesus’ group there who also all ran for their lives. “Now a certain young man, wearing nothing but a linen cloth, was following him. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth behind and ran away naked.” Most scholars think that’s like Mark’s signature. How else could he have known about that particular—not to mention particularly embarrassing—story? He was so committed to saving his own skin that he ran away wearing nothing but his skin.
With the resistance of Jesus’ group broken and the group itself scattered, Jesus’ enemies were free to do as they pleased. Verse 53 now: “They led Jesus away to the high priest, and all the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes assembled.” Jesus was now right in the metaphorical lion’s den. The forces arrayed against Him were all gathered and He was little more than a pawn in their greater game…or so they thought. These guys all figured they had Jesus right where they wanted Him. Now all they needed was a charge they could actually justify. In spite of their best efforts, though, none were forthcoming. “The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they could not find any. For many were giving false testimony against him, and the testimonies did not agree. Some stood up and gave false testimony against him, stating, ‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple made with human hands, and in three days I will build another not made by hands.”’ Yet their testimony did not agree even on this.”
You can almost hear the growing sense of frustration on the part of Jesus’ enemies here. They finally had Jesus right where they wanted Him. They hadn’t created a scene doing it. No one knew what was going on within these walls beyond the men who were controlling them. As far as the rest of the city was concerned, there would just be one more crucified Jew tomorrow, and while nobody loved the fact, neither would they shed too many tears over it. That was just what Rome did, especially with troublemakers like Jesus obviously was. If you were going to rock the boat, you had to do it carefully and from within the system that was in place to protect the people from Rome. Jesus threw that caution to the wind. He never challenged the Roman system, mind you. His challenge was much more dangerous than that. He challenged the Jewish system that they all understood was the only thing standing in between the Jewish people and Rome’s total and complete domination of the region and all of their lives. If Rome exerted its will, their way of life was going away. Jesus was challenging the only thing keeping Rome from exerting its will. But they couldn’t find anything He was actually guilty of. They were already skirting the rules as much as they felt like they could get away with, lining up various false witnesses to testify against Him (which was a clear violation of ninth command), but none of them could get their stories straight. And worst of all, Jesus just stood there keeping His mouth shut. This was the real purpose of the false witnesses anyway—to provoke Him into defending Himself with something incriminating. But He wouldn’t cooperate!
Finally, the high priest, filled to the brim with exasperation at the scene that was quickly slipping out of their control, took matters more directly into his own hands. “Then the high priests stood up before them all and questioned Jesus, ‘Don’t you have an answer to what these men are testifying against you?’ But he kept silent and did not answer.” We know all of this, by the way, because John’s family was known to the high priest’s family and he was able to use those connections to get a seat inside the room as all of this was unfolding.
Rather than asking Jesus to respond to the allegations being made against Him any longer, the high priest took a new tack. “Again the high priest questioned him, ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?’” Can you imagine the silence in the room for a moment as this question hung in the air, waiting for an answer. Everyone was on the edge of their seats. What was He going to say? Was He going to give them anything they could work with, or was He just going to keep sitting there silently, forcing them to pursue more…vigorous means of getting the answers they were seeking?
“‘I am,’ Jesus said, ‘and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’” Jesus’ answer is pretty cryptic to us, but to the men gathered in that room, it was as clear as it could be. The first and last parts of Jesus’ answer talking about the Son of Man and His coming with the clouds of heaven was a reference back to Daniel 7:13 where the righteous prophet saw a vision of the future Messiah, called the “son of man” there, coming before God, the Ancient of Days, to receive glory and the kingdom from Him. The middle part where the Son of Man is seated at the right hand of Power is a reference back to Psalm 110 which everyone in that room knew was a prophecy of the Messiah. In other words, Jesus was giving the high priest an emphatic yes in answer to his question. In fact, He wasn’t just claiming to be the Messiah, He was claiming an equality with God Himself.
This was what they had all been waiting for. Now they could pounce. “Then the high priest tore his robes and said, ‘Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What is your decision?’ They all condemned him as deserving death. Then some began to spit on him, to blindfold him, and to beat him, saying, ‘Prophesy!’ The temple servants also took him and slapped him.” The injustice of this whole scene was immense. Jesus was guilty until proven innocent and nobody was going to accept any proof of His innocence. They were all as sure as the world that He was guilty; guiltier even than sin. And they were going to treat Him like it regardless of the fact that in truth He was innocent of all charges. They were condemning an innocent man to die.
Meanwhile…
While John had followed Jesus’ arresting mob and gained access to the room where the kangaroo court was being held, he wasn’t the only disciple who had tagged along to keep tabs on what was happening to Jesus. In spite of his nerve’s being broken by Jesus’ command to stop resisting His being arrested, Peter wasn’t going to completely abandon his Lord. After all, he had told him boldly that even if all the other guys ran out on him, he was going to remain true. Well, John had followed so he couldn’t stay behind. Jump back a bit to v. 54: “Peter followed him at a distance, right into the high priests’ courtyard. He was sitting with the servants [friends or perhaps even relatives of the man whose ear he had cut off], warming himself by the fire.”
In other words, while all of this gross miscarriage of justice was happening on the inside, outside Peter was waiting to get word from John on what was going to happen to Jesus. Can you imagine how tense this would have been for him. Perhaps he wore some kind of a disguise in hopes of blending in with the rest of the servants. But he wasn’t from around there. He didn’t carry himself like a servant. He spoke with an accent. He probably never could quite get the smell of fish out of his hair. He likely mostly kept to himself while he warmed his hands by the fire for a while, but eventually the other folks who were there started whispering. He had to have known when that started happening. He tried not to look nervous, but it was harder than he expected. Whatever they were going to do to Jesus was likely to be done to him too if they figured out who he was.
Finally, one precocious young girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth.” It must have taken an immense effort to push down the panic that immediately rose up in his throat and respond to her with a steady voice. “I don’t know or understand what you’re talking about.” That should shut up the little welp. Who was she to be asking him that kind of question anyway? But he knew it wouldn’t last. His cover had been blown. If this irritating teenager had summoned up the courage to say out loud what everybody else there was thinking, someone else was eventually going to say it as well. He found a new spot to stand and wait out by the entrance to the compound where he could make a hasty escape if he needed to. As he got settled in to wait for John’s report a rooster crowd somewhere in the yard. Something tingled in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.
Then the girl came back. “When the maidservant saw him again, she began to tell those standing nearby, ‘This man is one of them.’ But again he denied it.” At this point, though, she had now called attention to him twice. The questions about his identity grew louder and louder. “After a little while those standing there said to Peter again, ‘You certainly are one of them, since you’re also a Galilean.’” Now he was scared. His fight or flight mechanism was kicking into overdrive. But he still wanted to stay and find out from John what was going to happen to Jesus, so he tried a little bravado. “Then he started to curse and swear, ‘I don’t know this man you’re talking about!’” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than two separate things happened. Luke tells us that by this time, Jesus’ trial was over and they had moved Him outside to the courtyard where Peter was waiting. At the moment of Peter’s third denial, Jesus looked up from wherever He was and made eye contact with Peter. At the same time, the sound of another rooster crowing in the area brought his mind back into focus. Jesus’ prediction came rushing back to the front of his mind: “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”
In that moment, Peter’s world broke. He was everything Jesus warned him he would be and which he had vociferously denied being. He was a failure. A disciple’s one job was to stay true to his master no matter what. He had abandoned his Lord in order to save his own skin. How could he ever show himself before the rest of the group again? How could he be worth anything to anyone ever again? It’s no wonder that “he broke down and wept.” Luke tells us that he left the compound entirely before falling headlong into his misery. And that’s where this part of the story ends. Mark leaves us sitting in the darkest part of the night—the hours just before the first gray of dawn begins to appear on the eastern horizon. And it is indeed a dark place we are in now.
So then, what do we make of all of this? Well, let’s take stock of what we have seen so far. Jesus was betrayed by one of the inner circle of followers. Judas even had the gaul to greet Him like a friend. The kiss Judas gave Jesus was something shared between close friends and family members. It was a greeting the pair had no doubt shared before. And now here Judas was using it while simultaneously stabbing him in the back. He would later regret his actions and try to undo them, but not until it was too late. Things were already out of his hands. His remorse couldn’t stop the wheels that were already in motion. From there, Jesus was subjected to a joke of a trial that was mostly rooted in totally false charges and on the whole represented a wild miscarriage of justice. He was mocked and demeaned and abused and beaten and scorned and more, none of which He deserved or had done anything to justify. Finally, Jesus was outright denied by one of His absolute closest and most loyal followers after having warned him it was going to happen which seems like it should have prompted him to take at least a few more steps to try and prevent it. And, if all of that wasn’t bad enough, in what follows next, and which we will wrestle with this coming Friday evening, things get even worse for Him.
The impossible-to-escape conclusion here is that whatever kind of hard you are experiencing in life right now, Jesus has experienced His own version of it that was probably worse than what you are experiencing. Have you been betrayed? He’s been betrayed worse. Have you experienced injustice? He’s experienced more. Have you been hurt? He’s been hurt worse. Have you felt abandoned? He’s felt it more. None of this is about minimizing your pain at all. I wouldn’t dare. What this is about is helping us see that Jesus knows what we’re going through. No matter how hard life gets, Jesus understands. He understands all of it. Every single part. All of the emotions. All of the pain. All of the suffering. There is no part of your hard situation with which He is not familiar. When life gets hard, Jesus understands.
Writing about three decades after these events, the author of Hebrews described Jesus as the ultimate high priest. The reason an earthly priest who was a member of the tribe he was representing to God was so important to the ancient Israelites was that he could represent their interests honestly and familiarly. Because he was one of them, he knew what they were going through, and he could intercede effectively for them before God. But priests could only serve so long and then they died. Or they failed. Or something else happened to prevent them from continuing in their work. We needed something better than an earthly priest to represent our interests before God. Enter Jesus. Jesus was human. He knows our experience in that regard. He was tempted as we are. He knows our weaknesses. He suffered like we do. He knows the places we hurt. When life gets hard, Jesus understands. He is indeed the ultimate high priest, able to stand before God, His Father, on our behalf to intercede and advocate for us. And He does that because of His great love for us.
When you are in the midst of a hard situation, you can go to Jesus. When you are in a place of misery, you will always have company with Him. When life gets hard, Jesus understands. You have a friend in Him.
When things don’t seem to make any sense, He’s been in a situation not so different from that. Remember what He prayed last week? Dad, I don’t want to do this? Why does it have to be this way? You can tell Him all about it, and He can say with the authority of experience that if you will keep trusting and living life God’s way, it will eventually become clear. That clarity may not come when we want it, but it will eventually come if we will just keep living toward it. When life gets hard, Jesus understands.
When you finally get to the point that you just want the pain to stop, and you’re ready to do just about anything to make that happen, Jesus has been there. You can tell Him how much you hurt. He’ll empathize with you and share some of His own pain with you, so that the two of you can hurt together. He can put His arm around your shoulders and assure you that the pain won’t last forever. He’s been there. He knows. When life gets hard, Jesus understands.
When you feel abandoned by everyone who used to be close to you and all of your relationships seem to be falling to pieces around you, Jesus gets it. You can tell Him how angry you are. You can rage at the injustice of it all and He’ll nod right along with you because He’s been there too. He’ll even help you make a plan for how you can do your part to make sure that as far as it depends on you, no one else will feel abandoned like you have. When life gets hard, Jesus understands.
Whatever kind of hard you are facing, Jesus understands. My invitation to you this morning is to come to Him. Don’t take just my word for it, though. Take His. He’s the one who said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Come to Him and find that rest. He understands. When life gets hard, Jesus understands. Let Him walk with you through it. He knows the way. He is the way. When life gets hard, Jesus understands.