Obsessed
They came to an area called Gethsemane.
Jesus told his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James, and
John with him. He plunged into a sinkhole of dreadful agony. He told them, “I
feel bad enough right now to die. Stay here and keep vigil with me.” Going a
little ahead, he fell to the ground and prayed for a way out: “Papa, Father,
you can—can’t you?—get me out of this. Take this cup away from me. But please,
not what I want—what do you
want?” (Mark 14:32-36 MSG)
The next time an
octopus traps you on the ocean floor, don't panic. Just tumble into a flurry of
somersaults. Unless you're wrapped in the grip of a fearfully strong arm or
two, you'll escape with only a few suction marks. More good news. You can foil
your next UFO abduction by going straight for the invader's eyes. But watch your
thoughts – some aliens can actually read minds. And although gorillas can't
read minds, they can grab you like a vice. For instance, the grip of a
silverback is padlock tight. Your only hope of escape is to stroke your captor’s
arm while loudly smacking your lips. Primates are fastidious groomers. So, hopefully,
the gorilla will interpret your actions as a spa treatment. If not, things
could be worse. You could be falling from the sky in a malfunctioning
parachute, trapped in a plummeting elevator, or buried alive in a steel casket.
You could be facing your worst-case scenario.
We all have them,
don’t we? Situations of ultimate desperation. That's why The Complete Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook was such a huge success
in 2007. And, thanks to the book, I know how to react to a grabbing gorilla or
an abducting alien. But the odds of those things happening are so remote that I
haven’t lost a lot of sleep over them. I ponder other gloomy possibilities.
Growing senile is one of them. The thought of growing old doesn't trouble me. I
don't mind losing my youth, or my hair because that’s already happening. But
the thought of losing my mind? I don't want to end up that way.
Lurking fears. Uninvited
Loch Ness monsters. Not your pedestrian
anxieties of daily deadlines and common colds, but the lingering horror of some
inescapable situation. Illogical and inexplicable, perhaps, but undeniable
nonetheless. What's your worst fear? The fear of unemployment, or heights? The
fear that you'll never find the right spouse or enjoy good health? The fear of
being trapped, abandoned, or forgotten? These are very real fears, born out of
legitimate concerns. But left unchecked, they metastasize into obsessions
because the difference between prudence and paranoia is razor thin. Prudence
wears a seat belt. Paranoia avoids cars. Prudence washes with soap. Paranoia
avoids human contact. Prudence saves for old age. Paranoia hoards even trash.
Prudence prepares and plans. Paranoia panics. Prudence calculates the risk and
takes the plunge. Paranoia never enters the water.
That was Jesus’
choice. But he did more than just speak about fear; he faced it. The decisive
acts of the gospel drama were played out on two stages – Gethsemane’s garden
and Golgotha's cross. Friday's cross witnessed the severest suffering; Thursday’s
garden staged the profoundest fear. It was there, among the olive trees, that
Jesus "fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful
hour awaiting him might pass him by. 'Abba, Father,' he cried out, 'everything
is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want
your will to be done, not mine.'" (Mark 14:35-36)
Mark paints the
picture of Jesus as pale-faced and trembling. "Horror . . . came over him."
(Mark 14:33) The word “horror” is used for a man who’s rendered helpless,
disoriented, and who’s agitated and anguished by the threat of some approaching
event. And Matthew agreed. He described Jesus as depressed and confused (Matt.
26:37); or sorrowful and troubled (RSV); or anguish[ed] and dismay[ed] (NEB).
We've never seen Jesus like this. Not in the Galilean storm, at the demoniac's
necropolis, or on the edge of the Nazarene cliff. We've never heard such
screams or seen eyes so wide. And never, ever, have we read a sentence like
this: "He plunged into a sinkhole of dreadful agony." (Mark 14:33)
This is a weighty moment. God has become flesh, and Flesh is feeling fear full
bore. Why? What could frighten the Christ? It had something to do with a cup.
"Please take this cup of suffering away from me." (v. 36)
“Cup,” in
biblical terms, was more than a drinking utensil. “Cup” equaled God's anger,
judgment and punishment. When God took pity on apostate Jerusalem, he said,
"See, I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger . . .
the goblet of my wrath." (Isa. 51:22) Through Jeremiah, God declared that
all nations would drink of the cup of his disgust: "Take from my hand this
cup filled to the brim with my anger, and make all the nations to whom I send
you drink from it." (Jer. 25:15) According to John, those who dismiss God
"must drink the wine of God's anger. It has been poured full strength into
God's cup of wrath. And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in
the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb." (Rev. 14:10)
In other words,
the cup was Jesus' worst-case scenario: to be the recipient of God's wrath. He
had never felt God's fury; he didn't deserve to. He'd never experienced
isolation from his Father; the two had been one for eternity. He'd never known
physical death; he was an immortal being. Yet within a few short hours, Jesus
would face them all. God would unleash his sin-hating wrath on the sin-covered
Son. And Jesus was afraid. Deathly afraid. And what he did with his fear shows
us what to do with ours. He prayed.
He told his
followers, "Sit here while I go and pray over there." (Matt. 26:36) But
one prayer wasn’t enough. "Again, a second time, He went away and prayed .
. . and prayed the third time, saying the same words." (vv. 42, 44) He
even requested the prayer support of his friends. "Stay awake and pray for
strength," he urged. (v. 41) Jesus faced his ultimate fear with a simple, honest
prayer.
Unfortunately, we
prescribe words for prayer, places for prayer, clothing for prayer, and postures
for prayer; durations, intonations, and incantations. Yet Jesus' garden appeal
had none of that. It was brief (twenty-six English words), straightforward
("Please take this cup of suffering away"), and trusting ("Yet I
want your will to be done, not mine.") Low on slick and high on authentic.
Less a silver-tongued saint in the sanctuary; more a frightened child in a
father's lap. And maybe that’s the answer. Jesus' garden prayer was a child's
prayer. “Abba,” he prayed, using the homespun word a child would use while
scampering up onto the lap of his Papa. And anyone can pray from that perspective.
Prayer is the
practice of sitting calmly in God's lap, placing our hands in his and asking God
to "take this cup away." This cup of disease, or betrayal, or financial
collapse, or joblessness, or conflict, or even senility. Prayer isn’t
complicated. It was never intended to be. And such a simple prayer equipped
Christ to stare down his deepest fear. We would do well to model the same.
Fight your
dragons in Gethsemane's garden. Those persistent, ugly villains of the heart –
talk to God about them. “I have to fly tomorrow, Lord, and I can't sleep for
fear that some terrorist will put a bomb on board and blow the plane out of the
sky. Please remove this fear.” Or, “The bank just called and is about to
foreclose on our home. What's going to happen to my family? Teach me to trust
you.” “I'm scared, Lord. The doctor just called, and the news isn’t good. You
know what's ahead for me. I give my fear to you.” Be specific about your fears.
Identify what "this cup" is and talk to God about it.
Putting your
worries into words disrobes them. Logic doesn't talk fear off the ledge or onto
the airplane. So what does? How can we avoid that towel-in-the-ring surrender
to the enemy? By pulling back the curtains and exposing those fears – each and
every one. Like vampires, they can't stand the sunlight. Financial fears,
relationship fears, professional fears, safety fears – call them out in prayer.
Drag them out by the hand of your mind and make them stand before God and take
their comeuppance. Jesus made his fears public. He "offered up prayers and
petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death."
(Heb. 5:7) He prayed loudly enough to be heard and recorded.
I had a client who
was dreading a letter from the IRS. According to their calculations, he owed the
IRS money – money my client didn’t have. He was told to expect a letter
detailing the amount. When the letter arrived, his courage failed him. He
couldn't bear to open it, so the envelope sat on his desk for five days while
he twisted in dread. How much could it be? Where would he get the money? How
long would he spend in prison? Finally he summoned the gumption to open the
envelope. To his profound relief, he found not a bill to be paid, but a check
to be cashed. Turns out, the IRS had made a mistake. Go figure. They owed him
money, and he’d wasted five days in needless fear dreading something that never
happened.
Truth is, there
are very few monsters that warrant the fear we have of them. As followers of
God, you and I have a huge asset – we know that everything is going to turn out
alright. Christ hasn't budged from his throne, and Romans 8:28 hasn't
evaporated from the Bible. Our problems have always been his possibilities. The
kidnapping of Joseph resulted in the preservation of his family. The
persecution of Daniel led to a cabinet position. Christ entered the world by a
surprise pregnancy and redeemed it through his unjust murder. The Bible teaches
us that no disaster is ultimately fatal.
Paul penned his
final words in the bowels of a Roman prison, chained to a guard and within earshot
of his executioner's footsteps. Worst-case scenario? Not from Paul's
perspective. "God's looking after me, keeping me safe in the kingdom of
heaven. All praise to him, praise forever!" (2 Tim. 4:18) Paul chose to
trust his Father.
Will you?
Grace,
Randy
No comments:
Post a Comment