Lenten Reflections on Jesus' Last Week 5

Week Five:  Praying Mark 14:32-52

Can you imagine that late night walk out to Gethsemane? They had celebrated a Passover Supper but Jesus’ talk had been strange. His speeches to them about his body and blood, about betrayal and denial must have put them all on edge.  Something was about to happen.  They tried to stay awake, but they just couldn’t.  What does it mean that Jesus told them to pray that they not come to the time of trial, when it seemed he was quite sure they were about to do just that?  Jesus didn’t want to suffer (and God didn’t want or need him to suffer) but the alternative would have been to deny his message of God’s rule.  His suffering (and that of his disciples) was the result of his faithfulness and it condemns the human systems that caused it. Those evil systems could not operate in the light of day but had to sneak up through the shadows with excessive force.  It was a covert military operation against an accused rebel who had enough popular support to make him a threat.

Can praying that suffering not happen give you courage when it does?  “Please God, I don’t want to do this…but I will.”  I wonder how I would measure up if faithfulness to God required me to really suffer?  Mark tells us that all the disciples fled. Would you be running for cover?  Or could you, like the nun in Myanmar, kneel down between the police force and the rebels and appeal to the humanity within each officer that the system had tried to destroy?    

photo:  the guardian

And what is that bit at the end about the young man with the linen cloth?  Why did Mark put in the story that he ran away naked?  It is a bit like a murder mystery when something happens that you know is significant but until we read more we won’t know why. 

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