Good morning, everybody. Glad you're here. My name is Drew. I'm the pastor here at Hope Heights and Yeah, really excited you're here. Glad you're here, especially if you spent the weekend already at camp and maybe a little extra drowsy. Glad you made it today. Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun. A whole lot of fun. I had a few a little bit of Intent, not maybe intense, a little strong opinions about the trivia contest and there is a team who set a high score and so gentlemen if you're coming this weekend you have a chance to win at trivia or maybe you lose and show the women are smarter. It's so good to see y'all. I'm really excited to show you this picture because more and more and more work has been going on at the building and this week I went over on Friday afternoon and a couple friends joined me just to feel like a little fresher we lined the parking lot it was like a nice felt like a little bit of therapy on a nice day I saw the weather was going to be might be one of our last warmer days And my friends here came they're pretty good if you need anything lined they do a decent job we had a lot of fun and really inside the building so much has gone on So many of you have painted, built stuff. The bunch of the kids rooms are like almost done, if not like there, which is really exciting. This week there'll be some painters coming and we could always use more people to help finish painting. It's getting closer, which is really, really exciting. One of the things that has happened in the last couple weeks as I am doing more painting and building of things and hauling of things is that I wake up and my body feels different than it sort of does. Suddenly I'm like, have found new muscles and it makes me feel old. And my kids think that's funny. And I don't think it's funny. It's a feeling that you probably have in other categories. Maybe it's not because you've been painting or lining parking lots, but just moments where your body reminds you that your body doesn't always work right, that we're in a place, in a world where things aren't right. Sometimes it's not just, oh, my back hurts because I was painting, But sometimes it's serious. It can be scary. It's moments when we feel the effects of a broken world around us and we feel it like so intimately. It's like in our body, like where we are. It's so different than even just seeing it around me. But when I feel it in myself and it feels like out of control, it's really difficult. Those are moments in that suffering that I have to decide how I Answer that question of. Like, why am I here? What's going on? How am I suffering right now? What's the solution that's suffering? It's essentially the foundation of world religions, world views. The reasons why a lot of us do what we do is the question of what do I do with suffering or try to avoid suffering or help others avoid it or deal with it when it comes, right? That question, the problem of we're suffering And what do we do. With it. Today, I'm very encouraged. We're in the book of Mark. We're getting towards the end of the book of Mark. and we are in a season here at the end of Mark. This last part of the story of the Gospels where Jesus comes in Jerusalem and we watch the story of a king unfold as he goes to a cross to rescue his people. And it's a story where over and over we're reminded of just the magnitude of it in so many areas of life. And today is one that I have been very encouraged with in my life because for a long time in my life I didn't always know what to do the question of why Am I hurting? Why do things not work? And I think sometimes I was just told, like, it's okay. At least one day that'll go away. One day it'll be okay. And in a sense, some of that was like, one day we'll be floating on clouds somewhere. One day you won't have to deal with this body you have. And today I think in the Gospel of Mark we're reminded that that actually isn't biblical. Like it isn't a principle that we see actually in Scripture. And so I'm really encouraged because I think I felt like God was disconnected from my hurt because I thought God was just like a being that like glowed and was out there somewhere. And I like went, hey, I'm hurting here. And he's like, oh, that stinks. Someday it'll be better. But this is one where we actually enter into a moment with Jesus, Our God who deeply understands what it feels like to feel that. I don't want to get ahead of myself. But it's been a great help, I think. And I have heard from other friends, this passage has been a great help to understanding Jesus actually embodies. He's a real person, a real feeling, real things. And so today we're in Mark 14. We're starting at chapter 26, 27. And we're going to look at a moment where Jesus is with his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. First, real quick, to get us here, we started with a story of Jesus being anointed as a king would be anointed for his burial. At the same time this is happening, one of his close friends, one of his disciples, Judas, decides to take money in order to turn Jesus over to the authorities so they can kill him. Kind of sneakily, stealthily, how can we find a way to get rid of this Jesus? And in that same story, we hear the story of a woman, we think Mary, who anoints Jesus as if he's the king about to be buried. It's the beginning of this story where we are going to see Jesus buried. Thankfully, it doesn't end there. And that story then moves forward as we now have this kind of multiple stories at once going on. We have the story of Jesus moving towards his conquering of death and sin, this king, and at the same time, we also have the other story of the behind the scenes, the leaders and Judas, now we know, are plotting and trying to kill him. And so we have this kind of both going on. It's like when you're watching a show and you kind of have the two plots going until they somehow connect. And so we have these kind of two things happening. There's this tension. In this moment. Then we get to see Jesus last week. He shows us how much he's aware of what's going on and that he knows. And he knows the sin of the people and he knows the cost that's going to cost him to rescue these people as they then go find a place in this room in Jerusalem they move from outside the city into the city they find a room they have a meal and at the meal he describes to them that when you get together you're going to eat bread and drink wine and it's going to remind you of my body and my blood that's going to be sacrificed he's moving towards this death and this burial he's explaining to them the significance of what's happening in this time. He's aware even that there's someone who's plotting that's plotting with his friends, Maybe not friends, these leaders. To kill him. And in the moment he says, I'm going to die, but I know who's Part of it. And he dips his hand in the wine with Judas. I mean, it's a really dramatic moment. But we understand that Jesus now knows what's going on and he's moving towards it anyway. So there's this knowing of God and this plan of God that's still taking place. And so at that point, they're in this room in Jerusalem. And now they're going to move. At the end of that meal, they sing some hymns, and they move back Out of Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives. And that's where we find ourselves now. So we moved from outside to up to kind of where we think the upper room would be. And then now we move back out to the garden that's by the Mount of Olives. And less of a garden like we would think, like a Minnesota Midwest garden, more like a grove of trees, probably olive trees. It's the same area where Jesus would have walked through and talked about the fig trees. It's the same mount that Jesus would stand on and look over and Weep for the city. It's a really significant place. And today we're going to find a moment where Jesus takes his disciples there to pray with them. And we're going to see what happens in the midst of that. Jesus now is aware. He knows what's coming. And he decides to go to this place and pray. And so that's where we're at. we're in we're in uh mark 14 we're going to start in verse 26 Kind of the to. Transition from our last verses i'm going to read the whole thing and then we'll just take some time to walk through these together um this is mark 14 we'll start at 26 and when they had sung a hymn this is at the end of the meal they went out to the mount of olives and jesus said to them you will all fall away for it is written i will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered but after i'm raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter said to him, even though they all fall away, I will not. And Jesus said to him, truly I tell you, this very night before the rooster crows twice, You will deny me three times. But he said emphatically, if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And they all said the same. So they go to the Mount of Olives, they're sitting with Jesus, and he says, you're going to scatter. You're going to actually walk away. You're going to turn away from me. You're going to deny me. And the response, which I think would be our response, no, no, I would never. How could I? You've shown me. We've already heard Peter even say, you're the one. I have no other place to go. You're the one. And he says, you're going to scatter. You're going to run away. You're And I will go, and then Jesus says, he reminds us here in 28, which is really encouraging, that I am going to rise up, Though, and I'll go before you in Galilee. It's actually the same phrase we hear later in Mark, where he says Jesus Rises up and goes before them. We see that that actually does get fulfilled. But in this, he's reminding Peter and the others, who even say, if I must die with you, I will not deny you. They're so, they have a strong feeling in them that they will not deny Jesus. and he goes, I so wish that was true, But it's not. You're going to turn away from me. Even all of them said. The same thing. You imagine them all kind of, I wouldn't, Jesus, of course we wouldn't. Why would we turn away from you? You're the king. We just watched you get anointed in that way and we know where you're going. We would never turn from you. But he knows their hearts. He knows really kind of what is really going on in them. It's a moment where we're reminded even just how much God knows what's Going on in us. There's two things that are said in here that are helpful, I think, for us as we keep moving here. First, he says, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. Seems like maybe a bit of a strange phrase. He's actually just quoting Zechariah 13, 7, which shares this. And Zechariah is actually a story, if you read from chapters about 9 to 14 in there, it's a series of stories of the coming of God's King and the day of the Lord, this time when someone will come, this king will come and he will rescue God's people he will vindicate God's people he will redeem them they'll be saved And so we see this, him quoting a passage, and actually Jesus has already been quoting Zechariah throughout these. He's saying this king that was prophesied, that was predicted that he would come, that God said a long time ago, this king would come and rescue his people. It's happening. We see in Mark 9, he talks about a humble king who rides in on a donkey. We see that in Zechariah. In Zechariah 11, we hear about a shepherd being rejected. and we also see that In the Gospels here. In Zechariah 12, we see that he'll be pierced. In Zechariah 14, We hear about. This happening at the Mount of Olives. All these things are Jesus saying, guys, you know you're Zechariah. It's me. I'm coming. And so in that, they cannot believe he's the one, the shepherd, that's going to be struck and that they're the sheep that are going to scatter. that it's still so hard to believe that they could do that. And in fact, so hard that they do say, If I must die with you, I will not deny you. A phrase that we should know for a season here, for a little bit, a few days, they do scatter. They do deny them. We know that's coming. If you know the story here. But we also know that this is true later. It's a thing that's said that you go, right now this is going to happen, but something's going to change you and later almost all of those disciples in that room or on that hillside do do this they are actually all martyred they're actually told you should deny jesus or we'll kill you and they say there's no way and they are killed and so something changes between the next few days and the rest of their lives where many of them actually do End up dying. This also reminds us as we move into the garden that this is a moment where Jesus Is very aware of what's happening. There's been time now where he's anointed as a king who's about to be buried he knows there's a plot of someone he just was sitting at a meal with the person who's going to turn him over to be killed It's very real. This isn't a thought experiment it's not I hope Judas isn't doing this I hope people aren't plotting it's real, it's happening So you could feel the, if you've ever had a moment like where a thing's coming and you kind of are aware of it, but as you get close to it, you go like, oh, This is really happening. I remember feeling this when I had surgery that like, you know, weeks out, it was like, yeah, yeah, I'm having surgery. And it was kind of like, hey, did you know I'm having heart surgery? Isn't that cool? People are like, oh, it's cool. Are you scared? And I was like, no. And then as I got closer, I was like, yeah, I'm not really sleeping. And I remember waking up the morning of it and feeling like the weight of it. And then like, is there some way out of this? I know I can't get out of it because I need it or I won't live. But also I want to get out of it. And my friend Stan had texted me a psalm that said like, remember that only the Lord wakes you up. And I was very encouraged by it. But I was also like, I hope he wakes me up. And I remember walking earlier in the morning with Kelly. And it was hard to walk. I felt like, like heavier and like you're moving through water almost. It's like, there's so much around me and in me. Jesus is sitting on the mount with his disciples and he's going, not only am I the shepherd that's going to get struck down, I'm going to suffer. He knows More than they know. What it's going to take. But they also are saying, we're with you. And he's like, I know you're not, Though. There's so much weight on him. And so as he walks into this garden now, this area of trees that we call Gethsemane, He is. Feeling the great Weight of this. He is like Our friend Gandalf. Gandalf has this moment, if you don't know Lord of the Rings, where he's yelling that you can't pass to this Balrog, and they battle, and everyone gets across the bridge, and he sends them off, and he fights the Balrog, and it takes them down into the abyss. There's a moment where Jesus goes, I know I'm about to do this. i'm about to feel the full weight of this and be struck and you're going to run off the lord of the rings they actually kind of run off it breaks up messes up the fellowship of the rings It's all good in the end friends but uh it's this. Beautiful picture of essentially the gospel that someone stands and goes I'll take this. I'll be struck By this beast. And pulled into the abyss so that you All could run free and as you run for you actually, deny and scatter. Well, thankfully, Lord of the Rings, this story is the same as our story. That Gandalf actually comes back and brings them back together and empowers them kind of in his resurrection to fight evil. It's fantastic. Sorry if you haven't seen that, but it's been around a while. So how does Jesus respond to this? Does he just need Peter to be like, Peter, remind me everything's cool, everything's going to be okay. Peter, remind me that like, that you'll be with me again. There's so many things he could do. Instead, he goes and he takes us to this moment in the Garden of Gethsemane. Let me read the whole account. But he takes them to this place that actually means like a press, Like a wine or oil or an olive press. That's the name. Such a great name for a garden when you're feeling pressed. Let me read the account. And they went to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. Brings them there. Then he took Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And you can feel the words here. Mark is helping us know. We haven't heard that before. Jesus is greatly distressed and troubled. He takes these couple close friends, and he's feeling this, And he's like, I need you here with me. And he says to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch. Stay with me. It's a beautiful moment of friendship, Even with our Lord. I'm so sorrowful that I could die. And going a little farther, he went on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, The hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. And he came and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, But the flesh is weak. And again, he went away and prayed, Saying the same words. So he found them sleeping. Guys, I need you to stay awake. I need you with me. Let's clear your flesh, your weakness. He goes away and then he says to the day, he prays again. Father, it's so hard. But I want to do your will. I'm with you. And again he came and found them sleeping and their eyes were very heavy and they did not know what to answer. I'm sure, I mean, imagine them too now, what they're feeling, thinking they're like, can we just keep turning from him? You wonder if there's, in some of them, hints of like, are we falling asleep? Are we already scattering? We just told him we'd never leave home and we already can't just sit, stay up with him. And he came this third time. And it happens again. And he said, are you still sleeping and Taking your rest? It is enough. The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise. Let us be going. See, my betrayer Is at hand. It's a great end. It's a great spoiler, end of an episode. He's here! And we know that's where we're going to end today. Let me quick just. Explain a little bit of what's going on here and help us understand. And he's in this oil press, wine press, olive press of a place that's squeezing in on him. He says, I need you with me. I'm going to go pray. Greatly, greatly distressed. This is where I feel like I open my heart to more of Jesus in that he's a person. We talk a lot about like Jesus is fully God and fully man. And wow, that's hard to even understand. But he's both of those things. But we often just get to see and we talk a lot about his glory, that he knows what's happening, that he's God. This is a moment where we get to see in the flesh our God who became a person feel and experience like the fullness of humanity in all its suffering, in all of its stress, in all of its anxiety, in all the pressure that comes. He's a person here. And I think often I felt, in my life, I felt like God's kind of out there. He's glowing and floating, going like, sorry, Drew, that sounds really hard. And in this moment I go, oh, you're right in it. You know exactly what this is. Eugene Peterson, in the message version of this, he says, sit here while I pray. I love how he describes it. He took Peter, James. And John with him. He plunged into a sinkhole of dreadful agony. And he told them, I feel bad enough right now to die. Stay here and keep it with me. A sinkhole of dreadful agony might be one of my new responses. If you ask how my day is going. I might say, I'm good. Actually, you know what? I feel kind of like I'm plunging into a sinkhole of dreadful agony. The feeling of being stuck in a hole in this darkness. It feels like it's about to rain or it starts to rain and you're in there and you go, I can't get out. I'm stuck. The walls feel like they're closing in. I feel like I could die. Our God, who descended from heaven, humbles himself so he could rescue us has experienced a sinkhole of dreadful agony. So when you feel a sinkhole of dreadful agony, he's there. He gets it. He's this full human. This is pretty radical. They're saying a God is in this hole. There's not other people in the time of the disciples or now that often say, hey, I follow a God. and they go, hey, what's your God like? Well, sometimes he's deeply distressed and falls to the ground because he's so distressed that he could just die. Like, he actually experiences that weight and at the same time Is our God. I'm sure you've had experiences like this, but I have had many in my life where I feel the pressure. I'm in the press, and I'm in the sinkhole, and it's like someone comes up and says, I've experienced the same thing. Kelly and I have experienced, I remember, as we worked through years of infertility and thinking about our family, And people would say. Hey, that sounds really hard. We're sorry. People would say things that aren't helpful. And then someone would go, we've experienced the same thing. And they share like how hard it is. They don't even like give us any answers. Just go, it's really hard. It's like they climb down a ladder into the sinkhole of dreadful agony with you. And they're sitting there with you. And you're like, I need your people with me. I think that's why Jesus asked his guys. He said, I need you with me in this. But even in that, he finds himself alone. He finds himself in his Sinkhole of dreadful. Agony. I've never said that phrase that many times. Well, he's there, and his friends, his closest friends, who just said, will never, we die before we deny you, Find themselves asleep. And Jesus finds himself asking God Some important things here. He says, Abba, Father. It's a phrase that you, Almost like a child, would say to his dad. Dad, this feels impossible. Can you take this cup from me? That's a phrase we don't necessarily Use a lot. But the cup of wrath is a common phrase we see throughout Old Testament. It's the phrase that she used to illustrate simply just that there's this picture of God's wrath being Poured into someone or into a cup. So he's saying, this cup that you're about to give me. Interesting, he just had this meal and he talked about the cup that would hold his blood. But this cup, I can't take this. He's telling us, God, I know I'm about to take the punishment for all people. I'm about to take the wrath, the punishment for people's denial, their running away from you, their scattering from you, them just straight up doing evil things that you've called us not to do, not being people who worship you. I'm taking all, all those people deserve cups and I'm taking all those and it's so much, I don't know if I can do it. And in the same moment, but I know this is what We have to do. He shares his deep pain. He shares the crushing sinkhole of dreadful agony. And at the same time, says, I do trust you, Lord. Lord, this is so hard. And I trust you. It's so hard. And I'm with you, but it's so hard. Dad. You probably had one of those moments in your life, maybe. I've had some of those. I remember a moment. When I was young with my Dad that I said, this is so hard, I can't do it. And he sat with me and he said. I know it's so hard. I think you can do it. I think you can do it. And I did it. And it wasn't a big deal, but it was just a hard thing I had to do at school. There's something about like, you know he's with you and it's the right thing. So Jesus is in this place. Again, a moment to just connect with our Lord in his humanity. Unlike the gods that people around them are going to a temple to give money or fruit or whatever to, to say, Here, do things for me. And then that guy goes, you gave me enough stuff, I'll do things for you. We have a God who says, I'm going to come and suffer this cup of wrath that you should be so that you could have life. You're not doing anything for me. I'm actually coming and doing these things for you. And at the same time, his friends are sleeping. They came and found him sleeping and said to Peter, Simon, you're asleep. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. This is a phrase, just for a moment, I want to talk about a. This is a phrase that's also actually used historically. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. It's illustrating that the flesh, Like human part of us, is this weak part that can't do what it needs to do. But the spirit, maybe some interprets as like your desire, like you hope inside, you're like, yeah, I got this, I can do this, but I just can't get myself to do it. Or maybe it's Jesus saying, my spirit, like the Holy Spirit can do this, but the flesh is unable to do it. But this phrase is also used, it has been used, to hold a belief that I think is essentially a belief we've seen throughout a lot of time and very prevalent even today. So one of the words we use for this is Gnosticism. Some of you might have heard this word. It just means like knowledge. It means like we know knowledge. But Gnosticism, it also has lots of other names. It actually, there's connection to Neoplatianism, essentially Plato's beliefs, and lots of other things. There's things in Greek mythology and rome mythology and all of it essentially is based around this idea that we have a human flesh body a material world and there's a spiritual world and they're separated and our goal is to get out of this material world how do you you're experiencing all the brokenness and and and messed upness right of this material world and the answer to that question is what i do with this is I need something to escape this. And so Gnosticism is a big category. There's lots of things, different things in it. But here's two different ways it's described. Hans Jonas, that's a cool name. He's a philosopher. He describes it as, the world is a prison made by hostile powers and a spark of divine is trapped inside you. Salvation is waking up to who you really Are and escaping. It's a helpful description of what Gnosticism would be. And then Arrhenius actually is pretty passionately not for this. He writes almost an entire book kind of about this. He's very nervous about it. He doesn't like how this, doesn't see this in scripture. But this is how he describes it. A lesser ignorant God made the material world, and the true God is distant. Jesus only appeared to have a body, and a spiritual elite is saved by secret knowledge. This is how Arrhenius describes what Gnostics would believe. So I'll just share those because they're kind of two different. One that would say like they're in favor of Gnosticism, one that's not so much, not at all. But this is how they would view Scripture. So they'd say, hey, our God had to come. Our spiritual being came to rescue us from this prison that we're in, this body that we're in. And I think if it weren't for the Word of God and the Spirit of God, I would say yes. I'd go, this thing doesn't work right. I just painted lines. And I'm sitting at home, and I'm like, how am I so sore from painting lines for A few hours? I'm like, I got to get out of this thing. And if someone said, hey, there's actually a little spark of divine something in you, and let's find that and allow that to let you escape from this thing, and eventually we all get to fly off to another place, that's not what would sound great, except that I'm open in my Bible and I see a God who's in a garden who's deeply suffering in his body and that God then is put on a cross and then that God is resurrected in his body. And so it seems like our God doesn't want the goal of this just to be escape these body prisons but somehow redeem All of it. But this view, it's so important for us to see this because if we go the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, that passage is used by a Gnostic to say, see, Jesus is saying he's not really even in a body. He just like made people think he was in a body. And he just wants you to escape these weak, Fleshy bodies that we have. And I think we miss this great whole life that we have and this embodied life and this even appreciation of what God has. If we have these kind of two places, right? We see this now. Gnosticism, that word makes it sound like it's this old thing. You're like, that's wild. We would never do that. But think about these different places in our life. We do this in different ways. We either move, we lean towards just our bodies and the material world around us is everything. so this is the my hope in my life and eternity is in the stuff here or i or i could lean like it's not As obvious this stuff doesn't. Do it for me so i'm going to lean into like a another place an eternal or like a ethereal or like a spiritual place think i mean think about like the life that people could live just online it's like you've created this other place that isn't a real material thing. That's a very, that's like a picture of this, right? Not a real body, not a real embodied in a real place, but a disconnection. Think of some of the mental health things that we're helping people with right now because they spend a lot of their time not with real people or around people. I was sitting with a counselor and he said, I'm prescribing to my people more and more these days that you should go for a walk with a real person as the way to help. They're like, I need some medication. He's like, let's try for A little while to just go for walks with real people. And then they're like, you would not believe how cool it is to walk with a real person. Right? I think we think of this sometimes in death. We don't know what to do with death. It's so difficult. It's so hard. And we just want to go like, let's at least like, we can just imagine at least we're not dealing with this body anymore. Think about like how we think about AI now. Think about, could you put my conscience into a robot? Would that still be Drew? It gets very easy for us to go to kind of want to disconnect our body. We're kind of just waiting for a day when our bodies would be disconnected. Or we're waiting for the day when we've like perfected our bodies. We've done everything we could to make these bodies awesome and the things around me awesome. I've gathered all the things I can so that all of this stuff somehow will fulfill me. and then neither one of those things can do it. But we have these kind of two places. Some of the phrases are things I think we can think of if we find ourselves leaning into one of these as our hope is that I'm only my body. I only live once. It's my body, my project, the thing I work for. And then fitness becomes our identity or the fear of aging consumes us or just what feels right. My body is the thing that determines what's right or wrong. And maybe even just the church is just like, a bunch of bodies that do good stuff. They're nice people. There's not like a spiritual element to it. And then we might believe that Jesus is just a good body. He's a wise teacher. And that the reason he's so Important is because he's willing to like give up that body. And if we believe just maybe just that life is a spiritual life, then we believe I am my spirit. It's just the inside that counts. Right? We might think spiritual. Nor religious, not religious. We like that phrase, maybe like I'm just spiritual, it's not religious. We lean into like anything that could feel spiritual, or that's the most important part of our life or our identity. We think of these things that we just shared about. I think this happens in the church a lot as well. The church can lean towards very much just spirit. You're just talking about spirit. Everything is like an attack from Satan and a demon, and you don't consider it all like just your body and the physical world. Or all you consider in a church setting is the physical world, and we don't think about the spiritual. We don't have those things together. I think about this when I was a kid, and I would ask what heaven's like, and they'd say, like, we float off to clouds. And I'd go, that doesn't sound fun. And then my Sunday school teacher would go, I promise it'll be fun. And I'm like, why? And they're like, just please don't ask more questions. Don't ever be a pastor. But in this, right, Jesus is just a spirit. He's in a costume. A Gnostic would say he's just in a costume. But we would say, well, did he not experience real sorrow? Is it not real blood? Is it not real death? And it's like, well, not really, because that's how he resurrected. That's how you explain the resurrection is he was never really in a real body. It was just this costume. So all this, I think, is so important because we miss out on the full life. We're here in John. We miss this full life in Jesus, and we miss it. And I think I don't get nearly as excited about what's coming if I think there's just A floaty spirit light or something. We miss it. We're going to keep going. We're going to come back to that. And again, he went and prayed, saying the same words. And again, he came and found them sleeping. And then again, he finds them sleeping. It just continues to happen. There has to be like even more weariness and pressing in as he watches his disciples Continue to do this. It's a moment that we're reminded of our king who now is walking towards his death and resurrection. He's coming to rescue his people and Mark is reminding us what the disciples actually brought to this. Now there's a famous quote in the church that is attributed to many people. These are the three main ones it's attributed to. But when asked the story, this I think is just like a story, a legend made up within the church, but it's true. The story is that someone asks a pastor, hey, what do I bring to salvation? And they say, you contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. Or my translation would be, you contribute nothing to your salvation except denial And a nap. That was Peter James John. And myself. He's going, I want to be clear, even while he's praying, they've left him. And it's really important because in that, he fully is embracing the suffering he's about to have And the resurrection he's about to have. And then it ends. He says, this is enough. The hour has come. And then he tells us, get up. We've got to get going. My betrayer is coming. Now, the next thing, next week, is a story of how Judas does. Gives him a kiss. They arrest him. He's going to go on trial. He's going to be found guilty, kind of. He's going to be at least sentenced to death. He's going to be punished. He's going to carry his cross to a hill. He's going to sit on that hill on a cross. He's going to die on that hill. He's going to go in the grave. And then he's going to rise from the dead. So when we and Peter and the rest of us say, if I must die with you, I'll not deny you, we know we end up falling asleep. And Jesus says, I will die for you, even when you deny me. He goes to a cross and he resurrects and it changes everything. And now after that, the disciples actually do die instead of denying him because they see his actual body buried, dead, and actually risen. His real body comes up. They touch his hands. They sit with him. He eats a meal with them. All indications he's a real person in real flesh, which means it's not just my spirit that flies away somewhere, but it is actually me. Somehow, I don't know how that will look or be. I'll probably look a lot like this because I feel pretty perspective already. He, that was not a joke. He is going to actually resurrect me and you. And he's going to make the things around new and good. The things I love about fall when I go for a walk in the leaves, there's some moments of beauty and light comes through these sweet glowing leaves. And you're like, how is it so beautiful? It stirs my heart. It feels like that's just like a hint, a whiff of what he's going to create. But he's not just sending us off to float somewhere. He's actually giving us the garden again like we always wanted. the city again that we always want we'll actually get to be with one another in perfection in perfection It's this beautiful thing when he, in the darkest place in this garden, he's willing to then make a way for us to be with him forever, even in our napping and our denial. Tim Keller says when Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane and the ultimate darkness was coming down on him, he knew it was coming down. He didn't abandon you. He died for you. If Jesus didn't abandon you in his darkness, The ultimate darkness, why would he abandon you now in yours? It reminds us that if he, in his physical body, who now has ascended and is still alive in heaven, waiting to come back down and make things right, he's still here. He's still willing to find us in that way. And so I want to encourage us just in this, instead of leaning into just a spiritual life or leaning just into a body life, but live as embodied people who are spiritual people. I think this is the hard part of life because we lean into one of these maybe the traditions we grew up in we lean into one of these instead of going God actually has a lot to say about how we use our bodies and then also a whole lot to say about how we invite him in and spiritually see people healed and renewed and so we see then if we live in this way that I am a body and a spirit C.S. Lewis calls us that we're all these eternal beings that we don't ever just hang out with mere mortals. And we do that because Jesus was body and spirit. We have a God who actually was a real body and a real spirit who resurrected. We also see our bodies as gifts, not as something that's to be used or to be thrown away, but we see our body as a gift that was given to us and God gets to use it. We can actually grieve in death like Jesus did. God, this is so hard And I still can trust you. I think part of what that looks like then is us showing up, us resting well, us enjoying a meal together. And not because Those are just things we have to do so that we can get to the spiritual things. But seeing it as a real part Of our lives. I think we live in this resurrection hope that not only is our body, we feel the Good Friday in our bodies a lot, we also get to feel resurrection in our bodies but in our spirits and that we believe that jesus wasn't just a spirit in a costume and he wasn't just a good guy but instead he was in the incarnation of god that he actually died and rose in his body They actually said that he's alive today. It changed when i think like you're actually somewhere right now jesus and not just like out there it changes my day i feel like you're in the hole with me One of the ways we see this in Scripture is in the book of James. James is a book where James wants us to think about how our faith and our belief, our actual spiritual part of us, also affects our actual physical part of us. So he's saying things about us like, hey, if you believe these things and this is true and Jesus has changed your heart, then we will see them acted out in your body. This is just getting out of the nitty-gritty. Here's one of them that I think is kind of cool in James 2. If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, And one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things they need for their body. What good is that? He's encouraging us. You could spiritually say, go in peace. I pray God would bless you. He'd be with you. He would change your heart. He'd allow you so that you would be clothed, that you would be fed. And I get to be maybe the one who helps do that. What does it look like to use my body and my spirit in prayer and deed? I had a moment of this this week. We got to line these Back to our buds here, the super lining boys. I'm lining, and as I was lining, the first part of that time, it was just me out there, except for an occasional neighbor who'd walk by and startle me. But I was lining, and I was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do while I'm lining. This is taking way longer than I thought, and I just started praying for all of you. And I started praying that real people are going to be parking their real cars, and their real friends are going to hop onto their cars, and they're going to actually walk in and we're actually going to worship the Lord together in real time. We're going to drink out of our mugs. And there's something very special that we actually are together in this place and that for many years, hopefully, we will be parking in those places as real people. There's something really important about us together in real time at the same time the Spirit is here as well. And so when I'm praying for you in your parking lot, it's not because I hope somewhere where you are, I'm praying you're going to actually be in this place, In this location, embodied people here. I can't wait to see what God does with you here in this place. I think we get to do that with one another as we move towards one another. I'm going to invite our worship team up as we move towards a time of worship here. I just want to encourage us here. We're going to move to a time where we get to take communion. And Jesus just did this with his disciples. He says, when you take the bread, remember my body that's broken. He's speaking this to a group of people who are in a time when the kind of physical world and the spiritual world often is just disconnected. Like we often do. And he says, no, I actually want you to remember that I have a real body that's broken and it'll be resurrected. And so will you. And then he says that when you drink the wine, I want you to remember my blood, which would be a symbol of kind of his soul, his spirit. It's interesting that he does that with them. And so when we take communion, we get an opportunity to be reminded that Jesus' actual body died and actually rose. That our actual bodies, the actual world that God's given us, Dies but will be resurrected, made right. And our spiritual bodies, our hearts, our intentions, all those things die and deny and take naps and Jesus will resurrect those as well. And together we're a whole person. So taking communion, we're reminded that all of Jesus died and rose so that we could have life and we too could die and rise. Some things to consider. As we take Communion and sing and pray. Do you know the one who didn't deny us? Maybe consider what deeply distresses you and what do you turn to in that time. I tend to turn to either things that just feel good for my body, forgetting the God who I can trust, or I will just turn and just pray and forget maybe to take care of the Things of the body. What does it look like To see all of that as part of what God has given me, a gift? Maybe who needs to know That Jesus knows your suffering? He's in the hole with you. He's down there. We love to take communion to remind us of those things they're out in the hallway we'd love for you to participate in that if you are a believer and want to do that we'll do that while we're singing the band will lead us in some songs we also have people who would love to pray for you they'd love to get down in that hole of dreadful agony with you or celebrate with you maybe You're on a mountain and you get to celebrate so we have the. Double lopers again today yes I heard Lisa's the better one so. Is that still true? Sorry Greg I heard that from Greg so I think if y'all know please take them up on their prayer it's a gift to in real life in your body stand with another person who is filled with the Spirit and have them pray over you it's different than if you just ask someone through a text take this, take advantage of this you always can give as a way To gift our church to continue the ministry here. Let me pray for us. Lord, thank you for your kindness and that you did not deny us. And wherever we're at right now. For sure there's some pressing on us, And for some a lot. And I pray you get right down in there, that we could hold on to you, knowing that you are a real person who knows, and that your spirit would change us. Lord, I pray that the reality of resurrection would change us. I pray that today as we sing and as we take communion and as we dole water we thank you Lord Amen.