On digital alarm clocks and wake-up calls (Mark 14)

Remember the digital alarm clock? When I was in high school, its annoying BEEP-BEEP-BEEP was the dreaded signal that started my day.  We had a “radio” setting, but I tended to ignore that --- or sing to it in my sleep.  (Think K.C. & the Sunshine Band.)  Today, the digital alarm clock has thankfully been replaced by the alarm app on my phone, and I can awaken to the pleasant sound of “fog on the water”, “gentle spring rain”, or “midnight picnic”.

In my somewhat distant history, on a mission trip to Romania, I was introduced to nature’s alarm: the crowing rooster.  Not my favorite.  You don’t get to tell the rooster what time you’d like to be aroused from your jet-lagged sleep.  No sir.  The rooster crows just before the sun rises.  Literally.  It’s dark.  And he doesn’t quit until breakfast is served.  Ugh.  Not crazy about the unsolicited wake-up call.

The rooster turns up in the Gospel this week.  Mark 14.  The story of Peter’s denial of Jesus puts the rooster center-stage.  Well, at least “left-of-center.”  It was, for the Apostle, a monumental wake-up call.  (If you have not read the story, take a minute and read Mark 14!)

Hundreds, if not thousands of sermons have been written on this scene.  It is described in each of the four Gospels, which gives it a certain amount of import.  There is, obviously, much to be learned here.  Let’s focus on the rooster.

In a nutshell, here’s what happened:

·         Jesus had warned Peter that he would deny their association three times before the rooster crowed twice. 

·         Peter scoffed at His prediction, strongly declaring his allegiance to His friend. 

·         After the arrest of the Savior, Peter followed the crowd to the courtyard of the High Priest, where Jesus would be on trial. 

·         While the trial was going on, Peter did, indeed, vehemently dispute any association with the accused (Jesus). 

·         The rooster crowed once after his first denial. 

·         And again, after the third time that Peter renounced Jesus.

The crow of that rooster must have resonated as loudly in Peter’s ear as if he were standing in the bell tower of a church steeple.  For a moment, time stood still as the reality of his failure hit Peter.  One can only imagine the shame and disgrace that washed over him as he considered his treachery.

What is remarkable about the crowing of that rooster is that even the animals open their mouths (beaks?) at the command of the Sovereign King of the universe.  That particular rooster, far from signaling the rising of the sun, signaled a watershed moment in the life of the Apostle.  It was the ultimate wake-up call.

Two things happened simultaneously with the rooster’s crow:

1) Peter felt the weight of his sin…he recognized the seed of wickedness in his own soul.  For months, years, Jesus had been teaching, admonishing, illustrating, warning.  Peter did not get it.  Only his desperate failure would expose the sinfulness of his sin, beginning the transformation that would remake this hot-headed, prideful boor into the great Apostle on whom the church of Christ would be built.

2) At the very moment of the second “crow”, Jesus was being escorted through the courtyard.  At that moment.  Who made the rooster crow?  The Sovereign King who moves the vast machine of the universe for His own purpose and glory, and for our eternal good.  King Jesus, the unlikely Hero of this story, was being led as a captive through the courtyard. When the rooster crowed, He lifted His head and looked directly into the eyes of His failing friend.

This was not “the look” that a disapproving father gives to his wayward son across the dinner table.  It was not a look of reproach.  Or anger.  Or condemnation.

It was a look of compassion and mercy.  In that moment, Jesus forgave Peter…and Peter knew it.  It was this look that would forever mark Peter’s life and ministry.  Having faced the wickedness of his own soul, Peter remembered the Lord’s words and turned to Him.  Despairing of self, he found hope in Christ.

Read the story.  Peter is a different man going forward.

That rooster.  You have to wonder if, forever afterward, when Peter heard the unsolicited wake-up call of the crowing rooster…if he silently rehearsed his eternal gratitude for that blessed early morning remembrance.  The crowing rooster would ensure that Peter would never forget the unfailing faithfulness of the Savior.

It’s worth asking ourselves: is the rooster crowing?  As we consider this Sovereign King who moves the vast machine of the universe for His own glory and purpose, how is He using the circumstances of our lives…desperate, heartbreaking, disappointing, painful or blessed, peaceful and full of joy…to transform us into a more glorious likeness of His Son?  Pay attention.  Even the unsolicited wake-up call is for our good. Amen?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Garden and Peaceful Death

       He began to be greatly distressed and troubled.  It is rare that we are told of Jesus’ inner attitude toward His circumstance.  The Gospel writers only sparingly refer to how Jesus felt about what was happening around Him.  Here, however, it seems as if the whole being of the Savior was profoundly shaken. 

Why?  What caused His great distress?  Why was He so troubled?

        Was it the understandable fright of facing a horrific death?  We don’t think so.  He knew that He was going to die.  He had said so repeatedly to the disciples and, to this point, He was confident and calm.  What was it that caused Jesus such sorrow that He literally fell down under the weight of it?

        We get a glimpse into the source of the Savior’s dread from v. 36: “Abba Father, all things are possible for you.  Remove this cup from me.”  “The cup” in Hebrew literature represented, not just physical torture and death, but the two-fold threat of the unutterable weight of the sin of the world and the unleashing of divine justice poured out on injustice*.  The Savior’s agony exposed in Gethsemene was the dismay of being smothered by sin and separated from His Father.

       Jesus was about to be exposed to the one thing in life he feared, to the point of being “very sorrowful even to death”: 

              the indescribable experience of being “God-forsaken”

        In the face of such an excruciating end, Jesus begged His Father for relief. But His desperate prayer found its conclusion with these words:

 Yet not what I will, but what you will.

        This is the ultimate expression of the humanity of Christ in submission to the Divine.  Every fiber in His body wrestled against the pouring out of wrath that would separate Him from His Father.  The weight of that reality was too much for Him to bear, causing Him to fall down.

       AND YET He became sin.  Mortifying His own desire, the Savior’s submission to the will of the Father demonstrates a degree of perfection that is without equal. It is hard to imagine, this submission to be overcome by sin and suffer the wrath of God. But the covenant of redemption would demand this ultimate sacrifice -- that the Savior would drink of this cup, and drink it to the dregs.  "He will drink it now, and He will drink it to the full, and He will do His Father's will...He will pay the ransom price to set us free." (Thomas)

        The temptation is to consider this scene and to be overwhelmed with gratitude that is tender and genuine but not transforming.  The submission demonstrated by Jesus is not on display simply for our admiration.  Such submission is the sacred duty of all Kingdom-dwellers.  It promises our ultimate peace and lasting joy as the Father is glorified.  J.C. Ryle describes our imitation of the Savior as we

 learn to take patiently whatever God sends

       grow to like what He likes

              to long for the things that He desires

              to forego ease, if He chooses to send hardship

                   to prefer pain, if it pleases Him to send it.

       This principle informs a biblical consideration of the recent suicide of Brittany Maynard, the young woman who --- dying from a brain tumor --- made the decision to die “peacefully” in her own time, and in her own way.  Without mitigating the heartache and horror of a slow and painful death at the mercy of cancer, it is imperative that the will of God, however difficult, not be set aside.  We, like Christ, must learn to “know no will but His” (Ryle). 

        We must be very careful that we exercise our "freedom" in the context of God's sovereignty and His dominion in our lives.  Our American Citizenship does not usurp citizenship in the Kingdom of God.  The ultimate expression of our maturity in Christ is our increasing disposition to submit our will to the will of God, even when it is costly. 

        The “cup” would not be spared. 

              Jesus would bear the weight of the sin of the world. 

                       Of my sin.

                          And He would do so willingly.

 The world might call that “tragic”.  It is, in reality, the greatest Truth in all of history.  It is the Gospel.  Amen?

      

Note:  It may be helpful to know that I write this text with the perspective of having spent 6 months of the past year at my mother’s bedside as she, like Brittany, suffered the effects of a terminal brain tumor.  She died on February 1.  It was heartbreaking and painful and I’ll never understand the purpose of God…so I realize the dilemma.  But the Truth must not be set aside because it is hard.

 

*Ezekiel 23:32-34 and Isaiah 51:22

**2 Corinthians 5:21