The Shame of Humanity & the Victory of Christ (Mark 14.26-52)

One of the most challenging struggles in all of life is the management of shame.

All of us feel shame to a greater or lesser degree. Sometimes that shame is totally unjustified. We feel shame for things that are neither our responsibility nor our fault. Think of someone who is abused or deeply hurt by someone else. Often that person doesn’t want to talk about it, tries to hide it, because they feel ashamed of what happened, even if they did nothing wrong.

But often, things can get cloudy; it can be hard to distinguish between illegitimate shame and shame that is appropriate. People who have been wounded may use their wounds to excuse sinful behavior in themselves; people who hurt others may blame the people they hurt for the sins they themselves have committed. And still others prefer to ignore the question altogether and push it away, because it’s just too painful to consider.

Sooner or later, though, we all have to recognize the fact that all of us have reasons for shame. All of us have done things we’re ashamed of, and we carry that shame with us like a ball and chain.

This is the point where I would usually say, “I’m not saying all this to bum you out,” but that’s not the truth. I am trying to bum you out, but I have a reason. Approaching this text, we all need to remember the shame we’ve felt in the past, or the shame we still feel today. Because shame is what we see here, and remembering what it feels like to carry it is essential to understanding this text.

If you remember, last week we saw the last supper that Jesus had with his disciples; we saw the conspiracy to arrest him and betray him; we saw the woman’s beautiful gesture of anointing him for burial; and we saw the weight and meaning behind the bread and the cup Jesus shares with his disciples.

Today’s text picks up immediately after that last event.

And the first thing out of Jesus’s mouth is a prophecy—or rather, three prophecies, all of them prophecies of failure.

Prophecies of Failure (vv. 26–31)

V. 26:

26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 27 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.’ 28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”

The first “prophecy of failure” we see here is the hymn that Jesus and his disciples sing together. Traditionally, the Passover hymn is what’s called the “Hallel”, which was Psalms 113-118, because these psalms recount the story of God’s deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt. And it is in Psalm 118.22 that we find the famous Messianic verse: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

It’s almost certain this is what they sang—which means that at the end of the hymn, Jesus was literally singing about his own rejection that would come in a very short time.

Afterwards, he takes his disciples out to the Mount of Olives, and there Jesus shocks them again. He’s already said that one of them would betray him;,and, presumably, Judas has now left to do just that. But now he says (v. 27): “You will all fall away.” Why? Because God said it would happen. Jesus quotes the prophecy we find in Zechariah 13.7, in which God declares, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.”

On the surface we could see this as Jesus simply telling them what’s about to happen: he’s going to be betrayed, he’s going to be arrested, and the disciples will all flee in fear.

But that’s not all he’s doing. By quoting the prophet Zechariah, Jesus is identifying himself as the Shepherd whom God had appointed, the Shepherd who would be struck. Which also means that the suffering that he was about to endure isn’t an act of evil that he was powerless to stop; his suffering is a part of God’s deliberate plan.

Even the violence he’s about to endure isn’t chaos; it’s covenant fulfillment.

Then he adds (v. 28): “But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” This makes sense too, because Zechariah’s prophecy doesn’t end in destruction, but renewal — God refines and restores His people. Jesus’ resurrection will be that restoration. The scattered flock will be regathered.

But faced with this prophecy of their own failure, the disciples are evidently unable to remember the hope given by the prophet Zechariah. Their collective is response is, “No.”

V. 29:

29 Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” 30 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” 31 But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.

The disciples respond just like Israel at Sinai, when God established the covenant with them. When he told them how to enter into covenant with him, they affirmed, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do!”

In the same way, Peter tells Jesus that he’s wrong. Even if everyone else leaves you, I won’t. And they all say the same. They swear loyalty — and they all fall within hours. The Shepherd knows the sheep better than they know themselves.

The Suffering of Surrender (vv. 32–42)

In v. 32, Jesus takes the disciples to a place called Gethsemane. Gethsemane was a garden of olive trees on the Mount of Olives, and the word “Gethsemane” literally means “olive press” in Aramaic. It’s appropriate; as we’ll see, Jesus is here to be pressed, and to persevere through it. This is, really, the place where Jesus’s victory is decided, because it is here that he willingly submits to God’s will for him in the coming hours. (It shouldn’t be lost on us that this scene is a sort of inverse of another scene at the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 3. As Adam fell in a garden, Jesus claims victory in a garden—it’s the beginning of the reversal of Eden.)

V. 32:

32 And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 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.”

Jesus’s prayer is heartbreaking, for multiple reasons. The first is simple, and very human: he calls God “Abba”; literally, Papa. It’s what a child would have called his father at this place and time. I never thought much of this until I myself became a father.

The second reason is even more profound. Jesus says, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.”

Think of what this means, in context. Jesus is about to die for the sins of his people. He’s about to suffer horrendously—physically, emotionally and spiritually. And he says, “Father, all things are possible for you.”

We need to understand that our sin did not force God into a box. The sin of humanity didn’t require God to come up with a sort of emergency rescue plan—the only way he could deal with sin and save his people. He’s God. He can do anything; all things are possible for him. He could have found another way to save his people.

And Jesus knows it. This plan wasn’t obligatory; it was chosen, not because it was the only possible plan, but because it was the best plan. So when Jesus prayed, “Remove this cup from me,” God could have said, “Okay.” And he could have found another way.

But although Jesus knew this wasn’t the only possible plan, he also knew it was the best. And in this moment of the most extreme vulnerability imaginable, he trusted his Father to do what was best. So he prayed, “Not what I will, but what you will.”

In that one simple phrase, Jesus accepts the “cup” that God is holding out for him.

His language is significant; the “cup” is not an image Jesus plucked out of thin air. He knows what God is doing; and so he speaks of it in the same way God did through the prophets. “The cup” was a common image in the prophets—and the cup was always filled, not with wine or water, but with God’s wrath. The cup is God’s judgment against humanity’s sin.

That cup, ordinarily, is held out to us. As God told the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 25.15):

Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.

This is our cup—the cup of judgment against our sin. But before it comes to our lips, Jesus takes it, brings it to his own mouth, and willingly drinks it for us.

It’s difficult for us to imagine the weight of Jesus’s suffering in this moment—not only because of what was coming at him, but because even in this moment of preparation, he was alone. V. 37:

37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 41 And he came the third time and said to them, “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.

We need to be clear about something. Jesus’s isn’t surprised that the disciples are sleeping. He’s not asking them, “Why are you sleeping?” because he doesn’t understand. It’s very late, they’re very tired, and as Luke tells us, they were sleeping “for sorrow” (Luke 22.45)—the weight and sorrow of this evening were so heavy that they couldn’t take it anymore. Jesus knows this.

But he wants his disciples to remember, as we saw at the end of chapter 13, to “stay awake.” Later on, there will be other moments when they will be sorrowful, when they will be so full of woe that all they’ll want to do is lie down and close their eyes. And in those moments, I believe Jesus wanted his disciples to remember his voice on this night, saying, “Why are you sleeping? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

And it is with this example—this example of exhausted but determined perseverance—that Jesus says in v. 42, “Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

Isn’t it incredible that in spite of the knowledge of everything that was waiting for him, Jesus moves toward his captors, not away from them.

His surrender to God’s will, like all true surrender, isn’t the absence of fear; it’s determined obedience that trusts God when everything in us wants to run and hide and escape.

And it is with this determination that Jesus faces his captors.

The Fulfillment of Scripture (vv. 43–50)

V. 43:

43 And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. 44 Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man. Seize him and lead him away under guard.” 45 And when he came, he went up to him at once and said, “Rabbi!” And he kissed him.

Why does Judas kiss Jesus?

The first reason is purely practical: it’s the middle of the night, and it’s very dark, so these guards who don’t know Jesus well wouldn’t know how to pick him out from among the others without a sign. It’s spy stuff, the kind of signal a spy would give the enemy to indicate what they needed to do next. (Which is why Judas chooses a sign of affection, like a kiss: it’s what a disciple would do.)

But of course the irony is huge. The act of affection is perverted into a signal of betrayal. You can almost hear Psalm 41.9 in the back of Mark’s mind: “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.” Remember what Jesus said at the last supper? The one who will betray me “is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me.”

And, we read in v. 46:

they laid hands on him and seized him. 47 But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.

Mark doesn’t include Jesus’s response to this, when he tells the disciple with the sword—Peter—to put his sword away; but he does include Jesus’s question to his captors, which reveal the cowardice of this whole conspiracy. V. 48:

48 And Jesus said to them, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.”

They’ve had so many opportunities to do this—but they come at night, hidden from watchful eyes.

But, Jesus says, let the Scriptures be fulfilled. He’s not talking about any one specific passage—he’s referring to the entire prophetic pattern of God’s plan. Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Zechariah 12-13, even Genesis 3: all of them converge here. When Jesus says, “Let the Scriptures be fulfilled,” he saying all of this is exactly how it was meant to happen.

The disciples come to their breaking point here. They couldn’t accept it before, but everything Jesus has been telling them for so long is actually about to take place, and he’s not going to stop it (although he clearly could—he who can calm storms and raise the dead).

What could they possibly do in the face of such horror?

So we see in v. 50:

And they all left him and fled.

The prophecy that Jesus quoted earlier from Zechariah comes true in real time. The sheep are scattered, and the Shepherd stands alone.

The Shame of Humanity (vv. 51–52)

Finally, Mark includes a sort of epilogue to this scene in the garden—an epilogue that is incredibly profound.

51 And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, 52 but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.

Mark is the only gospel writer who includes this detail, which has led some commentators to think that Mark himself was the young man. We can’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the image.

A young man following Jesus, seized by the guards, who has his linen cloth ripped from his body, and runs away naked.

Naked in a garden: it’s not the first time we’ve seen this. After the first man and woman sinned against God, their eyes were opened, and they realized that they were naked, and they were ashamed.

A very frequent nightmare for teenagers (and sometimes for adults too) is to find themselves naked in school, surrounded by classmates who are clothed. The feeling of these nightmares is almost always a feeling of shame, and the fear linked to that shame—the fear of being seen in our nakedness, in our shame.

The last image before Jesus’s trial is a nightmare image of all humanity before God: naked and ashamed after our catastrophic failure.

This young man is all of us—this is how sinful humanity stands in front of a holy God: totally naked, totally shameful.

And this is the image that Christ would soon become. On the cross, it wasn’t like in the paintings we’ve seen. Jesus wasn’t wearing a loincloth. He was naked too; the only thing he wore were his wounds, and the crown of thorns. This young man was able to run away and hide, to eventually find a way to cover himself.

Jesus couldn’t do that. He was naked—and nailed to a cross, lifted high for all to see.

And even this is only a picture. He didn’t just take our shame on himself in a physical way; he took the shame of our sin on himself and stood before God to be judged for it.

This experience of being totally exposed in our sin before a holy God who holds out the cup of his wrath for us to drink… This is the experience Christ took on himself, so that we wouldn’t have to.

When we are ashamed, what do we do? We run and hide. We try to cover it; or worse, we try to deny it.

But Jesus walked toward the shame, and its just consequences.

The Shame of Humanity and the Sovereignty of God

This text forces us to face what no one wants to face.
Jesus begins by predicting the shame of his disciples. Then their shame becomes reality: they can’t stay awake, one of them reacts badly to Jesus’ arrest, they all run away—and one of them literally flees naked, exposed.
In the middle of all that is Jesus: afraid, yes; anguished, yes—but determined and resolute.

Remember at the beginning when I told you to recall moments in your life that filled you with deep shame? I didn’t say that to be cruel. I said it because feeling that shame is the only way to truly grasp the magnitude of what’s happening here (and after).
We feel our shame… but Jesus took our shame.

One of the most constant struggles in our Christian life will be remembering that. It’s easy when things are going well—when we feel we’re managing our responsibilities and faithfully obeying God. But it’s much harder when we’re struggling, when obedience to God requires effort. In those moments, we feel shame—often not only for our failures, but for the struggle itself.

Struggling to obey is nothing to be ashamed of. We are beings who live in bodies still marked by sin—how could we not struggle? Think of someone at the gym, sweating and pushing himself to the limit to get back in shape. Should he be ashamed of his sweat or sore muscles the next day? Of course not: he’s working, and that’s good. It’s a struggle, but a good struggle.

And there is no better struggle than the struggle to obey God. It sometimes frustrates us because we want to obey—and we wish it were easy. But there’s nothing shameful about the fact that it’s hard, about the fact that we have to fight; on the contrary, the very act of struggling is a sign of maturity and growth.

There’s also no shame in struggles that come from things beyond our control. There’s no shame in being traumatized after abuse. There’s no shame in having trouble standing if we’re sick or disabled (physically or mentally). Some challenges truly aren’t our fault, but we still have to face them—and it’s hard. But it’s not shameful.

Yet there are many things we do, think, or feel that bring about a perfectly legitimate shame. It’s normal to feel shame after hurting someone. It’s normal to feel shame after deliberately disobeying God. And we’ve all done that.

Every person in this room has legitimate reasons to feel shame, whatever our circumstances. We’ve all rebelled against God; we’ve all consciously chosen not to follow Him; we’ve all consciously chosen not to obey.

At first, the shame that follows failure seems easy to brush off. It feels natural, and somewhat manageable. We carry it, telling ourselves we’ll do better next time. But if we keep on sinning, as sin piles up, so does shame: we begin to see it not as natural, but as inevitable. And sooner or later, we find ourselves with a mountain of shame on our shoulders, saying, I’ll never get out of this. Every act of obedience feels pointless—like a drop falling into the sea.

Another common problem is that the idea of facing the shame of our sin feels so crushing that we simply refuse to face it. When someone confronts us about sin in our lives, instead of really listening and considering that our brother might be right, we instinctively deny it and say he’s exaggerating—because facing the shame of our failure feels too painful. And over time, we start to believe that our sin really isn’t such a big deal. That tendency produces Christians who think they’re godly, who believe they’re living for God… while in reality they’re feeding patterns of sin in their lives that they’ll never deal with—patterns that may eventually shipwreck their faith.

Brothers and sisters, our shame is real; it’s greater than we can imagine, and we must face it. We must accept the truth: we are far more sinful than we think. As I said, it’s sometimes hard to tell it all apart. It takes a lot of work to separate legitimate shame from illegitimate shame.

That work is important—but for the Christian, it’s not the first thing we must consider. The first thing we must consider is this glorious truth: Jesus took our shame.

All of it. Our past shame, yes—but also our shame of tomorrow. We never go back to square one with Him—our shame doesn’t pile up before Him; He has taken it.

If you are in Christ, then whatever shame you’re carrying today, Jesus has taken it.

So the first call of this text is simple:

Realize that your shame no longer belongs to you.

See your sin clearly… feel deeply the shame of your sin… and then, let it go.
Remember that your shame no longer belongs to you. Scripture has been fulfilled, our King has put our sin to death, and we are free.
Your Savior loves you, and His shoulders are broader than yours; He can bear what you cannot.

So see your sin clearly; feel deeply the shame of your sin; then let it go. It doesn’t belong to you anymore; the Savior who loves you has taken it.

And the second call of this text is tied to the first, because it’s tied to how we can do that:

Trust in God’s plan and His sovereignty.

Jesus stood firm when we fled; He obeyed when we rebelled; He clothed Himself with our sin and drank the cup of God’s wrath against our sin.

How could He do that? How could Christ have the courage to accept the cup of God’s wrath? Mark makes it clear—He was sorrowful to the point of death; He was seized with fear and anguish. We can’t just say, “Jesus could endure it because He’s God”—it’s not that simple. Jesus’ divinity and humanity are inseparable; He’s never less than divine, but He’s never less than human either. And in this passage, we see a human being visibly terrified by the suffering awaiting Him—a suffering that goes infinitely beyond physical or emotional pain.

So how did Jesus find such courage?

He found that courage because, as great as His fear was, His trust in God was greater still.

We see that repeatedly here. Everything that happens to Jesus, and everything that happens to the disciples, had been foretold. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” “This happens so that the Scriptures may be fulfilled.” That’s the lens through which Jesus sees everything: not as an unavoidable tragedy, but as the fulfillment of the plan.

The Shepherd is struck so that the flock may be saved.
The Scriptures are fulfilled so that salvation may be applied.
The Son is left alone so that we never will be.

God’s plan is perfect—and Jesus knew it. We need to know it too. If we trust in His sovereignty, we can learn to stand firm, to persevere despite fear, despite shame—to hold fast to the end.

I don’t know what each person here is going through—but I do know that at some point, perhaps even this morning, what we see in this passage will be the truth we must cling to.

Our shame is real, but it no longer belongs to us. No matter whether you think your shame is legitimate or not—it doesn’t belong to you. It’s already been carried. Christ became our shame so that we might become His saints.

Our shame is real, but it no longer belongs to us.
And God’s plan is sometimes hard—but never less than perfect.

Since Jesus bore what we could not, we can bear what He gives us to carry, with His help. We can keep going. We can move forward. We can grow.
Marvel at your Savior, trust Him, rest in Him, and keep going.