The Upper Room Discourse

Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger and Rachel Voytek, and we are picking up our discussion of the night when Jesus was betrayed. We have talked through the Lord’s Supper a bit. We’re going to do a flashback to the foot washing and then onward to Jesus dismissing Judas, but first the foot washing.

Probably most of the people listening know something about foot washing. The roads of Judea and the ancient world were dusty, and you went out there and walked you got dirty.

Something I’m rediscovering as we enter summer. Flip-flops change things.

Yes, exactly. So when you came to someone’s home it was the job, usually of a slave, but failing slaves it was the job of the host to wash your feet for you and make you comfortable, and it was also a symbol of humility.

Jesus as host legitimately could do this, but really he’s got 12 guys there who could have done this just fine, and they didn’t because, not being the host, they saw it as a position of service. And despite everything Jesus has been saying to them over and over and over again, they’re still not ready to serve one another. As the supper unfolds Jesus notices that this is not happening, so he gets up, grabs a towel and some water.

Again, something I assume that most of our listeners know is that people at a table, at least in Judea and probably throughout the empire generally, had low tables and they reclined at them with their feet away from the table. They would rest on their left hand and arm and eat with the right, so feet were out in the open. So Jesus comes and begins to wash their feet.

We’re not told what exactly everybody said or how they reacted to it, probably with some surprise, and when he gets to Peter, Peter says, “You’re going to wash my feet?” and Jesus gives him an obscure answer.

Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.

Jesus is drawing out an elaborate metaphor here. If someone has gone to a public bath, taken a bath and cleaned himself up and walked home, along the way walking through the dirty streets, his feet are going to get dirty but he himself is clean. He’s been washed. So he doesn’t need another bath, he just needs to have his feet washed.

Jesus is telling Peter, “What I am playing out for you here is a dimension of what will be the Christian life of service to me and to one another. As you folk walk through this life your feet get dirty. You pick up the contaminations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Being regenerate, having been baptized with my Spirit you are clean, but there’s this ongoing cleansing of the daily walk that needs to happen, and you need to help one another with this. This is far more intense, important, loving, even humiliating at times, than is washing somebody’s dirty feet.” He’s already told Peter, “If you don’t allow this to happen to you, if daily sanctification is not part of your lifestyle, you don’t belong to me.”

He doesn’t explain all of that. He sits down and says, “I’m your Master and Lord. That’s what you call me. I’ve given you an example that you should do as I have done to you, not what I’ve done, but this is the kind of attitude you need to have in your hearts.” He’s been wrestling with these guys now for 3-1/2 years, depending on which ones, and they still haven’t quite got it, that you have to serve one another.

He did say along the line, “You are clean, but not all,” because Judas is still there, and it’s to Judas that we now draw our attention. In verse 21 it says –

When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit and testified and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake.

Not everyone turned and said, “It’s Judas, isn’t it?” nor did they point at someone else, “Oh, it’s Matthew, the tax collector, or it’s Judas the Canaanite, the zealot. He’s a troublemaker.” No, everybody is not at all sure. The gospels tell that eventually they all start saying, “Lord, is it I?” which is progress toward humility.

Get out of your mind the idea of the last supper as Davinci painted it, with everybody on one side of a full table staring at the camera. Jesus is reclining on a couch with his feet away, now that he’s leaning back down again, and John is in his bosom. That means he has the favorite seat, the guest seat right in front of Jesus so he can lean back toward Jesus and whisper to him and ask him a question.

Peter apparently is on the other side of the table someplace so that he has a clear sight of John and begins to motion to him. When everybody else saying, “Is it me?” Peter thinks, “Ah! John can ask him. That will cut things down real quick,” so he motions and John asks who it is. “Lord, who is it?”

Jesus answered, He it is to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.

This was a traditional part of the Passover meal. You take the unleavened bread, put some of the roast lamb in it, dip it in the bitter herbs and hand it to the guest of honor. So Jesus is showing great kindness and deference to Judas. Judas is not going to be able to say in the last day, “Well, yeah, I was there but I was treated so shabbily, no wonder I…” No, Jesus treats him so well.

Jesus has said more than once now that one of them is the devil and one of them is going to betray him, but he has given absolutely no hint to anybody that it’s Judas and nobody knows.

Even when he does this, they still miss it. They still don’t know why he’s saying what he’s saying to Judas. Apparently, John did not share what he had learned.

Or even John was still confused by it because we’re told no one at the table knew this is what follows.

And after the sop Satan entered into him.

It sounds like direct Satanic possession because Satan doesn’t want this one screwed up, not that Satan has a great track record on such things, but don’t trust your little demon friends.

Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast, or that he should give something to the poor. He then having received the sop went immediately out, and it was night.

Of course it was. So Jesus to this point has been keeping Judas grounded here. The point I keep making is Jesus in his humanity is very much in control of the situation. As God, he’s ordained it all and predestined everything, but even in his human nature he is watching the clock and not letting Judas do anything before he should or too late. He’s keeping even Judas and Satan on a schedule.

Now that he’s done things he has to do, there’s still a little bit he needs to say to his guys and he really doesn’t want Judas around for it. He knows how far away they are from the temple complex and how long it will take Judas to get there and then get back, so he’s got this clock going in his head. “Okay, we’ve got time. Here we go,” and dismisses Judas into the dark. Then he gives his disciples a new commandment.

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

It’s the summary of the law – love God and love your neighbor – and yet it is new in that we now have a model. We have Jesus’ love for us. This is not the love that we are necessarily to have for our enemies or even for our spouses. This is a love we’re to have for brothers and sisters in Christ, based upon what Jesus himself has done and is about to do as he goes to the cross. He goes on to tell us that this is the mark of the Christian. Francis Schaeffer has written a little book called The Mark of the Christian which I commend to you.

And when he is done with all of this he says –

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Peter wants to know, “Why are you telling us this? What’s going on? Where are you going? Why can’t we come with you?”

Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake.

He apparently says this here and then says it again later, because eventually all of the disciples get in there. “We’ll die with you, Lord,” “Yeah, you’re not getting rid of us,” “Yeah, we’re all with you!” and yet at the end they all went off. Jesus says specifically to Peter –

Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice. [an ominous warning]

What follows in John 14, 15, and 16 particularly is called the Upper Room Discourse or the Farewell Discourse. As we keep reminding ourselves, this is a history podcast, not a theological exposition, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time here beyond pointing out that this is when Jesus is about to go. He doesn’t have much time. He’ll have time after the cross and after the resurrection, but as far as the things that are going to be recorded in scripture, he’s got 40 minutes or so before Judas shows up. He’s got to be out of the house by then, and he has saved in some ways the best for last.

He has saved trinitarian doctrine for now, the relationship of himself and the father, the place of the Holy Spirit, the coming of the Holy Spirit, how the Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus, how he is the spirit of both the Father and the Son, how as that Spirit he is the channel of life, Jesus being the vine, we being the branches. Without Jesus or without his Spirit we can do nothing.

Again he calls them to love him and to love one another and to wait for the Comforter, the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who will come and make all this possible by tying them to Jesus at a supernatural level, and reminding them of everything that Jesus has said – that is, he authorizes them to write scripture that is very historically important.

Somewhere in here toward the end of chapter 14 he says, “Arise, let us go hence.” The surprising thing when I taught through this apparently not very long ago because I remember this pretty clearly, it was amazing to see how many of the commentators immediately jumped in and said, “But that doesn’t mean he left right then.” No, it doesn’t necessarily, but why are you having a conniption fit on this one? Think of your wife in church. If you say, “Honey, we’re leaving,” that doesn’t mean anything.

They could also talk on the way. You don’t stop talking just because you’re walking.

“We can walk and talk. We are walking and talking. Everyone follow the umbrella.”

At some point in any case he does leave and gets them out, again watching the clock because Judas knows where this house is and this is where he’s going to bring the soldiers and the mob. So either in the upper room just before they go out the door, or in the streets, or perhaps passing through the temple complex as they head out the east gate, he lifts a prayer to his Father.

We call this the high priestly prayer. It is a model of the things he prays for and, as Rachel pointed out before the broadcast, this sets the pattern for what Jesus is doing in history. So I invited her to talk to us about this high priestly prayer for a little bit.

I think it’s best to slow down and actually read through it, since it’s not extremely long. One of the things I was thinking of in talking about this prayer is a reminder that this is Jesus’ prayer for his people specifically. Remembering what prayer is, I always have appreciated the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s definition of prayer, so it’s interesting to think of that definition in terms of how Jesus would do that.

What is that definition, by the way, because I don’t know it.

It is an offering of our desires to God in the name of Jesus Christ for things agreeable to his will, confessing our sins and thankfully recognizing his mercies.

It’s a wonderful combination in their definition that we’re lifting up the things that are our desires, but it’s in the name of Christ, and all of it is balanced with things agreeable to his will. Also confessing our sins and remembering his mercy. I appreciate that interplay of both our desires, but they’re in submission to the will of God, so our prayers are heard in Christ according to his will. So when we think of that, I think it helps our own prayers for our desires and things that we see in this world to know what Christ himself is praying in his own name.

It’s definitely going to be agreeable to his will, isn’t it!

Right. Every single thing that Christ has ever prayed is always agreeable to the Father’s will, so we pray to the Father in the name of Jesus.

When we think about history we probably don’t think of prayer as almost the fuel of history, in that the Lord responds to our prayers. He’s chosen to respond to our prayers as his way of doing things in this world to bring about his will.

We probably don’t record it a lot in history books, but I think in eternity it will be wonderful to hear about all of the prayers that people offered that were answered in those events that we have studied in history and that we talk about all the time. So I thought it would be nice to stop and think about Christ’s prayers for us. Do we have particular prayers from him after his resurrection?

Not after his resurrection – I’m trying to run through everything in my head.

I think we have him giving thanks.

Yes, he may give thanks. It would be odd if he didn’t for the food, but I don’t remember.

But I don’t think we ever get a detailed prayer like this, so in a sense these are all the last things that he wants to leave with his disciples and he wants Christians of all time to know, to influence future history.

Can I give a sneak peek? Verse 20 of chapter 17 –

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.

When we talk about the epistles sometimes it’s like “This word was written to these people at this time,” so we kind of have to think about how we’re related to that. Jesus is very explicitly roping us into this. This is for us.

Thank you, yes. I would say that’s one of the key verses in this whole passage, showing how he’s praying for those particular people but he has absolutely everyone that he will ever save in mind, because he’s also about to go to the cross, which he’s going to say in here too, that he’s going for all our sakes.

Beginning in chapter 17 he lifts up his eyes and says, “Father, the hour is come,” so we have now reached that moment in history where everything is about to unfold. He says –

Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

I would love to sit and talk and talk and talk about what that means, but given that history has an end, and we therefore are all looking towards eternal life in the hereafter, it is very relevant to the study of history to know that the life that we all seek and that we all need is found only in Jesus Christ and knowing him, which means knowing his scriptures. Also, Jesus has all power. So as he goes into this and as we move forward, all power is given to him, which is why he can give us eternal life.

I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

That again is another amazing trinitarian statement that we could spend a lot of time with, but I won’t unless somebody wants to jump in and say something about it. It’s one of those where I could stop and we would need to talk for a long time. This is another key point, though –

I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.

He has accomplished everything he was supposed to and, as he’s going to say, no one has been lost.

Thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

That’s the mark of someone who is a believer.

Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

Again, multiple marks of the believer. The core of what Jesus did was to give us words, and therefore all people who follow Christ after this will tend to be people of words. The word, as we’ll see later in the Reformation and the Puritans, was the revival of learning, of writing, of printing, the importance of teaching small children to read and giving them an education rather than sending them out – all of this is centered in knowing Christ and knowing the Father in the Christ in the words that he’s given.

I pray for them: I pray not for the world…

Which might surprise some people. Jesus does pray for specific people, even as we pray for specific people, though in a different way than he does because he knows all things.

…but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

We belong to the Father as much as to the Son.

And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

This is one of the places where we see the way in which they draw us into the midst of the Trinity, in fellowship with them through the Holy Spirit so that we enjoy true fellowship with God in the midst of their trinitarian perfect fellowship.

And now I am no more in the world…

Yes, he is still standing there but he’s speaking in terms of what’s about to happen and the change that’s coming, which is why he’s praying this.

…but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.

Showing he knew all along exactly who Judas was, but also who the others were and that the one who is going to betray him is not outside the plan of the Trinity and is in no way out of his control, but there’s a certainty of him keeping all that are his.

And now come I to thee and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from evil.

I think this is another significant thing to think about for history because there are going to be a number of movements of people that are in some way trying to get out of the world, whether it’s suicide pacts that are literally trying to get out of the world, but many will be, “My body is evil. This is evil. If I can just beat myself up, if I can just deprive myself and somehow separate…”

“And just get out of society.”

Yes, “If I can get out of society, if I can go back to nature,” but his point is your salvation is not getting away from the world. In fact, it’s having joy in Jesus Christ in the world and then telling others about him in the world. That’s an important aspect of his prayer, especially as we start to approach heresies and things like that when we’re trying to see, “How are you approaching salvation? What is the good? What is the best to you?”

They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

So though we’re not going to be pulled out of the world, it’s important to realize that there’s going to be a distinction. It’s not about the physical tangible things, but rather ‘world’ in the sense of the world, the flesh, and the devil, the things that oppose God.

Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

This is huge. The source of Jesus – where did Jesus come from – is one of the major questions and themes of the gospel of John. We’ve spent all of this time with, “Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Why are his words important?” and now he’s saying, “Not only did I come from the Father, but I am sending these people into the world.” Again we are brought into this participation.

We now have our origin point in the same as Christ. Instead of being of the world, we have been brought into heaven and are sent back to continue his mission.

And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.

Jesus is sanctifying himself, setting himself apart for a mission for those that are there, but also for us so that everything in history finds its climax there in what Christ is about to do in saving those that have gone before and those that will come later. All of it is through his word that will draw from both directions to him at the cross.

And here’s his goal for all those people that we were talking about –

That they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

This is one of our examples of how we look at the character and nature of our Triune God, and it informs how we should be shaped as a church, as a people of God. We appreciate unity and diversity because we have a God who is three-in-one. We appreciate those who are not the same as us, even as the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son.

This is where we find the value for the differences we see around us, not simply because it’s culturally acceptable or that these people have been oppressed in the past so now we’ve got to elevate them. Rather, we should value people and want to gather all people into the church. That’s how we show that we think people are important and that they’re made in the image of God, that we give them the gospel in the same way that we would everyone else. We don’t dumb it down or change it because they somehow can’t understand it. Instead, the oneness needs to be the one same true gospel in Jesus Christ.

Schaeffer includes this in his little book The Mark of the Christian as one more exemplification or simplification or outworking of the concept of loving one another. The world does not care if we have organizational unity. It does not care if we have doctrinal unity. They don’t care about our doctrine. But when they can see the kind of love you’re describing, covenantal commitment to one another, helping, supporting, serving one another, that gets their attention.

It won’t convert by itself but it can grab their attention. The Romans looked at the Christians going to the lions and say, “See how they love one another.” It can buy us a hearing and it’s something the world cannot produce.

It causes us, like other Christians of other times, to love those that society would cast out. I’m thinking of how they also were very confused by the Christians that would go out on the hills and save the children that they had left to be found by wild animals or whatnot, or just die of exposure. They are confused and don’t understand why we love certain people that we would.

It’s interesting in our day because often Christians are portrayed as very ‘above the rest’ or only liking their own people group, and yet we are by definition those that should and, as much as I’ve seen, do love the people that are ignored, but it’s not always in line with the definition of love of the culture around us. So then we continue to look strange.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

Again so much there that I could say. Our maturing and perfecting comes as we learn to be one, but also we are loved even as the Father loves the Son. That degree of love we often say we can’t even fathom.

That’s because we can’t even fathom.

Yes, that’s why we speak of ‘amazing’ and ‘wonderful’ and the depths of love, because it is truly beyond what we can fathom because his is an eternal love and ours is never eternal here and now.

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

Even though he says he sent us into the world and we’re to stay in the world, he also has this desire that we should have to be able to go and be where he is and truly see his glory as he is and not with the shroud of sin and such here.

Also he adds in that little reminder of the eternality of the love of God and also of the plan of God for these things. It goes beyond anything even in this world, that this world is temporary and what he desires for us to have is a true eternal home and rest with him in beholding his glory.

O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

We come back to this summary that we have received the words from Christ, making known the Father to us. We don’t need, as they asked earlier, for him to show us the Father and anything else besides the words that he’s given to us, but we see the fruit of that in the way that we love our triune God, but we also love one another here in this world and looking towards the world to come.

And so ends the Upper Room discourse, or wherever he may have been. John goes on to say that after Jesus had spoken these things they went over the brook Cedron, which suggests they were already on their way.

We could say it’s the pre-Gethsemane discourse.

The chat on the way.

Gethsemane lay on the Mount of Olives. The other gospels mention that at some point they concluded the Passover service with a psalm, so yes, Jesus sang the psalms, and then they go.

There’s one little thing that we can get sidetracked with, and I think this is probably as good a time as any, because remember we left Judas going out to get the priests and their guys, and they come back because now he knows exactly where Jesus is and if he hurries they can get him, so they come. Jesus is gone. Jesus is one step ahead of them.

Now this is based on a passage that appears in Mark’s gospel, a little random thing. I’m going to read it and then work backward from it. This is Mark 14:50 –

And they all forsook him and fled. And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body, and the young men laid hold on him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked.

That’s it. No explanation.

“I don’t know who this could have been,” says the author of the gospel of Mark.

Yes. The question becomes, “Who is this guy and why is this here?” The obvious reason it’s there is because the young man is an eyewitness. So what? Let’s go back to where we were. Judas and the accompanying servants and soldiers – they had picked up some Roman soldiers along the way and temple guards – they’ve come to this house with an upper room where Jesus and his disciples had celebrated the Passover, and they do what the gestapo would do in any age, knock on the door, pound, get an answer. “Where’s Jesus?”

“Up there, I think,” and they charge upstairs and it’s empty, and they all look at Judas, the informant. “You screwed up. Where is he?”

“Uh, uh, uh…wait, wait, I know. In the evenings he often goes to the Mount of Olives to talk with his guys and to pray. I know his favorite spot. Come with me!” so having nothing better to do presumably, they leave and they are now following in Jesus’ footsteps based on Judas’ assumption that this is where Jesus is going to go, and Judas is hoping he’s right because he’s going to look like an idiot otherwise.

Apparently there’s a young man in the house, and I’ll explain in a second why we might think this, probably a teenager or young college kid, and he hears the pounding and looks out and he sees soldiers. Soldiers are cool! Ask any young man between 11 and 18. Soldiers are cool and they came to our house and they’re doing what? They left!

It’s night, and most young men actually do have bedtimes, and he sleeps apparently in the nude, so he grabs the sheet off his bed and wraps it around himself and goes down to see what’s happening. The soldiers are gone so he creeps along, flirting with the shadows, keeping track of them – “Where are they going? What is this all about?”

At some point he probably recognizes, “Wow, I’m a long way from home. Oh well. Might as well go through with this now,” and so he follows across the Cedron bridge on into Gethsemane and shows up just in time to see the arrest and then to run away when the soldiers grab him, leaving behind his bedsheet.

Again, why is this important? Because it means he’s a witness. Who is the young man? Emily has already dropped the heavy hint here. We know from the book of Acts that the disciples at Pentecost were meeting in a house that had an upper room, and that house belonged to a woman named Mary, and Mary had a son named John Mark – Mark, the author of this gospel.

The only reason this makes any sense and that anybody is going to say, “Hey, guess what? There’s this guy running around naked, streaking in the middle of the night,” is because Mark wants to not just show, “Hey, I was there too! I’m cool,” but “I was an eyewitness.”

God is very concerned with eyewitnesses, not that an eyewitness takes precedence over his word, it always rests on the presupposition of his word, but he does over and over again bring before us eyewitnesses who were there in time and space, who saw these things, who heard these things, touched these things, and who can report.

This isn’t a fairytale. This isn’t something written 100 years later after Jesus was gone, or some generation or two after the destruction of Jerusalem. This is an account that was written at the time. This is history, coming back to our theme.

Mark is telling us, “I was there. It was cold. I didn’t have any jammies.”

Exactly, so that’s what’s going on. Going on to Matthew 26, Jesus and the disciples come to Gethsemane. Again he tells them, “You’re all going to be offended. You’re going to be scattered, as it is written the sheep of the shepherd will be scattered, but when I’m risen I will go before you to Galilee.” They keep missing the ‘risen’ part.

It’s not like people come back from the dead, to be fair. It’s pretty outside of normal experience.

Except a couple of times when they actually just did, like Lazarus.

Still, that was weird, right?

I’m thinking of the Irish twins in Lutheran Satire. “Yeah, that’s why it was so awesome what Jesus did!”

They kind of missed that, but they are caught up on the, “No, we’re not going to deny you,” and again Jesus says, “Before the cock crows you’ll deny me thrice, Peter.”

So they come to Gethsemane, which means oil press, which is fitting for what Jesus is about to go through. He’s going to be pressed here beyond measure, and his sufferings provide the oil of the Spirit that we so desperately need.

We’re in a garden. This whole story started in garden and it’s going to end in a garden. He tells his disciples –

My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tarry ye here, and watch with me.

Matthew doesn’t say this but the others do, that he takes with him Peter, James, and John and deposits them a little further on, then he goes a stone’s throw from that and falls on his knees and starts praying. He begins to pray, in so many words, “Father, have I missed something, because this is horrific. I’m about to be separated from you. I’ve never known anything but your joy and love, and you’re about to turn your back on me.”

It’s not simply death. Many men good and bad have gone to certain death and have gone without fear. That’s not what’s going on here. Jesus has never experienced separation from his Father and, although he will not turn away from his Father’s will one whit, in his humanity he is not omniscient. He’s an excellent student of scripture. No doubt his Father has told him things, his own divine nature has revealed things to him or shared consciousness after some manner we can’t even begin to understand, and yet and yet and yet. “Have I missed something?”

O my Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

This is repeated three times, and we’ll come back and look at this. I had hoped to get to the arrest, but somehow I knew we wouldn’t make it because there’s still cool stuff that happens before he’s arrested.

We can’t skip over this. This is too much, because there’s still an easy way out for Jesus up till this point, and we’ll talk about it next time. Let’s have some recommendations before we go. I’ll go first.

I’m going to recommend a children’s album from way back long ago – not that long ago, Greg was alive. It’s a group called The Limeliters, a folk revival group from the 1960s I want to say. They recorded a children’s album called Through Children’s Eyes. I know it exists on vinyl because my parents both listened to it on vinyl as children.

I have it on CD so apparently it got remastered gloriously and now Gretchen listens to it. She puts it on and she sits down in front of it and she sings along with all the songs, such glorious hits as “Move Over for Marty,” which I did not realize until someone ruined my life with the fact recently that it goes to the same tune as Popeye the Sailor Man. And “Hey Jimmie Joe John Jim Jack,” which is one of our most favorite songs. It's about the importance of remembering what it’s like to be a kid.

There are three different animals that it talks about – a little tiger who was never allowed to go out and roar, and because the tiger never learned to roar he became a rug and now he’s stretched out on somebody’s floor. And there’s a little bunny hopping through the woods, and the mother bunny said, “A bunny belongs at home,” so the bunny never learned to hop. And what happened to that bunny? Well, it’s in a butcher’s shop.

The third one is what cracks me up the most because I don’t think Gretchen knows what a beagle is, so she asks, “What happened to the beagle, happy little beagle, who never learned to beeg?” Apparently the beagle is the dog that beegs, that’s why they call it that.

It’s a great collection of music. Glen Yarborough, if you’ve seen the animated Lord of the Rings, is that lovely willowy voice of the bard. He’s a member of the Limeliters, so it’s just a set of lovely songs with lovely voices. That’s totally irrelevant to our discussion tonight, but there you are.

Somehow I don’t connect the Limeliters with what you just described, but hey, apparently I missed a lot as a child.

Picking up on that theme then, what we did for our children – I’ve told you all before that I grew up on Captain Kangaroo, which is a children’s program that introduced music and sometimes pictures and concepts from a more adult culture in a child-friendly way. They would play songs that were quite good, and they would show pictures that were quite good – for example, they would play “English Country Garden” and show you pictures of an English country garden, and so on.

In retrospect it amazes me how many songs that were probably my parents’ music, or would have been my parents’ music if I hadn’t been adopted when they were super old, I learned that way. So when we had children I found every single song I could remember from Captain Kangaroo and put it on a CD, and those are the songs that our children grew up listening to, “English Country Garden” being one of them, but I won’t go through the whole list.

My recommendation, I think, is that there’s something about covenant continuity here. Teach your children to enjoy your music. Something happened in the 60’s with the invention of the transistor radio. Teenagers suddenly had their own music that they could carry around in their pocket and plug into their ear, and they didn’t have to sit in front of the big radio back home with their parents and listen to mom and dad’s music. They could have their own music and it helped to foster the cultural split, the generation gap that dominated that age.

Moses and the psalmists are very upfront about, “Teach these songs to your children. Put them in their mouths so that they may teach their children.” Some songs obviously are more important than others – the psalms and the hymns of the church and the ancient chants and such have priority. But I think we do need to make an attempt to bridge the cultural gap between one generation and the next by finding the best, the most entertaining, the cleverest, the ones that get stuck in your mind and you can’t get it out kind of music, and share it with our children. We have more technology than ever to do that, so go make a CD for your kids.

Or a mix tape.

It’s funny that you both said that because before the podcast I had come up with my recommendation and it was for a music group. It’s funny how we end up with themes. I have actually been looking at music that I used to enjoy. I loved Psalty the Song Book. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that. That was one of my childhood loves and I’ve been trying to see if it’s worth sharing with Titus or not. Some of maybe not, but some of it’s fun.

What I was actually going to recommend is a group that David introduced me to recently called Joyful Noise. They’re a UK-based group that are doing a lot of songs based on scripture, but not exact scripture. My favorite song and their most popular song is called Gentle and Lowly. It’s inspired by the book by Dane Ortlund, a great book, and it’s a wonderful song based on the things that he meditates on in that book. They have a number of other very encouraging songs, so I was going to put that out there because I think they’re a newer group so not as well-known, but they have some good stuff.

Thank you both so much for this conversation. It’s been a delight, as always. Thanks also to David, our producer and my lawfully-wedded husband. Thank you to our financial supporters for making his life much easier with the editing software that we use.

Thank you to our transcriptionist. If you’d like to receive the transcripts in your inbox, Dear Listener, you can subscribe to our Substack at https://haltingtowardzion.substack.com/

And if you’d like to get in touch with us for any reason you can send us an email at [email protected]. Thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you next time.