Okay, we're on the downhill swing. If we can manage today and in the morning, we'll have made it. Remember, we are focusing on Mark's story of Jesus, emphasis on story. We're not quite sure what all the historical reality is behind this. And as scholarship is showing us, it's almost impossible to know. But Christianity is not based necessarily on simply historical fact alone, so we're not in any ways hindered by that. Matter of fact, we're enriched that we got four different stories. Very different. Chapter 11 is where Mark's story takes a real radical turn.

[01:07]

And it begins with a great symbolic event. Symbolic not meaning that Jesus never went into Jerusalem, but symbolic in terms of what it means that He went into Jerusalem. and what all took place there. Most people feel this probably was an unrecognized event in its own time, just as oftentimes when you see a group of protesters on television, they all look like the whole city or the whole country's out there doing something, and then all of a sudden when you get the context, you discover There were only about 10-12 people there and cameras were focused on them and nobody else had a clue that it was going on. Well, in a way, that's what's going on here. Mark wants us to know that Jesus certainly has a prophetic quality about him.

[02:18]

The prophetic quality, of course, was quite prevalent during the three passion predictions that Mark set up for us. And it continues on in this last part of the Gospel. When they were approaching Jerusalem at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent His two disciples and said to them, Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden, Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Just say this, the Lord needs it and we'll send it back here immediately. Well, this is kind of interesting because it was the prerogative always of the local official. If he needed an animal, he just went and took it. He didn't ask anybody. He just needed it, you take it.

[03:20]

Difference being, of course, between Jesus and the local official is when the local official took the animal, you better kiss that goodbye. You'd never see it again. He never brought it back. Mark here makes the real point. The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately. And of course, it's all going to unfold like it says. They went away, found a colt tied near a door outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, what are you doing untying the colt? They told them what Jesus had said, and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and He sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in fields. Then those that went ahead and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

[04:24]

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David. Hosanna in the highest heaven. Now this is one of those events, of course, that is full of irony. People who would perhaps be looking on, and Mark doesn't give us any side comments about who they were or what they saw, but you could presuppose, I guess, people who'd be looking on might be scratching their heads and, well, look at that strange drooper, you know, or... Jerusalem, at this time of year, when this was supposedly taking place, could have up to a half a million pilgrims, so you'd get all kinds of folks doing all kinds of things, much like today. And, of course, they might have just said, well, isn't that a strange thing? Look what those folks are doing over there. Making this grand entry, I bet. And, of course, it is a grand entry. We know that. Not many other people knew that.

[05:25]

But we knew and know this is a grand entry. Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. That's his purpose. This is going to focus on the temple. He just goes in there and looks. So Mark has him go in and survey the situation. And when he had looked around and everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. Apparently the town is so crowded he can't stay in town. So he stays out of town in Bethany. Now Mark is presupposing that we have a pretty good sense of the role of the temple. The temple was a huge construction. When it was rebuilt after its destruction in 586, the first go-around was pretty pathetic, and people who had heard about the Temple of Solomon after they had sort of rebuilt this one, just sat down, cried, said, this is a terrible fiasco of a temple.

[06:30]

You remember what Solomon built. As time went on, different rulers added to it. So that by the time of the ministry of Jesus, it was once again a pretty elaborate, fine structure, big. It was also the symbolic center of the religious world for the Jew and certainly for the early Christian. When Mark is writing his gospel, most think about the year 70. That is the time the temple was destroyed. There's debate over whether Mark's gospel was written before the temple or after the temple destruction. Today, scholarship is favoring an authorship after the destruction of the temple. So Mark already knows the temple's gone and he's writing his gospel in view of that traumatic event. Because the temple for the Jew and for the very early followers of Jesus was the center, contained the priesthood.

[07:39]

It was where the sacrificial system was carried out. It's where you made pilgrimage at least once a year and hopefully more often. And it represented everything that their faith had come to understand. And then to have that thing destroyed was quite traumatic, quite traumatic. Mark wants us to understand, however, when people would say, how could God let the temple be destroyed? Which would be a question we'd all ask. How could God allow that to happen if it was such an important place Mark wants us to say, or understand, that in his understanding anyway, the temple was destroyed because it had lost its sense of value. It had ceased being what it was supposed to be, namely the authentic center of religious self-consciousness.

[08:52]

It had ceased to be that. according to Mark, for the nation. Therefore, it was allowed to be destroyed because it had strayed so far from what God intended. And then of course, what's going to take its place? Well, there will not be a temple anymore. Christianity doesn't need a temple. Christianity has a different sense of self, not located in any one temple, but basically, at least as it began, located where the Spirit is. Christianity started out very charismatic. So the cleansing of the temple becomes key, but notice what happens first in this odd little story here. So he's gone in. They made the grand entry. He's gone and he's sort of looked around the temple. Keep in mind what happens in the temple. You had this great court of the Gentiles, which was huge.

[09:53]

In the temple, you could not spend secular money. It had pictures of the emperor on it. Temple wasn't going to take that. You had to use temple money. Where did you get temple money? At the money changer. They did you a great service. You didn't have to run around trying to figure out where you could find it. You traded your secular money in for the official money that you could use in the temple. And apparently they had different places where you could deposit either a contribution or even your temple tax. But it had to be done with the official coinage. Major festivals which required sacrifice for the common people, Jesus, his family, those kinds of folks, mostly pigeons, turtle doves. But if you were rich, you might get up as big as a bull of some kind. He didn't bring all that stuff with you. The temple provided it for you.

[10:55]

So, it was quite a whole center of activity. Buying and selling was part of what the temple did. It was not considered illegitimate. It was considered a service so that people could carry on the sacrificial system. And so, when Jesus goes in there, I mean, He sees all of this. And he's looking around, and he goes back. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. So he can't blame the tree, you know. He said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again.

[11:59]

And his disciples heard it. They don't know what it means, of course, but they heard it. What did they hear? Well, they heard something strange like we would. Going out to one of these trees in Yorkshire and standing there and just cussing it up one side and down the other. I came out here for an apple. I'm here in zero weather. I want the apple. Well, you know, if the tree could speak, it could say, well, dummy, come back when apples grow, you might get one. But this is not the season. Then they came to Jerusalem. Now watch what he does here. And he entered the temple. He began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple. That's legitimate activity, so he's not angry because they're carrying on this legitimate activity. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.

[13:02]

And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? For all nations. But you have made it a den of robbers. This is what is understood and there's a long history of it back in the Old Testament as a symbolic action. The prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, they all engaged in symbolic action. Symbolic action simply meant that you enacted something through a little bit of your own activity which had a far greater meaning than simply that piece of activity, but whatever that far greater meaning was, it happened the moment you engaged in that activity. So when Jeremiah takes all those potsherds and goes into that old valley and smashes all those pots up against the ground there, he is understanding that that is a symbolic event talking about his enemies.

[14:18]

When Ezekiel is told to digest the Word, what does he do? Takes a stroll, eats the whole thing. Isaiah walks naked through the streets. All these kinds of things have been known from the prophets. So what Jesus is doing here is far more than a localized event stemming from his anger at what's going on at the temple. Jesus is declaring the temple and all it stands for is dead. It has become, in a long drawn-out sense, a den of thieves. Which doesn't mean simply they buy and they sell. It goes far deeper than that. The whole mission. Because remember, Mark is convinced evil has taken over. And the temple is part of that. The temple has been infiltrated with that.

[15:22]

Remember, the Gospels are pretty critical on the Pharisees, and we have to be careful about that because we are very flippant in how we understand Judaism and the Pharisees. We make all kinds of wisecrack, I'm a Pharisee, you're a Pharisee. That negative point in the Pharisaic structure of Judaism only was at that time when Jesus was carrying out his ministry. And it had happened because the Pharisees, associated with the Temple, had allowed themselves to be infiltrated and corrupted by the Roman government. And they were on the dole. And they were on the payroll and everything else. And so there was that segment, at that time, that really had sold out. Before that, however, the Pharisaic party, which actually started out as a lay group, for the sole purpose of trying to graphically, through case study, teach people how to keep the law, was a wonderful, wonderful party.

[16:30]

Probably came into official prominence at about the turn of the century there. Maybe a council of Yamnia, where that Pharisees started to emerge. But all Pharisees were not bad, and all Judaism wasn't corrupt. But at this time, they had sold out, and Jesus goes after that group that has sold out very strongly. And it's going to cost them the temple. So he's talking about something much greater than just the building. This will be graphically described by Mark in this odd chapter of 13, which is a huge apocalyptic chapter where he's sitting there looking and they talk about these huge stones and then all of a sudden Jesus starts letting it spiel about what's going to happen. And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it,

[17:32]

his condemnation of the temple, meaning, they kept looking for a way to kill him. For they were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. For Matthew, Mark and Luke, the motivation for killing Jesus is directly linked to this event. This is why they are going to kill him. This is the straw that broke whatever back he was on. Once he symbolically attacked the temple, then their fear of a terrific riot Remember, that was the one mandate Pontius Pilate had, who was not a good leader. Everybody knew that. He'd been through a couple of positions before, had not been very good at them, was not known for his tolerance with Judaism at all.

[18:36]

But his only mandate was, don't let any riots take place in Jerusalem. This could easily, at this time, lead to a terrific riot. So in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the death of Jesus is directly linked to his cleansing of the temple. In John, it is not. In John, it's directly linked to the raising of Lazarus, which is a whole different thing. Remember in Mark, Matthew, Luke, it's a one-year ministry. In John, it's a three-year ministry. Most historians think John is probably more accurate here. A lot to do in one year, so it probably historically was longer than that. But that's the motivation. Now, notice what happens, what Mark does. Remember, he started with the cursing of the fig tree. That's one part of the picture frame. In the center, the cursing of the temple.

[19:37]

And now he's going to put the other part of that picture frame on. In the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done to you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father in Heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. See, he's talking about the temple. The fig tree is symbolic for the temple.

[20:38]

That's what's occurred. It has nothing to do with whether it has figs or not, because Whether it's time or whether it isn't is irrelevant now because it's rendered useless. Jesus is not interested if it's the time for the figs, whether it is or whether it isn't, it's over. And so that fig tree becomes the symbol of that temple. And if we don't have the temple, what do we have? Well, for Mark, as he's been telling us all along, we have faith. That's how we live. and it's becoming all the more prominent. We live by faith, others live by fear. That's the dichotomy that has been set up. Then in chapter 12, Mark tells the story that's going to be the centerpiece for the second part of his story.

[21:39]

And as I told you before, just as the parable of the sower became the centerpiece for the first half, meaning everything that led up to it and flowed from it all evolved around how you understood the ground, how you understood the sower as Jesus, the good news as the seed, and what has produced and what has not. And for Jesus, or for Mark, what is produced from our good soil is the manifestation of the kingdom. And Mark is totally focused on this notion of the kingdom. It has to come, it has to grow. It is here, it's potentially possible if we allow it to grow It's not here in its fullness, and when that happens, it's going to be quite colossal. But nonetheless, the potential is here. Now he's going to tell us how this story is going to end, and he uses this interesting story here.

[22:44]

Then he began to speak to them in parables. You find a little Old Testament rendition somewhat of this in Isaiah chapter 5, the Song of the Vineyard, very famous. A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them. This one they beat over the head and insulted. Some commendator saying that over the head wants to get us to refer to John the Baptist who lost his head.

[23:47]

Then he sent another. And that one they killed. And so it was with many others. Some they beat and others they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally, he sent him to them saying, they will respect my son. Now, if you understand this story in the context of where Mark is telling it, we would agree with this. Given the high level of family respect and ownership and all that, we would agree with it. Oh yeah, you send your son, they're going to have to be, you wouldn't imagine them not being. They will respect my son. But those tenants said to one another, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours.

[24:50]

That's screwy logic, isn't it? I think Mark wants it to be screwy logic. How on earth would you think if you kill somebody's son, that which was meant for the son is all of a sudden going to go to you? Fundamental mistake. Fundamental mistake. So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. So that's what's going to happen. Now here's the payoff. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is amazing in our eyes. When they realized that He had told this parable against them, the officials, they wanted to arrest Him, but they feared the crowd.

[26:03]

So they left Him and went away. So very cleverly, see, Mark has used another ground image, vineyard. And, of course, this is all allegorical, as was the parable of the sower's interpretation. And it's pretty clear what Mark is saying, that yes, the way this story is going to end up is the Son of God is going to get killed. But don't think that's the end of it. It's not the end of it because God is going to have the final say. And for Mark, that final say is total destruction. The temple will go. Religion as it was known up to then will go. And it will be colossal. But then something else will come and take its place. The something else for Mark is the parousia.

[27:07]

See, that is the key focal point for Mark. See, Mark doesn't have any resurrection appearances. You read the gospel and you wait for Jesus to come back and he doesn't. Now, you can look in your Bibles and they put two resurrection stories there because they thought it would be nicer if they did and they might have come from Luke or John or something, but they didn't come from the author of Mark. And you don't need resurrection appearances in the story as Mark tells it. Much like you don't need resurrection appearances in the Gospel of John. Because the high point, the high point of the Gospel of Mark is when Jesus is on the cross. That's the real point he's trying to make. After that, God takes care of everything. The high point in John, and it's much more dramatic in a sense in John, because Jesus, unlike Mark's story in John, Jesus is in absolute total control from the prologue to the end.

[28:15]

He's hanging on the cross, and you've got to keep reminding yourself He's on the cross because He's doing business, He's getting His mother a place to stay, He's got everything lined up. The passion beforehand where he was supposed to be on trial, a couple clever questions, and all of a sudden Pilate's on trial and everybody else. In Mark, Jesus shuts up because he's like the lamb led to the slaughter. In John, he won't ever keep quiet. And in John, the gospel doesn't end until Jesus says, I'm ready. I've got everything. It's all lined up. And then there's no cry of abandonment, as in Mark. It's simply a very dramatic, It's finished, and the curtain comes down. And you feel a great catharsis there. Now John does have some resurrection appearances, but they don't add to that. They don't add to that. So we know how it's all going to unfold. We know how it's all going to unfold.

[29:17]

In a more dramatic sense, of course, Chapter 13 has been inserted. Mark has inserted this chapter 13 to kind of give us this apocalyptic sense of how urgent this is. You see, Mark is absolutely convinced all of this dramatic effect and stuff is going to really happen in a short while. in a short while. Many people think the reason that Matthew and Luke and John ultimately were written was because Mark, it didn't happen like that. The parousia didn't happen after just a few years. And so whereas Mark puts all his emphasis on the kingdom of God and on the second coming of Jesus, You'll notice Matthew and Luke and John focus much more on the person of Jesus, not so much on the kingdom.

[30:20]

Now they talk about the kingdom, but their expectations, certainly Luke puts a way off. But Mark is not like that. Mark, the urgency, the sense, the total transformation is all here. So this becomes the key paradigm. for the next four chapters. And notice what happens then, of course, he is going to confront the forces of evil as he moves along. First thing is questions with the authorities about paying taxes, questions about the resurrection. They're all now going to try and trap him. But, of course, to no avail. It'll never work at all. He closes this little section with a very interesting story. It's in verse 41 of chapter 12.

[31:20]

He sat down opposite the treasury, so he's back in the temple, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance. But she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

[32:25]

It's very interesting when the commentators get hold of this story. They all focus on how absurd this is. and how socially any structure that would allow a widow to give all she has and to end up almost destitute could not be a good system. And so they love to go off on that tangent and spin some things about what's going on there. But you see, that's not Mark's concern. Mark's not interested in social commentary at this point. Mark is interested in what he's been interested in all along, true discipleship, the first being last, the greatest being the smallest, setting up for us all along how those hand-picked disciples never ever caught on to this.

[33:25]

At every moment they were with Jesus and the only thing they ended up with was fear. Discipleship, on the other hand, as blind Bartimaeus told us, is not about fear, it's about faith. For Mark, this poor woman here who gives her all, out of her poverty, Mark wants to hold this up and say, would you like a good example of that kind of faith? Would you like a good example of what real discipleship is about? It's not about those rich folks who support us. It's not about those wealthy people who, because they got a lot of money, they can give us something. That's a tax write-off. They got to do that. It's about that person who's got nothing. except a couple pennies, and they give those couple pennies.

[34:32]

Now, obviously, that's symbolic of giving your all, giving everything. Real giving is when you give out of your poverty, isn't it? Real giving is when you give out of your poverty. That's something about discipleship. That's something about following Jesus. Jesus demands our all. Now, we like to think that all can be quantified, and for many of us, it can. I mean, those who follow Jesus, unlike in our own tradition, when we try to follow Jesus, there's a big emphasis on trying to whittle down the things we have, and we know how tough that is. But that's only stage one, and we've got to spend most of our lives just whittling down. I tell this ridiculous story about myself. I was 36 when I joined the monastery. I'd been ordained a priest nine years, and been all through school, and had a doctorate, and I just thought I was probably the best thing to ever happen to St.

[35:39]

Meinrich. That wasn't their opinion, of course. And I was so cleansed when I went there because I'd lived in the same place for 10 years before that. And I had collected all of it important, you know, items that I now was going to cleanse myself of. So I got a pickup truck. And I got rid of three heaping mounds of my treasures. None of it, what I have called junk, of course, important stuff. And here I am going to make this monumental cleansing effort of getting rid, getting right down to the bone. I got rid of three truckloads. I thought, now, it won't get any better than that. If that's not a heroic gesture you have just made, there is no heroic gesture. About three years later, it all came back.

[36:40]

I'm thinking, how did it come back? I ain't been anyplace. And I'm looking around, and there's this stuff, and there's that stuff. And all of a sudden, it's mine here. Oh, this over here. Need a little more room here. I can't get rid of that, you know? And I'm thinking, it followed me. I can't believe it. Well, it didn't follow me. I'm like a magnet. I think, you know, I got to have it. It's important. You see, I'm right back at square one then. Got to start all over. Except, might be just my experience, it's much harder getting rid of it the second time. Much harder the second time. And you see, what our way of life says is, that's only the frills, getting rid of that stuff. The reason you get rid of that stuff is so you can get down to the real task of being a disciple. And I'm thinking, my God, I ain't going to live.

[37:43]

I'm going to have to live to be 300 just to get to the task. And every time I read this story, I think of that, you know. I go home and look around. I thought, well, I'll solve this. I'll move into a smaller cell. Get your little path. You can get to your bed. Why not? We have an interesting practice. Every Lent, the abbot comes and inspects all the cells. This is the first abbot that did that. I'll tell you, man, when he put that announcement on the board, there was more scurrying around than if you would have said, and the Abbey Church is going to be destroyed on Monday. We'd have said, let that church go, just keep him out of my cell. We got a room, a common room, where we deposit all of our unwanted stuff for everybody else to want. Usually it's, you know, there's some stuff there, but it's pretty sparse. You can't go down there like you'd go to Walmart and shop. I'll tell you, after that sign went up on the board, those shelves were stocked like you've never seen them before.

[38:46]

You wonder, where'd those things come from? Not a soul had the courage to take anything off, because they knew where it would go. So every Lent for about a week, our cells are sparkling and sparse. But we all know how that works. That's part of the human condition. We all have to struggle with that. And of course, One of the nice things about our way of life and the Rule of Benedict is it says, you know, it's based on what you need, not on want. If you need it, you'll get it. If you don't need it, you don't have to have it. So it's not a matter of just quantity, is it? We got people at home who live with nothing except one pencil, but I'll tell you, if you put your hand on that pencil, you're dead. So you know how that works, you know. It's not that at all. There's some real deep-seated wisdom in the way Benedict has set that out. But it all goes back. Why have that? Is it because if we don't have anything, it's good?

[39:47]

Is it because if it hurts, it's alright? No. What we try to do in our way of life is to cleanse ourselves so we can be disciples. Discipleship in and of itself is tough enough. But when we're carrying all of our baggage, Think how tough that is. And that's only one form of baggage, the material stuff. That's the easiest part to deal with. We also know there's all this psychological baggage we carry with us, too. That's a real tough one, isn't it? They both get in the way. They both get in the way. But we can't give out of our wealth. That's not the great part. It's when we've got ourselves pared down and then when it looks like there's nothing left to give and then we're willing to give. That's what's being held up here.

[40:49]

The idea of the discipleship as being totally emptying oneself in the sense of trusting in God. And then, when Mark has written the gospel, keeping in mind that he firmly believes that the bruise is going to occur soon. Now in the way of disposing of her things, and she being held up as the epitome of what a disciple should be trusting. But is that really complete trust when you know that the parous is going to happen soon? You know, how much would he give up if he didn't know when the parous is going to occur? He expects it right to occur soon. So isn't that part of it too, to even surrender the idea of when the parous is going to occur? Well, the characters in the story don't necessarily know when it's going to occur.

[41:57]

So, the thing you and I have to keep in mind is we know more than anybody in the story, which is exactly the point that you're making. The demands on us are even more so, because we know that people in the story don't necessarily know that. So, in another sense, what Mark is doing is saying, this woman also epitomizes good soil that the kingdom can grow in. And eventually what's going to happen, there's going to be enough good soil that this kingdom will just literally erupt. And when that happens, the old stuff, the other kinds of soil is going to be done in. But you're right from our angle of, yeah, you can do anything for a little while if you know the time span. And so, yeah, I'll hang on until that time. But if you look carefully in the story, the characters don't all know that. So in a sense, they're not operating out of a double standard.

[43:01]

But Mark, And that's what you've caught is the setup Mark is doing for us. We know more. We know all of this. That means the obligation on us is even more so. And that kind of doesn't get us off the hook at all. So what are we called to from that angle? Now, the other part that we also have to deal with at some time is it didn't happen like that. What does that mean for us now? In fact, that the second coming, as far as we know, has not yet happened. And that's another challenge we'll look at as we go. But you're right from that angle. Yeah, that's a good insight. We want to watch this evening some of the key portions that I think in the gospel the most dramatic Jesus in the garden.

[44:02]

I mean this is where his full humanity and the full divinity really come together and it is very it's very dramatic and moving and I don't think anybody does it better than Mark in terms of this is where Jesus has to make his choice. And of course, for Mark, the way he tells the story, it is a choice for Jesus. I mean, it's not automatic. Jesus is not operating on automatic pilot in the story, even though we know who he is and we know how the story ends. As the story goes, Jesus is kind of like we are in our discipleship, trying to find his way and suffering as we suffer from the fact that those who we want to depend on the most oftentimes provide us with the least. And those who are supposed to be our most intimate associates can oftentimes be our biggest enemies. And so when he goes into that garden,

[45:04]

You know, he's aware that death looms, but he's going in to try and negotiate a little bit, and see what happens there. But really, it's a touching and significant point. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. To us the beginning is now, and shall be forever.

[45:28]

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