A few years ago, I started noticing this poster everywhere: Keep Calm and Carry On. It was on social media. T-Shirts. Coffee mugs. And it wasn’t long after that that you started seeing all the variations to it: [advance each one]
• Keep calm and wash your hands (that one has just been in the past few months)
• Keep Calm and swim fast. (saw this in a beach shop on our last vacation)
• Here’s one for Star Wars fans: (Calm you shall keep and carry on you must)
• Now, Mike, I know you’ve never seen Star Wars, so I found one for you: Keep Calm and Conceal Carry
• And, because of my own warped sense of humor, here’s my favorite: Keep Calm and Carrion
[back to actual poster]
Now, all this got me wondering about the origin of the poster itself. I had heard that it had been produced during World War 2 by the British War Department, but I was curious as to why we just started hearing about it in the past few years. Then I found this video about its backstory. Watch this…
Ok, first off, how many of you really want to go find that bookshop right now? It’s amazing to me that the British never released it because they wanted to save it for a time of great crisis. I guess the bombing of London by the Nazis didn’t count. But it also makes me think that right now, we are living through a time of great crisis. There’s a pandemic. There’s economic uncertainty. There’s a presidential election. There’s families wondering about whether or not they should send their kids to school next year. It seems to me that we are in a time of great crisis, and maybe we need this message, “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
But this morning I want us to look at the events of Mark 14. This is the Thursday of Holy Week. The day starts with Jesus sending some disciples to scout out a location for the Passover meal, and it ends with Jesus getting arrested in the garden of Gethsemane. So you can imagine, it’s a pretty stressful, chaotic, day. I think Jesus was fully aware of what he was about to go through. But as we look at this, I want you to pay attention to how completely in control Jesus was throughout the last 36 hours of his life. We are going to look at four things we can do to help us manage the chaotic, stressful, difficult days.
1. Keep calm and create community (v. 22-25; Luke 22:14-15)
When Jesus woke up on Thursday morning, I believe He had full knowledge of what the day would bring. I think He knew that the next day He would be handed over to be crucified.
Which makes it kind of amazing to me that the first thing Jesus did on Thursday was to dispatch two of his disciples to make dinner plans. Let’s look together at verses 12-16:
12 And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 13 And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” 16 And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
Now there are a couple of really interesting things about these verses that I want to point out. First off, if you compare the gospel accounts you may get confused as to why Matthew Mark and Luke seem to say that Jesus ate the Passover meal on Thursday night, but when you flip over to John’s gospel, it seems that Passover hasn’t happened yet. John 18:10 says that after Jesus was arrested early FRIDAY morning, the religious leaders brought him to Pilate’s headquarters, but that they didn’t enter his house because that would have made them unclean and they couldn’t eat the Passover.
But notice that Jesus sends His disciples into the city to find a man carrying a jar of water. They were to follow him, and he would show them a guest room that was prepared for them to eat the Passover.
Men didn’t normally carry jars of water. That was considered women’s work. But some scholars suggest that there was an Essene community living within the walls of Jerusalem. Essenes were sort of like a Jewish monastic group. The men were celibate, so they would have been carrying water jars. And, they followed a different calendar than the more mainstream Jews, so they would have observed Passover on Thursday instead of Friday. Since Jesus knew that the religious leaders were looking to arrest Him, He may have arranged to observe Passover according to the Essene calendar in order to throw them off the scent. So there’s a good chance this was a prearranged signal that would lead Jesus and His disciples to an upper room used by the Essenes.
And sure enough, everything is exactly how Jesus said it would be, and that evening Jesus sits down with His disciples for His final meal. We know from Luke’s account that Jesus told His disciples, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer (Luke 22:15. We also know that when the meal was over, according to Johm Jesus got up from the table and washed His disciples’ feet. John 13:1 says, that Jesus, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
When the world seemed to be spinning out of control around Jesus, Jesus kept calm, and found community. And I think that’s important for us to remember now. In the midst of our crisis, how important is community?
Community is necessary. It’s vital. And if we can’t find community, we have to create it.
During this pandemic, we’ve done a pretty decent job of continuing to lead worship services. It was weird at first, and kind of awkward, but we kept getting better at it, and we’ve gotten to a place where we feel like we can lead a quality worship service so that even if you aren’t here in person, you can still worship and hear from God’s Word wherever you might be.
But community is the one thing we cannot reproduce online. Churches know this. Schools know this. That’s why there is so much controversy about opening up schools again. We know that we are wired to be with people. There’s more to church than sitting on your couch with your Bible and your remote control and tuning in to YouTube. And you know this too. I’ve heard so many people say that they love being able to tune in to worship on YouTube, but that it just isn’t the same.
We need community. When Jesus was facing the biggest crisis of His life, He needed to be with His friends. You’ll see this just a few verses later, when Jesus asks Peter, James, and John to stay with him while He prays.
How are you finding community during this time? If you can’t find it, how are you creating it? Jesus kept calm and created community. We have to do the same thing.
2. Keep calm and connect with the Father (v. 34-37)
Number two, keep calm, and connect with your heavenly Father. After supper, Jesus and His disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane. We talked about this last week. Gethsemne means “olive press,” where olives would be crushed under the weight of a stone wheel so their oil could be harvested. It was an appropriate place to be, because Jesus was at this moment feeling all the weight of what was about to happen to him. So again, he takes Peter, James, and John, and he says to them:
34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.”[d] 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.
Underline that word “Abba” in verse 36. Jesus doesn’t just call God “father.” “Abba” is much more personal and intimate. It’s the equivalent of our word “Daddy.” Jesus is connecting with his heavenly Father like a frightened child would cry out for his earthly daddy.
You know, there’s a time for well crafted, erudite, wordsmithed prayers. If you’ve been asked to deliver the invocation at a public gathering, chances are you’ll try to write out your prayer. And you’ll use big words. And you’ll modulate your voice when you say “Our Heavenly Father, we beseech Thee on behalf of a nation in need…”
Nothing wrong with that. But then there’s times when you are just desperate. And you cry out. And you skip all the impressive sounding King James talk. And you say “DADDY!!! HELP!!!”
And I am 100% sure that God hears those prayers. Psalm 34 says “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are attentive to their CRY.” It doesn’t say his ears are attentive to their vocabulary. Or their elocution.
Friends, when you are in crisis, cry out to your heavenly Father. It might be on the side of the road when your car has broken down. It might be in the hospital chapel. It might be in the parking lot of the unemployment office. It might be on a bench outside a courtroom. But if you cry to the Lord, He will hear you. If you seek the Lord, He will be found by you.
And there is value to getting away by yourself. Unplugging all your electronic devices. Taking nothing with you except a physical copy of God’s Word, a journal, and a pen. You might feel like there is so much going on that you simply don’t have time to slow down and connect with God. I would simply ask you, “Do you really feel like you are under more stress than Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane?” Do you honestly believe that you have more on your shoulders than Jesus did on that Thursday night?
What’s on your schedule for Friday? For Jesus it was arrest, torture, abandonment, exhaustion, and death. But still Jesus kept calm and connected with His heavenly Father. One thing really struck me when I was studying for this: after Jesus had prayed three times; after, according to Luke’s account, Jesus agonized so much that He literally sweated blood (see Luke 22:45), Jesus comes back to his three closest friends, finds them asleep and says, “Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
Period.
See, if I was writing this, I’d use exclamation points. In the movies, this is a big dramatic moment. But Jesus is calm. Jesus is calm because He has connected with His heavenly Father. Even though he didn’t get the answer to His prayers He might have wanted, when the time came to face Judas and the crowd of soldiers He came with, he kept calm. In fact, when you compare all four gospel accounts, there are only two times where Jesus says anything that gets an exclamation point. The second is at the moment of death, when Jesus cries out in a loud voice, “Into your hands I commit my spirit!(Luke 23:46) But the first is in Luke 22:51, which we are going to look at next.
Are you keeping calm in the midst of chaos? The key is connecting with the Father.
3. Keep calm and show compassion (v. 45-47; Luke 22:50-51)
Let’s keep going. After Jesus says, “see, my betrayer is at hand,” Judas Iscariot comes up to Jesus in the garden, followed by a band of soldiers. He kisses Jesus, the signal he had given to the soldiers, and the soldiers seize Jesus. And in verse 47, Mark tells us that “one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.” We get a few more details from John, who tells us that the servant’s name was Malchus, and that it was Simon Peter that drew the sword (John 18:10).
But it’s from the gospel of Luke that we get what I think is the most amazing part of this story. Look at Luke 22:51 up on the screen:
51 But Jesus said, “No more of this!” And he touched his ear and healed him.
And see, there’s the one exclamation point in the entire episode. Jesus doesn’t raise his voice when He finds the disciples asleep. He doesn’t shout when He announces Judas is coming. But when Peter lashes out at the servant, Jesus says, “No more of this!”
Then, Jesus performs the last miracle that’s recorded before His death. He touches the servant’s ear and heals him. One of the people that has come to arrest him. One of the ones armed with swords and clubs, and torches, and Jesus shows him compassion.
Can you even imagine? What a lesson for us. When we are at our biggest moment of crisis, its very tempting to turn inwards and say, you know what, Ive got my own problems right now. I don’t have time for yours. When things are super hectic and chaotic, we may feel like we don’t have the bandwidth to try and serve anyone else.
I can’t tell you how many times, when I’ve counseled someone in crisis, that my best advice to them was to get involved doing something for somebody else. it seems counter intuitive, but when we feel consumed with our own problems and issues, pouring yourself out for someone else’s need can be just what the doctor ordered.
I realized something this week in my own life. As a pastor, I’m starting to feel the strain of this pandemic. I found myself feeling anxious and depressed. I looked at the prayer request list for Wednesday’s midweek prayer meeting and was overwhelmed by uncertainty and fear for the future.
What helped me was getting on the phone and calling some of the people on the prayer list. Then I got in the car and making some visits to church members in need. And while I was sitting in a living room with a sweet senior adult couple from our church, I felt a lightening in my own spirit. I felt some burdens lifted off my own shoulders. And I made a commitment that, when I am feeling overwhelmed and depressed, I’m going to use that as my prompting to turn my focus outward and ask, “Who can I serve right now?”
What about you? Are you feeling the strain and the burden of the chaotic world we live in? Look around. Ask yourself, “Who can I be a blessing to this week? Where can I serve? How can I look outward?
Keep calm, and show compassion.
4. Keep calm and follow Christ (Mark 14:50-54)
The last section of Scripture I want to look at this week includes a detail that is only found in the gospel of Mark. Look with me at verse 50:
50 And they all left him and fled.
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.
Ok, hold up. Who’s the naked guy in the garden? We don’t know. This is literally the only place in Scripture that he is mentioned. No other gospel writer includes this detail, so most commentaries conclude that this young man is probably Mark himself.
We will never know, but I think the point is that this anonymous young man is a stand-in for all the disciples. Think about it. Back in Mark 10, James and John boasted that they were able to drink the same cup Jesus drank, so they deserved to sit at his right and left hand (Mark 10:38-39). Right here in chapter 14, you can jump back up to verse 29, where Peter tells Jesus, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” Jesus says, “Peter, the truth is, you won’t even stay with me through tonight. Before the rooster crows, you’re gonna deny me three times.” And Peter won’t have this. Verse 31: He said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” Now underline the last part: “And they all said the same.”
Now, compare that to what we just read—“and they all left him and fled.”
This young man wasn’t the only one that ran away naked. James and John were stripped of their self-confidence. Peter was stripped of his false bravado. The disciples left behind their courage. Their faithfulness. Their trust in Christ. They left everything behind and fled Jesus. What a contrast to how it was way back in Mark 1, when they left everything behind and followed him.
You know, in times of crisis, things we put our security in have a way of being stripped away. This time last year, we were a year into moving to two worship services. We were discussing plans to add a second floor to our education building because we were running out of room in Sunday school. We were talking about paving part of the field outside because we needed more parking. And as a pastor, I have to admit, I was feeling really good about where we were as a church, and how I was leading you, and how our future looked. But when the coronavirus hit, I found that my confidence was shaken. I found that a lot of my security was stripped away.
And now, I feel kinda naked. I feel a little exposed, and vulnerable. I don’t know if I have what it takes to lead, and if I’m being completely honest, I’m scared about the future. I don’t know what normal is going to look like
So now I have a choice. I’m either naked, and I flee, or I’m naked and I follow.
When everything else is stripped away, I want to follow Jesus. I don’t want to be clothed in anything but his righteousness. My own confidence? That’s a threadbare garment. My own righteousness? Those are filthy rags. My own strength? Friends, that is a pathetic suit of armor in the battle we are facing.
But friends, when everything else is stripped away, what if, instead of running away from Jesus, I run full out toward him? What if I let Jesus clothe me in His robes of righteousness instead of my filthy-rag righteousness? What if I put no confidence in the flesh but all confidence in the spirit? What if I leave behind my own suit of rusty old armor and put on the armor of God? The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness? What if I leave behind my combat boots and let my feet be shod with the gospel of peace? What if I take up the the shield of faith with which I can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. The helmet of salvation?
What if, instead of trying to pick up a sword and lashing out at some enemy on social media, I pick up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God?
I want to keep calm and follow Jesus.
Folks who have been at Glynwood for a long time will probably tell you that a highlight of “The Sacrifice” musical our choir does is when the Men’s Ensemble sings “We Followed the Man.” The song is sung from the perspective of Peter, James, John, and Andrew, and its them talking about leaving everything behind and following Jesus:
Not knowing where we were going
Charting the waters of faith
Led by his light through the darkness
Drawn by the star of his grace
Putting our fears behind us
Moving through restless seas
Trusting him as our Captain
Not knowing where He would lead
We followed the Man
We followed His voice
Hearing Him call to our hearts
We rushed to the choice
We never looked back
We had no regrets
We turned from a life built on sand
And we followed the Man
