"Prediction of the Abandonment of Christ by His Disciples"

 

Matthew 26:30-31: And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.

Again we have two paragraphs each with one verse. Verse 30 states that they sang a hymn at the end of the first Lord's Supper. That was a part of the Passover, and the Psalms 113-118 were traditionally appropriate for the end of Passover. These six Psalms are known as the Hallel (praise) Psalms, and the content of those psalms celebrates the deliverance from Egypt. Psalm 135 is similar in content, and in fact that psalm is known as "Little Hallel."

The location now switches to the Mount of Olives. Apparently, Jesus and the disciples frequented the Garden of Gethsemane for teaching and prayer at different times during His ministry. That Garden is located near the base of the Mount of Olives, which rises on the east of Jerusalem. This is not an extremely high mountain, and would be regarded in California as a foothill. Today, you can see the Golden Gate (permanently blocked by Arabs to prevent the Messiah's entry) from the Garden of Gethsemane. This garden is still there today with olive trees, some of which are dated at 3000 years of age.

Next to the Garden is the Church of All Nations, which had I believe 27 nations pay for its construction (USA was one of them). The claim to fame is that they have in that church what is believed to be the very rock on which Jesus prayed that night. We need to always be careful when we say that a rock or some other object is the exact spot, but as Dr. Gary Cohen (with whom I have co-conducted several trips to Israel) has said at these sites in the Holy Land: "We are always within 200 miles of the exact spot." Of course, that is the basic dimension of Israel, a country today that is about the size of New Jersey

Jesus will enter Jerusalem from that Gate in the End Times. Zechariah 14 says that His feet will touch the Mount of Olives, and the mountain will split in such a way that the Jews will be able to flee Jerusalem. As He and the disciples went out of that Golden Gate to the Mount of Olives, He began to warn them of what was soon to occur, and to impress upon them the untrustworthiness of their own hearts.

It was another of Zechariah's prophecies to which Jesus referrs in the next verse when He tells the disciples that all should be stumbled, or scandalized, because of Him that night. Zechariah 13:7 affirms that God will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep (disciples) will be scattered. The word "stumble" in Greek was used in 24:10 to describe the "offending" of those who will fall away from the Lord in the last days. The "stumbling" here is not final, but rather an emotional moment where the disciples because of lack of proper prayer preparation deserted Christ at His moment of need. The disciples must have felt that none of them would forsake Him whom they loved so dearly. But no man can ever sound the depths of evil in his own heart, which grace alone can overcome. Le tus this week Pray without ceasing.