Mark 14:32-42, Crossing the Kidron

The unity of God demands exclusivity of worship.  We can hold nothing back that is not yielded to Christ as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1).  There is a valley, the Kidron, that lies east of the walls of the old city of Jerusalem, between the walls and the Mount of Olives.  For me this valley speaks of this very issue, of ridding ourselves of idolatry and loving God with all our being.  Let me explain.

The photo to the left is of the Kidron, looking from the base of the walls of the Old City toward the Mount of Olives.  It is a beautiful looking area in the photo.  But in the Scriptures it was where Kings Asa, Hezekiah and Josiah tossed the trash from their attempts to eradicate idolatry in Judah (e.g. 1 Ki. 15:13). 

But before those kings there was King David.  David crossed the Kidron Valley going east when he fled from Absalom, and then going west when he returned to the throne (2 Sam. 15:23).  As he fled east a descendant of King Saul named Shimei cursed David and threw stones at him.  David’s men wanted to kill him but David would not let them.  His reasoning was that he hoped the LORD would hear this and “look on my affliction, and … repay me with good for his cursing this day” (16:12). 

The rebellion of Absalom was the continuation of the consequences David experienced in the aftermath of the matter of Uriah of Hittite (his sin with Bathsheba).  David did not ask God for mercy because he was experiencing just what God promised.  As David crossed the Kidron it was a very sorrowful time for him and the nation.  Perhaps for David this was a time of coming to grips with the “broken spirit, the broken and contrite heart” (Ps. 51:17).

Almost a thousand years later the Son of David crossed the Kidron east and then west, in one night.  To

the right is a photo of the path that, in Roman times, led from the southern part of the Old City down into the Kidron to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane.  After supper with His disciples, and the singing of a hymn, and the Lord’s prayer of intercession (John 17), Jesus led the group to a place where he often prayed.  He too was in great sorrow, “troubled and greatly distressed.”  His own words to the three were, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.”

There our Lord did what the writer to the Hebrews refers to in Heb. 5:7: He “offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death.”  It was here that Jesus prepared Himself for the final step in His “perfection” (as in Heb. 5:9).  God had a plan for His Son, a plan of great glory, but the path led to the cross and grave before He began to experience the glory.  He must be obedient to the cross; then God would begin the path of exaltation (Phil. 2:8-9).  There was a great struggle that night in Gethsemane.  But when it was over, Christ with confidence faced the soldiers and the betrayer and the journey in chains back across the Kidron to face all that the powers of darkness could hurl at Him (Lk. 22:53).

Now perhaps you understand why, for me, the beautiful Kidron Valley is the place of total destruction of idolatry.  It is the place where, in our lives, we are brought low, broken and contrite.  It is the place where we recognize the weakness of the flesh.  It is where we say in truth, “not what I will, but what You will.”