GOING TO GETHSEMANE, AND AGONY THEREIN
(A garden between the brook Kidron and the Mount of Olives. Late Thursday night.)
MATT. 26:30, 36-46
MARK 14:26, 32-42
LUKE 22:39-46
JOHN 18:1
It's not relevant in many ways, but I'll mention it because it's true. I hate this section of scripture. I don't like sad movies, difficult movies, or horror movies. My innards contract, and my spirit shrinks at the though of coming danger, alienation, betrayal. So, my impulse is not to linger. Let's just get it over with and move onto the promises and the resurrection. But, I will force myself to spend some time here, because Jesus spent time here. It's that simple and that complex. God includes the painful. He uses it. It's part of the bigger, beautiful vision and can't be left out.
So this section tells of Jesus' struggle and prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. First, the larger group of disciples was asked to sit while he prayed:
"And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” Mark 14:32
He took Peter, James, and John aside and revealed his distress to them. His instructions to them were,
"Remain here and watch." Mark 14:34
He leaves them, goes farther, and falls on the ground, now only pleading to the Father, asking if there is another way. When he comes back, he finds Peter sleeping, wakes him up, and warns him:
"Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Mark 14:38
Jack Abeelen emphasizes the persistence of Christ's prayer at the garden in contrast to the disciples sleep and stupor.
"...He was strengthened to accomplish the work...And when he had returned, he found them sleeping again...and this time he woke everybody up..Really?.. They don't get it. Their hearts were overwhelmed. They were sorrowful. They tried to escape through sleep. They hadn't learned where their strength lies. But I'll tell you, prayer is bringing a gun to a knife fight. It is the armor you need to win the battle. Jesus talks to them. They don't have a good explanation. Whoever has a good explanation for not praying enough...." -Jack Abeelen
"And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him." Mark 14:40
Abeelen again, "If our Lord is doing it, hour after hour, on the edge of Calgary, how much more should we be praying....Jesus could rise up because he had knelt down. And he could stand up because he had bowed down.The boys would run. They had slept. They would bolt. They would take off for the hills. And the difference between the two pictures at Gethsemane is the Lord's example of prayerfulness and dependency upon the Father and then disciples, who were proud of their faithfulness, sure of their commitment, unable to see their need for God, and pretty much going at life like most people do, "I can handle this," and then seeing the results. His agony, excruciating, no one stood by him but his Father, and then at the critical hour, even the Father stepped away from him and he bore the sins of the world alone. The boys would learn: prayer was where it's at. We need to learn, that's where your strength lies. Don't be too independent. Don't sleep too often. Try praying more often." -Jack Abeelen on Mark: 32-42.
I had forgotten the repetitive nature of Christ's request and the disciples neglect. Three times he asked for "the cup" to be taken from him and three times he wakes them. Jack Abeleen relates that this struggle lasted for three hours and believes that Christ's duress was related to the knowledge that he would be separated from the Father, not the physical torture and death.
It's true. I wish I had better stamina in prayer. I'm easily pulled off course. What it obvious and should be "easy" for anyone else is much harder to do in practice. More warnings, this time from Spurgeon:
"Watch and pray-danger lurking in trifles
Not only (says Manton) do great sins ruin the soul, but lesser faults will do the same. Dallying with temptation leads to sad consequences. Caesar was killed with bodkins. A dagger aimed at the heart will give as deadly a wound as a huge two-handed sword, and a little sin unrepented of will be as fatal as a gross transgression. Brutus and Cassius and the rest of the conspirators could not have more surely ended Caesar’s life with spears than they did with daggers. Death can hide in a drop, and ride in a breath of air. Our greatest dangers lie hidden in little things. Milton represents thousands of evil spirits as crowded into one hall; and truly the least sin may be a very pandemonium, in which a host of evils may be concealed-a populous hive of mischiefs, each one storing death. Believer, though thou be a little Caesar in thine own sphere, beware of the bodkins of thine enemies. Watch and pray, lest thou fall by little and little. Lord, save me from sins which call themselves little." -C. H. Spurgeon
It's the small things that turn into big things when repeated in pattern--for best or worse. Habits define character.
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| Garden of Gethsemane, Wikipedia |
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