Agony in the Garden

 

            On Thursday evening, after He instituted the Lord’s Supper, Jesus led the Disciples to the Mt. of Olives and then on to the Garden of Gethsemane.  Eleven of them were with Him; only Judas was conspicuously absent.  He left eight of them at the gate and then took His inner circle of Peter, James, and John with Him into the garden. 

            It was not unusual for Jesus to go off by Himself to pray and spend time with His Father.  But on this night, He chose not to be alone.  Perhaps it was the human desire to be surrounded by friends and family as death approached that prompted Him to keep His Disciples close.

It was probably also His knowledge of what lay ahead for them that caused Him to challenge them to keep watch and pray.  Unfortunately, the Disciples succumbed to their bodies' need for sleep.  It had been a strenuous and emotional week, ranging from the extreme high of the Triumphal Entry, to the righteous anger of Jesus in the Temple, to the weighty discussion as they celebrated the Passover Feast.  It was probably a physically exhausting week as well.  They knew how dangerous it was for Christ to be in Jerusalem, and so their protective nature would have put them on 24-hour alert.  Who knows when they had last had a good night’s sleep?

While they slept, Jesus moved a stone’s throw away from the inner circle and began to cry out to His Father.  As we read His words, we may first think that He was afraid of facing death, especially the torturous death that awaited Him.  However, just like the Christian martyrs through the ages, He was not afraid of physical death.  When He prayed “may this cup be taken from me”, there were two “fears” on His mind.  First, He knew that He would be carrying the sins of the whole world for all time.  That alone would be enough to want to seek another way.  Added to that extreme burden was the fact that He knew there would be a moment when He and the Father would be separated.  He already knew that He would have to endure that agonizing moment when He would cry out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27: 46b NIV84). 

As we read the Gospel accounts of Christ’s time in the Garden and His crucifixion, we are fixed on Him and His suffering.  The one thing that we often ignore is the Father’s suffering.  Just imagine Father God looking down from Heaven on His Son, laying prostrate before Him, in extreme agony, and knowing what lay ahead.  If you are a parent, then you probably understand the Father’s agony at that moment better than anyone.  Yet, because He loved us so much, He was willing to endure the agony of separation from His Son, and He was willing to allow His Son to complete the plan that they had determined together from the very beginning.  Their love for us was greater than their agony.

Like the disciples, we may grow weary along the way.  There will be times of emotional and physical stress, and yes, we may even fall asleep while praying.  There may also be times when we beg God to take away the pain, or the illness, or the burden, but like Christ, our ultimate prayer must be “not as I will, but as you will” (Matt 26: 39b NIV84). Never forget that the Trinity’s plan, laid out at the beginning of time, is perfect and far better than any plan we may devise.  Life won’t always be perfect and there will be times when, like Christ, we will have to complete the mission, no matter the cost.  The good news is we’ve read the end of the Book and we win in the end, all because “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”

John 3: 16