Day 35 - In The Garden

Today's reading is from Matt. 26: 36 - 46

Jesus' time with his disciples in the Upper Room is ended. They make their way through the city of Jerusalem streets until they climb the stairs to the familiar garden on the edge of the Mount of Olives called "Gethsemane". It is an Olive grove and the word for which it gets its name means "to press". Olives are picked and pressed to squeeze the rich oils and fats they contain. Here Jesus is pressed.

He asks his discipls to pray for him while he also goes on to pray. Matthew 26:37-38 (NIV)
37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
38 Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."

Jesus disappears into the darkness of the Olive grove, but his sorrow, and the groans of the weight of what he is beginning to bear all begin to be felt. Matthew 26:39 (NIV)
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

He is not unwilling to "bear the cup", but he is beginning to be filled with the terror of the separation from the Father he has never experienced. The sins of the world begin to become real...more real than perhaps they ever have before. It is a weight that no one before, nor anyone after, would ever experience.

We ask the question: "Why did he not succumb to the desire to walk away?" He says to the three when he returns to find them asleep: Matthew 26:41 (NIV)
41 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

It is difficult to not let the body rule the spirit. That is the reason many a believer has fasted from time to time...just to train the soul that the Spirit should rule over the body and not the other.

For Jesus, the cup of the sins of the world is overwhelming. This cup stands for much more than the physical suffering, as terrrible as that would be. This cup was bitter, because it meant not only the sins of mankind, but also the abandonment and separation from his Father.
This was the reason he entered into the world to begin with, and his submission to the will of the Father is greater than his desire to walk away: Matthew 26:42 (NIV)
42 He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

God the Father did not take away the cup, for the cup was His will. What he did take away from Jesus was his fears and agitation. When his prayers are finished Jesus is ready: Matthew 26:45-46 (NIV)
45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
46 Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"

Judas is leading a large crowd and the night is going to get much darker, and the day ahead also.

Peace

If you're reading along in a "through-the-Bible-in-a-year" with me, today's readings are from 1 Kings 21 - 22