"He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,' he said to them. 'Stay here and keep watch.'"
Mark 14:33-34 (NIV)I covered Gethsemane in the suffering series, but I want to come back to it today from a different angle. Because in the suffering series I was looking at what it means for us when we are in seasons we cannot go around. Today I want to look at what it reveals about Jesus.
Specifically: it reveals Someone who is fully present in His own suffering. Not managing it from a spiritual distance. Not projecting certainty He does not feel. Not bypassing the human experience of being in the middle of something terrible.
He was honest. In the most vulnerable moment of His life, with the most is at stake of anything that has ever been at stake, He prayed the honest prayer: if there is another way, I want it. That is what He actually wanted. And He said so.
"And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground."
Luke 22:44 (NIV)The anguish was real
"Overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." He told the disciples that. He did not protect them from the reality of His state. He told them what He was actually experiencing: I am so sorrowful right now that it feels like dying.
And then He went further into the garden and fell to the ground. Luke, the physician, records that His sweat fell like drops of blood. That is a real physiological response to extreme psychological stress. His body was expressing the weight of what He was carrying. He was not serene. He was in anguish.
This is not a Jesus who is comfortable with what is coming and is simply going through the prayer motions for our benefit. This is a Jesus who genuinely does not want to go through what is coming, who is asking the Father if there is a different road, who is in real, physical, visible distress about it.
He asked His friends to stay with Him
He did not go to the garden alone. He brought the disciples. He brought Peter, James, and John even further in. And He asked them to stay awake with Him.
That is a remarkably human thing to need. Not just the prayer. The company. He wanted people near Him in the hardest night of His life. He asked for the presence of His friends. He was not self-sufficient in His suffering. He wanted companionship.
They fell asleep. Three times He came back and found them sleeping. Three times He woke them and gently pointed out they could not keep watch for even an hour. And then He went back to pray alone again. He was not angry at them, exactly. More sorrowful. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." He understood. And He was still disappointed.
If you have ever been in a hard night and felt the ache of people not quite being able to stay present with you, Jesus knows that from the inside. His friends could not stay awake for Him either.
Then He went
After the prayer, after the anguish, after being found by the disciples three times asleep, the crowd arrives with Judas at the front. And Jesus goes out to meet them.
"Knowing all that was going to happen to him." He went out. He did not hide. He did not run. He went to meet them. He asked the question. He identified Himself. When they fell back at the sound of His voice, He waited for them to get up and then asked again: who is it you want?
That is not passivity. That is not resignation. That is Someone who has worked through the hardest thing He has ever had to face, who has prayed it out, who has been sustained by an angel sent by the Father, who has arrived at a place of real surrender, and who is now walking toward it with open hands. The courage of Gethsemane is not the courage of someone who was not afraid. It is the courage of someone who was afraid and went anyway.
What this Jesus does to the idea of effortless faith
There is sometimes an implicit message in certain Christian circles that real faith does not struggle. That if you are truly trusting God, obedience feels easy and the path feels clear and you go forward without the mess of Gethsemane-style wrestling.
Jesus disproves that entirely. He is the Son of God, in perfect communion with the Father, and He prayed the same prayer three times on His knees in anguish before He could walk toward what was coming. His obedience cost Him something. It was not effortless. It was one of the hardest things a person has ever done, and He did it on His knees in a garden first.
If your faith involves wrestling, you are in good company. If it involves asking God for a different road before you can accept the road that is there, you are praying the prayer Jesus prayed. That is not failure. That is the honest path through.
Is there something you are being asked to walk toward?
Are you still in the "take this cup from me" part of? Name it. You do not have to have arrived at "not my will but yours" yet. The honest prayer is the starting place, not the failure. Start there.
- What surprises me most about the Gethsemane account?
- Have I been carrying a "take this cup from me" prayer?
- What does it mean that Jesus went through Gethsemane before the cross?
- Am I willing to be honest with God about my struggle?
- Can I ask for a different road before accepting the one that is there?
- Am I willing to go through the honest prayer to get to surrender?
Jesus asked His friends to stay with Him in the hardest night of His life, and they kept falling asleep. He did not reject them for it. He understood and went back to pray alone. What would it mean to stop expecting yourself to have it all together before you bring Jesus your struggle?
"Jesus, You asked if there was another way. So have I. I am glad I know that about You, that the question itself is not a failure of faith. It is the beginning of the honest path through. I want to be honest with You about what I am carrying tonight. The things I would choose to put down if I could. The roads I wish were different. And then, like You, I want to be able to say: but not my will. Your will. Give me the strength to get from the first prayer to the second. In Jesus Name, Amen."
The honest prayer is the starting place, not the failure.
Tomorrow we are going to look at what He did after the resurrection. He had forty days before the ascension. He could have done anything. What He chose to do with that time tells you everything about His priorities.
With love and hope for your walk with Him, Claire