Thought for the Week 2021 – Lent 6

Matthew 26: 36 - 46

³⁶ Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ 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.’

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.’

⁴⁰ Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?’ he asked Peter. ⁴¹ ‘Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’

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.’

⁴³ When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. ⁴⁴ So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

⁴⁵ Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. ⁴⁶ Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!’

 

Lent 6 – Gethsemane, Suffering, Pressure and Pain

Many of us have special places that we go to when we need to think, to pray and to meet with God. Perhaps, for you, it is a place you haven’t told anyone else about, because it is so special. Jesus often went up into the mountains, very early in the morning, before sunrise, in order to pray. Being alone with his Father was vitally important if he was to continue in his mission.

On the night of his arrest, the place he went was the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. It was a place where olives grew, and where olives were pressed to extract the oil from them. Jesus went there with his three closest friends, Peter, James and John, and he went there to meet his Father, to pray and to plead with him.

This is the sixth week of Lent, and we are continuing to examine ourselves in the light of the life, death and resurrection of our Saviour. And in this story we find Jesus facing up to his imminent death – and facing all the emotions that came with it.

In verse 38, Jesus said, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.’ That’s an amazing statement, isn’t it? Have you ever felt so full of sorrow that you might use those words to describe it? It is not just the mind or the emotions that are sorrowful; it is the very soul. And the sorrow not only fills him, but is overwhelming. How far? To the point of death. In this story we see Jesus the Man, and Jesus who is God.

It is an important statement of the Christian faith that Jesus is ‘fully man and fully God’. He is not a ‘demi-god’, like in Greek mythology – half man and half god. No, Jesus was and is fully man and fully God. How can that be? How can we describe it, explain it or understand it? We cannot – but we can believe it. And in Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane we see it fully played out before our eyes.

Jesus came with a mission. It was a mission to save humanity from their own rebellion. He came to save us from sin and death. Mankind has chosen the way of sin and selfishness and has chosen to ignore the way of God. We closed the way to God through our own actions. Jesus came to re-open that way. And he did it by dying on the cross for every one of us. In our reading this week, Jesus knows what his mission is and he knows the pain and agony that he will go through. Jesus the Man tells his friends, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.’ Jesus the Man cries out to his father – ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.’ He is talking about the cup of suffering that he is about to face. Could there be another way to save mankind? If there is, please my I be spared this suffering? And Jesus, who is God, adds, ‘Yet not as I will, but as you will.’

Only Jesus, the perfect Son of God; God the Son; the second person of the Trinity; fully God and fully man, could take away the sin of the world through his death on the cross. He knew it, and as God he came to do it, and went through with it. But it didn’t stop him, as Jesus the Man, dreading it, being filled with stress and under great pressure as he looked ahead to what was coming, and pleading with his Father to be spared.

Gethsemane – the place of pressure where olives are squeezed in a press for their oil. And the place of pressure where Jesus the Man is pressed down and his soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. When you and I face the pressure of sorrow, stress and anxiety, and we plead with God to be spared, God often does not answer that prayer in the way we would hope. He doesn’t airlift us out of the situation – rather he parachutes in to join us. May we have the courage to say. ‘Yet not as I will, but as you will.’

 

Prayer

Lord Jesus, I know that you know more than any of us what suffering and sacrifice are like. I thank you that you were willing to go through that for me and for all mankind. When I face suffering, sorrow and great pressure, please come alongside me and give me the strength to go through it. Amen.