We have all seen pictures portraying Jesus. Pictures of Him in the manger. Pictures of Him as a boy in the temple. The comforting pictures of Him as a man carrying the lamb around His shoulders. The heart wrenching picture of Jesus kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane. The image of Christ upon the cross, nailed there by the sins of a fallen humanity. Of all the pictures of Jesus from my childhood to the present, I find the one most powerful for me is of our Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane is the combination of two Hebrew words. Gat and Shmanim. Together they mean, “the place where oil is pressed.” Gat on its own means a “winepress.” Shmanim means “oils.” So we find the meaning to be, “winepress of oils.” There is symbolism for both wine and oil in our scriptures. They are symbolic of the favor of God.
Jesus was God, but came here in the flesh of man. He made it through the wilderness for forty days without food while satan tempted Him. The enemy of humanity was trying to keep Jesus from getting to this garden moment on His knees. Jesus was flesh like us. Flesh in a sinful world, but without sin. Flesh who knew pain and suffering. Flesh that witnessed death. Flesh that wept. Flesh that was so “pressed” in this garden, on His knees, that drops of blood seeped from His pores. Crying out to His God. Three times He went back to His knees before His Father. “Can I let this cup pass? If this cup will not pass lest I drink it, then Your will be done? If this cup will not pass, Your will be done?”
Thought For Today:
My first thought is that I have experienced nothing that compares to the agony and terror that Jesus endured by taking the sins of humanity upon His back. Nothing in my life events can touch that. How about you? Pause a moment and review your own lives. I am sure you will arrive at the same place I did in the early hours of this day.
There is something quite different in our sufferings…Ours and this time in the garden, for Jesus. Jesus would soon walk to the cross under horrific and humiliating torture, for all to see. I am not a Bible scholar or teacher but I am pretty sure Jesus, on His knees in this garden, could have passed this cup back to God and called His wrath down to scorch the earth and all who were there along His journey to the cross. But, He had important information. If He passed on this cup, then Peter, James, John, and every soul through the ages to you and I, would never experience salvation and the favor of God. He could not pass the cup. He had to drink it. That is unconditional love on such a level, that we will never experience it on this earth.
Soon He would be lifted up and stretched on the cross before humanity and His Father. He would labor there. In horrific pain He would hang there, suspended between the earth and Heaven. He would experience the darkness of a world that God has turned His face from.
That review of our trials? The darkness of nights on our knees asking for God to remove our trials, our sorrow, our grief and restore us? Heal those we love? Because of that night of intense “pressing” in the garden and His willingness to carry out the will of His Father, there is something different between His experience and ours. God does not turn His face from us. He does not leave us alone with the burden of sin that living brings, as He had to do with Jesus. He cannot look at sin. Jesus, was the lamb of sacrifice. In that dark moment, He became sin. In our place.
When we are in our moments of doubt, abiding sadness and depression, terror and fear, God does not turn away from us. Our situation may be dark and foreboding. We may feel alone and afraid and suffer terrible loss, but God is there in the darkness with us. He hears our prayers through Jesus and He sees our sins covered in His blood. Because of the willingness of Jesus to be sacrificed for our sins, those who believe receive the favor of God. He will see us through. Joy cometh in the morning.
Scripture For Today:
36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” 37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”
39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
40 Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? 41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
42 Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” 43 And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy.
44 So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. 45 Then He came to His disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand.” (NKJ)
Prayer For Today:
Hello Father! The experience in the garden? We bow our heads low and ask forgiveness for those days we complain, fret and worry. We have never been required to carry more than we can handle. We thank You that Jesus accepted the cup that should have been ours to drink to cover our own sins. His time of sorrow
unto death in the garden was for us. So that we could come to You. Forgive us of our sins. In the Name of Jesus our Savior and Redeemer. Amen.