Gethsemane

You can touch water from the Sea of Galilee.

You can touch wood from the olive trees in the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed before he was arrested and began his passion.

So there are so many, and those are just a few, you know, we'll talk more about that in a second, but we wanted to give people the opportunity to connect with that for so long.

And one day, Jason, you were there.

that's a good way to

put it.

You will pass at least one of those things before you get to our beautiful Gethsemane Chapel.

Now, we, of course, can devote a whole episode of Journeys of Hope to all the sacred items that are housed here at Pilgrim Center of Hope.

Let me explain it to you for those who don't know.

Where does the suffering, how do we know it's a picture of Jesus? Where does the suffering of Jesus start the night before his crucifixion? He's taken to the garden of Gethsemane, just outside Jerusalem.

Gethsemane means olive press, okay? It's an extraordinary picture.

Jesus enters the olive press.

Now Luke tells us that he was in such agony that his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.

So in the first pressing, okay, they would take the oil that came from that and it was used for a number of things.

It was used to light the tabernacle.

So it spoke of the presence of God, right? A later pressing produces different things and a final pressing produces something else, right? But the first pressing was about light, right? Now, so where was Jesus first pressed? He was pressed in the darkness in Gethsemane, the olive press.

They minister to him in the wilderness in Matthew 4, 11.

And they strengthen him in the Garden of Gethsemane in Luke 22, 43.

Excuse me.

After the resurrection, angels appear at the empty tomb in Matthew 28, 2-7, and the ascension in Acts 1, 10-11.

So this is when, this is Luke chapter 22, verse 42.

So this is Christ being perfect, right? He says, this is him in the Garden of Gethsemane saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me.

That sounds like, I don't know if I can do this.

Yeah, yeah.

Thy body broken for my sake, my bread from heaven shall be, The testamental cup I take, and thus remember Thee.

Gethsemane can I forget? Or there Thy conflicts see? Thine agony and bloody sweat, and not remember Thee? When to the cross I turn my eyes, and rest on Calvary, O Lamb of God, my sacrifice, I must remember Thee.

Remember Thee in all Thy pains, and all Thy love to me.

Yea, while a breath, a pulse remains, will I remember Thee.

So John 14, the last two verses in my little classic amplified, listen to this.

I will not talk, Jesus is saying to his disciples just before he walks into Gethsemane.

He says, I will not talk with you much more for the prince, the evil genius ruler of this world is coming, Satan.

And he has no claim on me.

Prayer is about aligning our hearts with his.

Jesus modeled this perfectly in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Facing the cross, he prayed.

And this was after God didn't say anything to him.

This sentiment and illumination by which he revealed to me what he endured is something so delicate that I have no words to express it.

Again, a common theme that we see in many mystical texts is this immersion in the passion of Jesus, his sacred passion, which, of course, is not only filled with physical pain, But there are other references in this text to the anguish that Jesus felt in the Garden of Gethsemane before his passion, which is compared to the anguish and abandonment that she felt.

It's just God giving her a chance to see what he went through.

And actually, before we get to her very positive experience, I have before me a prayer that she said during times of trial, like the one just described.

Jesus demonstrated that kind of faithfulness.

He prayed in Gethsemane, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me.

Yet he also prayed, not as I will, but as you will.

And the cup was not removed.