Category: Gethsemane

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Giving Up or Giving In

Giving Up or Giving In

According to Lifeway Research, 24% of Americans observe Lent, a forty-day period of spiritual preparation for Easter. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Palm Sunday. This tradition dates back to the early Christian church and often involves a spiritual discipline such as abstinence.

Some observers give up favorite pleasures or certain foods for Lent. Christianity Today magazine reports on a study of over 29,000 Twitter messages in which people reported on what they were giving up for Lent. Some were serious and some were sarcastic.

Social networking topped the list, which also included single-use plastics, alcohol, red meat, chocolate, swearing, candy, and coffee. There were many more. Foods and technology topped the list. Some people said they were giving up religion for Lent!

In addition to the practice of abstinence, many people do something for others, go to church more, and pray more. My own spiritual exercise for this season has been to write for this space a series of meditations on our Lord’s sorrowful prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane. Luke’s gospel tells us it was a place where he usually went with his disciples. He went there to pray on the night of his betrayal.

What Jesus said and did in Gethsemane must surely prompt response of some kind. For some, it may involve giving up something for the Lord, out of gratitude and love. But permit me to offer a word of caution: no amount of self-discipline, of sacrifice, or of good deeds may earn merit or righteous standing before a holy God. The New Testament makes this clear.

For example, in Paul’s letter to Titus, the apostle gives us his theology of the gospel and its relationship to good works. In Titus 3:4-7, justification is by grace, because of God’s mercy, in the washing of rebirth, and renewal by the Holy Spirit – pure grace, kindness, and love.

Then, and only then, after establishing the fact that “he saved us,” does Paul introduce “doing what is good” (Titus 3:8). He says these good deeds are excellent and profitable. But it is clear that “he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done” (Titus 3:5).

So instead of thinking about what we might have given up for Lent, I propose that we give in to the Lord Jesus Christ, out of gratitude and love. On this Good Friday, let’s come once more to Gethsemane, feel the Savior’s anguish, hear his prayer, “Not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). Give in to him and believe in what he did for sinners when he surrendered his life to do the Father’s will on the cross.

Gethsemane demonstrates both his humanity and his deity. His revulsion against and his embrace of the purpose for which he came into the world. Give in to him who said, “I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father” (John 10:17-18).

Give in to him. The best thing you can give up for him is yourself.

    –  Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Learning from Gethsemane

Learning from Gethsemane

What does it take to get you to pray? C. S. Lewis wrote that pain is God’s megaphone. His call to prayer through the troubles of life is unmistakable. “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world,” Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain.

Jesus was not deaf to the call of God. In the great crisis of his human life, he prayed, fervently and desperately, in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of his crucifixion. Michael Green has suggested some important lessons about prayer we may learn by meditating on the Lord’s example.

1. When life is hard. Prayer is necessary in those times when we feel least like praying: when pain is intolerable; when disappointment crushes the spirit; when the world is against us. Praying to God in those times is a statement of faith that he is with us in difficult circumstances. Jesus’ prayers show us
the way to respond in our personal Gethsemane experiences.

2. With others. Jesus needed the companionship of his friends. They were too tired to encourage him and pray with him. In this, they failed him. There is great value in shared times of communal prayer in which believers bear one another burdens. Our Lord needed friends and so do we.

3. Repeated prayer. There is no shame in bringing the same requests to the Lord again and again. Jesus, in fact told a story to illustrate the value of doing this very thing (Luke 18:1-8). Here in Gethsemane Jesus prayed the same prayer three times. Commenting on this, Michael Green wrote, “To keep on praying indicates both determination and confidence and demonstrates a note of seriousness that is a vital part of intercessory prayer.”

4. God’s will be done. As we think about these prayers of Jesus, we enter the realm of mystery. There is the mystery of the human and the divine Jesus praying that, if possible, the cup of suffering and sin might be taken away from him. It seems mysterious to us that the Son of God, who had enjoyed eternal unbroken fellowship with the Father could have his request denied. It was answered with a “no.” This was so that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection from the dead might make possible our salvation. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Jesus wanted the Father’s will to be done. God’s will was done, on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday morning.

    –  Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Does God Always Answer Prayer?

Does God Always Answer Prayer?

Lehman Strauss wrote that God always answers the prayers of his people. His answers are not always the ones we seek. Sometimes there is a delayed answer. Our timing is not always the same as the Lord’s. Sometimes his answer is in the form of an outright denial. After all, “we do not know what we ought to pray for” (Romans 8:26). There are many examples of this in the Bible.

Sometimes the answer God gives is different than what we ask for. When Paul prayed for healing from a physical affliction the Lord answered his prayer by increasing his supply of all-sufficient grace. But he did not take away Paul’s affliction.

When our Lord Jesus entered the great crisis in the Garden of Gethsemane just before his crucifixion, he prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken away from me. Yet not as I will but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). It seems that Jesus was asking if there could be any other way to accomplish the redemptive purpose of God than by his suffering. Could it possibly be otherwise?

God answered, but not in the affirmative. What do we learn from this?

Jesus knew God heard his prayer. In John 11:42 Jesus prayed, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me.”

Jesus knew that God loved him. In John 5:20 Jesus said, “The Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.”

Jesus knew God would always do the right thing. He will always act in accordance with his good purpose. That is why our Lord concluded his prayer with “Yet not what I will but as you will.”

Jesus knew that God’s purpose involved his sacrificial death and resurrection. He repeatedly told his disciples that that would happen in Jerusalem at Passover. Now the time had come for him to “taste death for everyone.” This is further expressed in Hebrews 2:10 where it says that God “should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.” In his dying, our Lord’s human experience was completed or perfected.

Jesus’ agonized plea, “may this cup be taken from me” was answered with a denial. But his prayer of absolute submission to God was answered with “yes!” Jesus had to reconcile his natural horror of death with the knowledge of God’s purpose for him.

Of the profound lessons on prayer we learn from Jesus’ Gethsemane experience, none is greater than this. We, like our Lord, must learn to submit our desires and wishes to his higher purpose. We must always pray as Jesus prayed, “Not what I will, but as you will.”

    –  Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Explaining Gethsemane

Explaining Gethsemane

“Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will'” (Mark 14:35-36).

These words of Jesus reveal the range of his feeling as a human. He is experiencing fierce temptation, urgent dependency, and dread, as other humans experience them.

At the same time, we have a hint of his deity. As the Lamb of God, he is about to bear the penalty for the sins of the world. It has been pointed out that his reference to the cup recalls his words from earlier in the evening: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20). 

As his death draws nearer, he looks into that cup. The prospect of crucifixion must have brought anguish and horror to the Savior’s mind. To be sure, the dread of physical suffering is an understandable human response.

But for the divine Son of God, that cup represented the even costlier sacrifice he was to offer. Donald English wrote, “Only he knew the full implications of his words at the last supper about his body and blood — in the context of Passover and Covenant.”

He would later cry out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). That cry would be because he would bear the bitterness of the wages of sin, the sin of the world. Is it any wonder that the sinless Son of God should recoil from the moral corruption and depravity which would be laid on him at Calvary?

“God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This gospel witness by Paul helps explain Gethsemane.

So now, in the garden, the divine-human Jesus seeks comfort from God as “Abba.” That is an intensely personal term of endearment. It is a title the church today is permitted to use to address our Father in heaven. In Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, we who believe may express that same sense of belonging to the family of God as “by him, we cry ‘Abba, Father'” (Romans 8:15). 

We are able to do this because of Gethsemane, and Calvary.

    –  Pastor Randy Faulkner

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A Special Place for Prayer

A Special Place for Prayer

Jesus made it a regular practice to meet with his heavenly Father in prayer. He got up early to pray in the mornings. Sometimes he prayed all night, alone with God, out in the open air, away from the crowds. He craved the delicious solitude of the Galilean countryside.

At other times he joined with his neighbors in communal prayer. The gospel of Luke tells us that it was our Lord’s habit to attend services in his local synagogue (Luke 4:16). If the Son of God found it necessary to meet for  worship with ordinary folks, certainly we who claim to follow him should do the same thing every week!

Jesus also prayed with his disciples. They had chosen a place where they would go to withdraw for quiet fellowship and rest. This redoubt, or retreat, was an olive grove called Gethsemane. John 18:2 describes it as a garden where Jesus frequently went with his disciples. It was across the Kidron ravine on the side of the Mount of Olives. It was, for them, a special place.

Luke says Jesus went there on the night of his betrayal “as usual” (Luke 22:39).  I find it striking and important that as he was facing the bitterest anguish of his life, Jesus retreated with his disciples to the familiar garden where he had often met with them. There he prayed in a state of intense emotional strain.

Come to Gethsemane. Hear the Savior pray as he nears the time of his cruel death as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Observe his sorrow. Feel his lonely desolation of soul. Learn to pray as he prayed to the Father: “May your will be done” (Matthew 26:42).

Just as our Master Jesus prayed in solitude, and in the communal fellowship of the  local assembly, so we imitate him. As Jesus had specific times and places for prayer, so should we have. As Jesus prayed for God’s will to be done as he faced torture and crucifixion, so we too learn to surrender ourselves to God, in gratitude for his sacrifice for us.

    –  Pastor Randy Faulkner 

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Go To Dark Gethsemane

Go To Dark Gethsemane

“Go to dark Gethsemane, you who feel the tempter’s power;

Your Redeemer’s conflict see; watch with him one bitter hour;

Turn not from his griefs away; learn of Jesus Christ to pray”.

These words by 19th century hymn-writer James Montgomery are on my mind as I read in the gospels about what happened in the garden of Gethsemane. I invite you to join me in meditating on our Lord’s anguished prayer in Gethsemane during the coming weeks leading up to the remembrance of his death and resurrection. 

If we wish to offer ourselves to God during this season, it may be helpful to observe the Lord’s example as he “offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Hebrews 5:7). 

He went to the familiar place where he and his disciples had often gone for a retreat. It was a grove of ancient olive trees located on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem. The name Gethsemane means “oil press” and it was probably a place for squeezing oil from the olives that were harvested there. The gospels tell us he knelt down (Luke) and then he prostrated himself with his face to the earth (Matthew) as poured out his soul in prayer.

In the preceding hours, he had been praying for his disciples (John 17). Now, in the garden, facing imminent death, Jesus prayed for himself. He knew what was coming. He had already surrendered himself to fulfill the purpose for which he came into the world. But his soul was troubled.

“Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:27-28)

Here we see the human Jesus as he faced the sorrows of death. We see his agony over the terrible prospect of bearing the sin of the world. We see the exhaustion of his grief and his desperate loneliness in the crisis.

We are invited during this Lenten season to offer ourselves up to God in surrender and prayer, as Jesus did. This may be something like what Paul the apostle had in mind when he wanted to know Christ in “participation in his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10).

You may be entering your own private Gethsemane experience: a disappointing turn of events; a surprising bit of bad news; confusing circumstances. It has been said that the crisis prepares us to pray. “Turn not from his griefs away; learn of Jesus Christ to pray.”

    –  Pastor Randy Faulkner