GETHSEMANE REVISITED

Gethsemane Olive Tree, Jerusalem

Classic Gethsemane Prayer

Agonized Gethsemane Prayer

We entered the garden of Gethsemane near the end of our pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2015 about this time of the year.  The walk through the ageless olive trees was surreal.  Our guide remarked that some of these trees were alive 2,000 years ago when Jesus prayed here on many occasions while visiting Jerusalem with his disciples.  Earlier in the week we had visited a woodworking facility that fashioned Christian figures from the olive branches that were trimmed out of these same trees in the area.  The olive tree resurrects itself through its root system.

After passing over this very sacred ground we entered the Basilica of the Agony, a Roman Catholic church located on the Mount of Olives which is also known as The Church of All Nations.  I had an image of Jesus praying for God to take the cup from him, knowing the dreadful fate that awaited him.   But he also paused in agony and prayed, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

I had observed the classic painting of Jesus kneeling beside a huge boulder in the area and praying this prayer in Gethsemane among the olive trees.  But when we entered the dimly lit church, all I could make out in the dark was a huge slab of rock on the floor surrounded by other pilgrims kneeling around it and silently praying and meditating close to where Jesus had spent that fateful night.  I too knelt there in silent awe.

Max Lucado, a prolific Christian writer, recently wrote about the classic image of Jesus in “a snow-white robe.  Hands peacefully folded in prayer.  A look of serenity on his face.  Halo over his head.  A spotlight from heaven illuminating his golden-brown hair.”  Lucado wonders if this artist had ever read the gospels?  I now consider the setting as a time in prayer before Black Friday and not an image to use when discussing Black Friday.. He notes that Matthew records Jesus’ demeaner as sorrowful and troubled.  He says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”  He fell with his face to the ground and prayed.  Luke observed that his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground, indicating extreme stress.

Lucado writes that “Jesus is in pain.  Jesus is on the stage of fear.  Jesus is cloaked, not in sainthood, but in humanity.”  Jesus knows the pain and fear that we humans experience as we move about on this foggy planet.  He relates and he experienced the worst of the worst for our sake.  Lucado concludes “It could very well be that the hand that extends itself to lead you out of the fog is a pierced one.”

A pierced hand that Jesus shows his amazed disciples after his Easter resurrection, confirming that “the worst thing is never the last thing!”