TEXT: Luke 22:39-46

SUBJECT: Luke #87: In The Garden

God’s Temple was made up of four courts, each inside of the other. Moving from the outside in, you first have the Court of the Gentiles where any God fearing man could appear, seeking the Lord’s favor. Inside of this, you have the Court of Israel where only observant Jews were welcome. Inside of that, you find a smaller court called the Holy Place, where no one but a priest or a Levite could enter and only on sacred business—like offering a sacrifice. Inside the Holy Place was a room far, far smaller: it was the Holy of Holies where only one man was permitted—the High Priest—and only once a year—on the Day of Atonement.

God’s Word is something like His Temple. Every part, from the genealogies to John 3:16 is holy, but some parts are more sacred than others. Every word should be read with fear and trembling, but some parts have a special claim on your reverence.

Today’s story is one of them.

It takes place just after the Passover. A few hours before the Lord and His friends had come to an upper room where they celebrated the most holy day on the Jewish calendar. After finishing the roast lamb and bitter vegetables, the Lord took a cup of wine and a loaf of bread and with them He began a new tradition. From now on, His people wouldn’t recall God saving them from Egypt, but God saving them from their sins—and not with a butchered lamb but with a crucified Lord.

Never was a night more sacred than this one--or more sorrowful. The Lord had borne heavy burdens all His life. But this night, the weight increases and threatens to crush Him. One of His best friends has already betrayed Him—for the price of a slave, Judas has sold the Lord of glory. His other friends were not much better: all of them were craving prestige in His Kingdom and one of them—after promising he wouldn’t—would deny the Lord three times before the sun rose the next morning.

This is when the story takes place—right after the Last Supper and just before the crucifixion.

The place is the Mount of Olives. Jerusalem—you know—was a fortress city, built on a range of high and rugged mountains. On one of them, there was an olive grove. It was a quiet place, a place a man could go to get away from it all—to rest, or pray, meditate or spend time with his friends.

The Lord often went there—it was His custom. The men who knew Him well knew they could find Him there—including Judas Iscariot.

He took His disciples with Him, Luke says. Eleven followed Him up the hill and three of them joined Him in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The Lord wants His friends to pray. This didn’t surprise them, of course, since He was a man of prayer and had taught them to pray and urged them to do it many times before.

But there’s something different about this night. There is a special pleading in the Lord’s voice—a seriousness they weren’t used to. He wants them to pray this night—to pray as they never had never prayed in their lives. They don’t know how crucial the next few hours will be, but He does, and He wants them to spend that time in focused and fervent prayer.

What does He want them to pray for? If you were the Lord, what would you have told them? If I knew I would be tortured and dead by three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, I’d ask you to pray for me!

But the Lord says nothing about Himself. He wants Peter, James, and John to pray for themselves. In particular, He wants them to "pray that you not enter into temptation". This night will be a hard one. Before it’s over, they’ll be tempted to deny the Lord and to go over to His enemies. Their faith in Christ will be shaken and their hopes will be ground to powder. One friend will hang himself before the night is over; another will weep bitterly and every one of them will be out of their minds with fear and shame!

There’s a lesson in here for us: You cannot pray every minute of the day. Most of your day is occupied with other things—and there’s nothing wrong with that, God has put the things there and wants you to mind them. But the times you do have to pray shouldn’t be wasted sitting in front of the TV!

The disciples had a heads up that night. They knew something big was ahead of them and they ought to prepare for it by praying. We don’t usually have that word. Hard and scary things often occur without warning. And because we haven’t prayed, we’re not ready for them. "Pray without ceasing".

The Lord has commanded the disciples to pray, but the story is not about their prayers, but His.

His prayer to God is offered alone. There’s a time for a prayer meeting, but this is not one of them. Some things are too personal, too agonizing, to pray for in public. And so the Lord steps away from His friends; they can still see Him and maybe make out a word or two, but He’s praying alone.

I believe the isolation is meaningful. Though every believer is a priest and has the right to pray, there is only one High Priest—the Lord Jesus Christ. And His is a lonely work—no one but He can do it. And He does it.

His prayer is offered in deep reverence. How do we pray? Most of us pray sitting down with hands folded and eyes shut. There is nothing wrong with this, but it is not the posture the Jews of the First Century chose. Typically, they prayed standing, with head and hands up and eyes open to heaven. This too is a reverent way to pray.

But the Lord kneels to pray, suggesting a godly fear and respect for His Father’s Divine Majesty. As the Son of God, Jesus stands eye-to-eye with His Father. But, as the Son of Man, He becomes a servant of God and now—He bows to Him as the lowest slave would bow to his king.

The writer of Hebrews took note of the Lord’s reverence for God. In fact, he says, the Lord "was heard because He feared". It was His godly fear that won the favor of God and got what He needed from heaven.

Much can be said here with profit: We do not live in a God-fearing society and many professed Christians do not fear the Lord and some are taught not to fear Him! But look at Christ! If anyone ever had a dear and loving relationship with His Father—if any man ever had the right to call Him, Abba, it is the Lord! And yet, in the Garden, He trembles before the God who is a consuming fire!

The prayer is offered in the agony of soul and body. First, He prays so hard that He breaks a sweat doing it. And then, more than a sweat, His pain is so appalling that the little veins in His face pop and blood oozes out and mixes with water pouring down from His brow.

The Lord isn’t sick and He hasn’t been tortured—yet. His agony comes from within. He is terrified at what lies just ahead of Him. And as His fear builds, so does the fervor of His prayers. The disciples are also scared, but they can’t handle it, and cop out by falling asleep. But the Lord must face His fears and face them He will!

Why is the Lord so scared? Others have faced death with dignity and humor, but there’s no laughing in the Garden. This differs quite sharply with what we read other places in the Bible and in the history of the Church. Shadrach, Meschech, and Abed-Nego went to the fiery furnace without blinking. Stephen rejoiced as the rocks rained down on him. A book was written on the martyrs called, Singing in the Fire. Even Socrates—who was no Christian—drank the hemlock without thinking twice.

How, then, do we explain our Lord’s agony in the Garden? Was He less manly than a martyr? Was His faith weaker than a pagan’s?

Of course not. Had He been called upon to die as other men do, He would have handled it better than other men. But that was not His calling—to die as other men do! He died—not as a saint or a martyr or even a sinner. He died as The Christ. Which is another way of saying He died without God’s mercy and under His curse! In this life, no man—not even Judas—is totally without God. All share in His mercy. All but Christ! On the cross, He suffered more than a slow and painful death, He suffered hell! Everything hell is to the sinner, the Cross was to Christ: it was The Lake of Fire and The Blackness of Darkness Forever.

This is what scared Him; it was the loss of God that made our Lord tremble in the Garden.

This brings to mind another lesson: How strange it is that the only think Christ feared was the loss of God while many others live all their lives without God and barely notice.

What is the Lord praying for? Two things. First, He’s praying for relief: "Father, if it is Your will, remove this cup from Me". The cup stands for the sufferings He must drink in the next few hours. If it is possible for the Father to glorify Himself and to save His people from their sins without the cross, then don’t make Him drink it.

This is the Lord’ preference. And why not? God nowhere tells us to court suffering or to suffer as much as we can when we can have relief without sinning. This is how you and I would pray if we got bad news from the doctor. It’s a distinctly human prayer and that’s why the Lord prayed it. Because He is no less human than we are.

But relief is not His main concern. What He mostly wants is for God’s will to be done—even if it means He must die on the cross, forsaken of God and handed over to wicked men and all the devils in hell! "Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done".

I have often said these words in prayer: If it is possible…but your will be done. But I wonder if I have ever said them from the heart? We pray for God’s will to be done, but our fingers are crossed! We want His will for our lives when His will is the same is ours. But how much do we want it when it is not what we want? When it is the very opposite of what we were hoping for?

This is true piety: surrendering your will to God and really meaning it. This is what the Lord did in the Garden and what we ought to do.

The Lord’s agony is so great that His Father sends an angel to help Him. All Luke says is he was strengthening Him. Did the angel heal the Lord with his touch? Did he remind Him of the glory that lay beyond the cross? Or, did his appearance simply mean God has heard His prayer?

This we don’t know. But to keep the old promise, God "Gave His angels charge of thee, lest thou should’st dash thy foot against a stone".

The Lord has accepted His Father’s will and now, He turns from Himself back to the men He loved so dearly. When He reaches them, He is disappointed in what He finds: they have not been praying, but sleeping.

He rouses them again, reminds them of their danger, and renews the order: "Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation".

The story teaches many lessons, but we set them aside for now to look at the Man sweating great drops of blood. Who is He? He is the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. Yet this King surrenders His will to the will of heaven. Did He look forward to the cross? Of course He didn’t. Did it hurt Him as much as it would have hurt us. No, it hurt Him more! And yet if death, hell, and the grave are God’s will for Him, He accepts them all without feeling sorry for Himself or thinking hard thoughts about God!

The strongest Man, the Man who that never backed down from anybody or anything, bows before His Father in heaven. "Your will be done!"

How we ought to love Christ for bowing to the will of heaven. He didn’t have to—twelve legions of angels were ready to save Him if He gave the word. But the word was never given. Had He put His own wishes above the will of God we would not be saved and could not be saved. But He didn’t tangle with heaven, He yielded to it.

He wasn’t disappointed in the end. The God who willed His crucifixion wasn’t against the Lord; He was for Him, for three days later, He raised Him from the dead and has since given Him a Name that is above every name!

If submission was the Lord’s way, it must be our way too. Calvinists are often accused of saying Man has no will, but this is a slander: we have wills—strong and stubborn wills—wills that choose their own ways over God’s will and would rather reign in hell than to serve in heaven.

But we find no peace in our own ways, no happiness, and no freedom. These are found in one place only: on our knees in prayer, saying Nevertheless not My will, but Yours be done.