Gethsemane Jesus

I have always been drawn to the story of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Maybe because it doesn’t always get as much attention; we often focus on the last supper and footwashing on Thursday, and the trial and crucifixion on Friday. I’ve wanted to linger at that inflection point in between, out in the darkness, among the old olive trees, in the quiet before the assault.

As a child, I could scarcely take in the gruesome, violent death of Jesus on the cross, especially coupled with any theology that insisted that God somehow demanded human sacrifice to appease his sense of wrath or justice. (If you’ve struggled with that theology, you are not alone! It is NOT the only way to read or understand the story. Here are some thoughts on how to approach this narrative differently as an adult or with children.) But I could journey with Jesus as far as the Garden.

This to me was Jesus at his most raw and vulnerable. He knew what was coming. The powers that be had been after him for weeks. He knew he would not retaliate; retributive violence was not God’s way. He felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. And as the story goes, he was “distressed and agitated . . . deeply grieved, even to death.” In Luke’s version, his anguish is so intense, his sweat becomes thick like blood. And he prays fervently for a different outcome: “Father, remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”

In other words, this was a Jesus who was fully human, subject to the same fears, doubts, and anguish as the rest of us. Would living and teaching such a radical, inclusive, revolutionary love really cost him his life? Surely there was another way. God, please, let there be another way!

Who among us has not known those moments of anguish, of fear, of desperate pleading with God? Facing some grievous loss or our own mortality or a certain path with an unknown future, we clutch at the life we have known, the changing ground beneath us, and we pray for a different outcome, to be spared this suffering. We may or may not be able to add, “yet not what I want, but what you want” because let’s face it, we don’t always have the faith of Jesus. And yet we’ve prayed for cup removals enough to know, we often have to drink the cup we’re given. In those cases, we pray for the grace to know we are not alone in our suffering and grief, that God will bring us through.

As a child, I didn’t pay much attention to the disciples in the story. I identified in my own adolescent way, with Jesus alone. It was not until an experience of being doubled over in grief myself that I paid them any mind. In my second year of seminary, my mom called to let me know that Riley, our beloved cocker spaniel that had been a faithful and delightful companion since I was in sixth grade, was not long for this world, succumbing to cancer. I drove home from Atlanta, to find him with my parents on the garage floor laboring to breathe. And within minutes of my lying down beside him, stroking his body, and telling him of my love, he gave up the fight.

It was night. I can still remember the weight of his body, the wetness of the grass, as we crossed the dark yard and laid him in a grave. I could not stop crying. Not for hours. It was one of the deepest loves and losses I had known. My boyfriend at the time, bless him, held me and stayed awake with me as long as he could. But the hour grew late, and the tears showed no sign of stopping. Eventually, I felt his body twitch asleep. And suddenly I was in Gethsemane with Jesus, alone, and yet not alone, bewailing together that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Sometimes, we humans, even with those we love the most, even with the best of intentions, cannot stay with our pain.

The older I’ve gotten, the longer I’ve lived, the more pain and violence I’ve witnessed in our world and in those I count as my closest companion, I’ve come to identify more and more with those disciples. Despite their love for Jesus, despite their adamant protests they will not desert him, the intensity and grief becomes too much. They have no idea what to say or do. They cannot stay awake in the garden, nor stay with him at the cross.

How humbling to confess, we too fall asleep or run away in fear, deserting the Jesus who still prays for another way, who still gets betrayed, accused, beaten, mocked, and killed in the bodies of our brothers and sisters, who still suffers and dies every day among us. We don't know what to say to our friend with cancer or the one whose marriage is falling apart. We feel powerless in the wake of another mass shooting, another case of police brutality. There is so much hatred, so much suffering, so much violence, and O Jesus, our bodies, our eyes, our hearts are so heavy and tired. We cannot bear to see, much less follow, a vulnerable God, who takes the hatred and violence of humanity into his very flesh, rather than escaping or returning the violence. Our flesh is so weak and some days,we're not so sure about our willingness of spirit either.

Thank God, the passion narrative is punctuated throughout with God’s mercy and forgiveness. Jesus knows the twelve disciples, every last one of them, will abandon him in the end, but he promises he will see them again in Galilee. (Mark 14:26-31). When they fall asleep in the Garden, he keeps returning to them, and bids them to continue with him. When Judas comes to betray him, signaling who Jesus is with a kiss, Jesus calls him Friend. (Matthew 26:49-50) When one of his disciples draws his sword and cuts off an opponent’s ear, Jesus disarms them, and touches the ear to heal it. (Luke 22:49-51). When Jesus is crucified with criminals on either side, he speaks those ultimate words of forgiveness over the whole violent charade: “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) And of course, the resurrection is grace upon grace, not that God had the power to live again, but that after all the abandonment and denial, the obscenity, hatred, and violence hurled upon Jesus, God chose to return to us, breathing peace and new life. What wondrous love is this, O my soul.

In recent years, my prayer around Holy Week is to be able stay awake and to stay with Jesus. I find myself humming the Taize meditation, Stay with Me, and contemplating this Mary Oliver poem entitled Gethsemane. And when I fail to stay as I’d hoped, when my flesh and even my spirit is weak, I pray to know God’s grace, to hear Jesus call me Friend, breathe forgiveness and peace into my weary soul, and promise to keep returning to me until I can stay with him all the way.

I pray that you have a meaningful Holy Week, finding your way into the story and contemplating the mystery in ways that draw you into God’s wondrous love and mercy.