The Garden Prayer

The Garden Prayer

Matthew 26:36-46

When I was a child in my elementary school years, I remember going to church on Wednesday evenings. Our family was one of those – we went to church every time (almost) that the doors were open. This particular time of my life we lived just a block away from the church, so there was no excuse. We always walked to church, so it didn’t matter if the car wouldn’t start. The only time I ever stayed home from church was if I were too sick to go. The sniffles weren’t sufficient.   

Our church had a scouting program called Caravans, so from third grade on, I went to Caravans on Wednesday night. Mom sent me with a dime for my “dues,” and the adults went to prayer meeting. It was advertised as the Mid-week Prayer Service. Because of Caravans, I wasn’t there very often. But once in awhile, I joined my parents for prayer meeting.  

The crowd there was mostly the older folks – at least, they were older folks to me – but it included my Sunday School teacher and the parents of the Caravan kids. What I saw there has stuck with me, particularly because of two things: one were the testimonies that were a regular feature; and the other was the gathering at the altar. One testimony has stuck with me all these years. Ben was the father of twins, Don and Donna, and their older brother Harold. Don and Donna were my age and Don and I were pals. Ben had been a pastor at some point before, but wasn’t then. He stood up one night in prayer meeting and said, “God must trust me a lot, because he leaves me alone so much.” Instead of complaining that God seemed absent from his life, he took it as a sign of God’s trust in him. Ben wasn’t a sheep going astray, although his son, Harold did. Ben and his wife did their best to raise their children for the Lord.   

The prayer meeting, though, was another world, almost. The altar was crowded and the front row of pews served as a second altar. We could see 50 or 60 or more people there in prayer. And they weren’t quiet. They prayed for lost loved ones. They prayed for neighbors. They prayed about their finances. They prayed for revival. They prayed for the students and the professors at the college across the street. They prayed over the sick and they prayed for the children and teens of the church. And they prayed until they were done. Sometimes, Caravans was done before they were, and we had to wait quietly at the back of the sanctuary until the pastor closed the meeting.   

But prayer was a vital part of the life of the church. In fact, some would say that prayer was the very life-blood of the church. Well, prayer meetings have mostly faded away. We’ve tried to have prayer meetings from time to time. It comes down to one or two discouraged saints who finally give up. It seems that nobody is interest in prayer these days. And the church shows the loss.  

Marsha and I were chatting recently about this. And I think I talked with Shawn about it a bit. The Church is no longer desperate for God’s presence. We pray perfunctory prayers over our meals and perhaps at bedtime – maybe at the beginning of a meeting. But I’m not sure we really expect that God is listening. Mostly, perhaps, we pray out of habit. We certainly don’t pray with any passion. I spoke about Esau finding out that Jacob had stolen his blessing. Four times, Esau cried out to his father, “Don’t you have a blessing for me, too?” Devastated Esau was desperate for the blessing of his father. But we’re no longer desperate. We’re not hungry for holiness or thirsty for the Word of God. Most of the church across America has become comfortable with mediocrity and apathetic about faith. But we don’t cry to the Lord anymore. And then we wonder why God isn’t doing here what he’s doing in places like Iran or Brazil or South Korea.

There are several prayers of Jesus reported in the gospels. Two of them, in my opinion, are misnamed. The “Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6 is the one Jesus taught to the disciples and should be called “The Disciple’s Prayer.” John 17 contains what is known as “The High Priestly Prayer,” but is the real Lord’s Prayer, because it is the one Jesus prayed for his disciples at the Last Supper. That one, John 17, would be followed by the Gethsemane Prayer, which is our topic for today. But let me first connect the three of them – because there is a connection.

In the Disciples’ Prayer, Jesus instructs us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth.” I stop there for a reason – we need to reflect, in our own lives, on what it means for God’s will to be done on earth. Let’s stop focusing on “as it is in heaven” for a moment. God’s will is done in heaven – always. Our prayer is that God’s will be accomplished on earth. That ought to challenge us and change the way we live. It ought to inform our marriages, our family life, the way we work, the way we play, what we choose to read and what music we listen to and what we watch on television. It ought to inform our politics, how we discuss, what’s important, and how we vote.

In the Lord’s Prayer, John 17, Jesus prayed for you and me: “May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” So that the world may know. Jesus wasn’t just praying that we would know him, but that through our witness the world would know him. It is through us, through our words, through our attitudes, through our behavior, through our witness, that the world will know him. The disciples were sent into the world, not into the church. It’s easy to be a Christian in here, but we are commanded to be Christians out there. That’s what “Thy will be done on earth” means. Out there. In the workplace, in the grocery, on the streets, in the neighborhoods. So that the world may know Jesus. Both prayers are about the will of God being accomplished in the here and now. Jesus came to inaugurate God’s kingdom on earth. He taught us to desire that very thing – that God would be king of the earth just as he is already the king of heaven.

And now, after Jesus has prayed in the Upper Room that his disciples, and all who believe because of their testimony, would be agents of God’s will on earth, comes the time for his own test. 

Now, there are several things about the Gethsemane prayer that intrigue me. Let’s go through them step by step. Along the way we’ll observe the weakness of the disciples, but they aren’t really the focus.  

First, Jesus instructed the disciples to wait outside the Garden. He took just three of them with him. Peter, James, and John go just a little way further with Jesus. He stops and looks them over. A great sadness comes over his face. Matthew says, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Why? Because he knows the full weight of what he is facing, and he knows that it is all imminent. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” This is the deepest sorrow one can know, when we feel we are going to die of a broken heart, when sorrow goes all the way to the bone. We may speculate on why Jesus feels sadness, but the immediacy is the fact of his suffering and death. He’s been predicting it, so he knows what is coming.

But this is Jesus, the Only Begotten One, feeling the full weight of his humanity. Jesus knew his purpose. He knew that his death was the only way. But just like you and me, Jesus did not want to die. He understood our fear of death, our fear of dying - both the process and the climax. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus was made fully human in every way ... so that he might make atonement ... (Heb 2:17). St. Anselm asserted that only a man could make the sacrifice for man’s sin. That’s why Jesus had to be made in human likeness (Phil. 2:7). He had to be a man to intercede for man as our high priest. He had to be man to offer man’s sacrifice for sin. But the full weight of humanity comes at the moment of death. And our prayers in that moment are prayers of desperation, prayers that are borne out of desperation. Jesus’ own desperation comes because now his humanity is in basic natural conflict with his divine mission. He must die, but he does not want to, and he now faces that war.   

So he leaves the three, going on a little further, Matthew tells us Jesus fell face down to the ground. He was not, as our movies and artists propose, kneeling at a rock. In anguish, Jesus was face-down, prostrate on the ground. At that angle, tears don’t roll down your cheek; they fall directly into the dust. Jesus’ tears watered the earth. His prayer, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me,” is basically, “find another way.” There’s got to be another way to do this. In his humanity, Jesus is looking for a loophole in the plan, a way out. That’s what he wants. By the way, Luke tells us that this conflict was so intense that Jesus was sweating as if he were bleeding from every pore: And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Lk 22:44). It is a life or death struggle for him. Please God, find another way!  

What we want is not necessarily what God wants, but all too often we expect God to bend to our plans. How many times have we made plans – and then asked God to bless our plans! God doesn’t bless our plans; he blesses his plans. God doesn’t bend to our will; he calls us into his will. Paul called the Roman churches to be transformed by the renewing of the mind and conformed to the will of God. We have spent a lot of time on the first part of Romans 12:2, but not nearly enough on the second half. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. With our transformed and submitted minds, then we will be able to know what God’s will is. But notice what Paul says about God’s will: God’s will is good, pleasing, and perfect. It may be hard in the moment, but the outcome of following God’s will is pleasing because it is both good and perfect. That’s why God blesses his plans instead of ours – because his way is good and perfect. Hard? Sometimes. Actually, God’s will is often hard to follow. But Jesus knows the Father better than we do. Here, he knows what he would rather not do, but he also knows the truth: that the Father’s will is best.   

So, Jesus can pray with trust, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” In the battle of his life, Jesus knows he can trust the Father. It would be ironic, wouldn’t it, if after teaching the disciples to pray, “Thy will be done on earth,” Jesus now rejected God’s will for him? Consistency requires him, at this point, to submit to the One who’s will on earth is desirable for us. And he does.  

But the battle is not over. He prays and then returns, only to find the three sound asleep. He gives weary Peter a strong instruction: “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” It’s not just for Peter, though. It’s revealing Jesus’ own struggle. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is afraid. Paul tells us of that struggle in Romans 7, where he admits, I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out (Rom 7:18). It’s the struggle of humanity to submit to God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will. We want to. We just find it difficult. And, in so many ways. We want to witness, but we’re afraid of being humiliated. We want to invite our neighbors to church, but we’re afraid they’ll say no. We want to pray, but we fall asleep. 

Jesus goes back to pray the same prayer a second time, with a little difference. Here is a more relaxed, accepting prayer, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” Since there is no other way – without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Heb 9:22) – let’s get on with it. May your will be done. Jesus knows what must be done.   

He comes back, finds them sleeping again, goes off to pray again, and then comes back, rouses the sleeping church and goes off to meet his fate. “Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”  

We may not face such extremity as Jesus did on our behalf. Or perhaps we will. Nigerian Christians, Iranian Christians, Chinese Christians, Egyptian Christians, those in Nepal, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cuba, Syria, Mexico, even India, face the danger of following Christ. Perhaps they also pray, “Not my will, but thine.” But they are hungry for holiness and thirsty for righteousness. They seek the kingdom of God, sometimes with great desperation.   

Jesus calls us to pray, seriously, perhaps even desperately, “Thy will be done on earth.” That means, by the way, “Thy will be done in my own life, in my own home, in my own workplace, in my own neighborhood.” It means, “Thy will be done in my nation.” Where is your Gethsemane? Where is your final surrender to the good, pleasing, and perfect will of the Father? Can you say with Jesus, “Not my will, but Thine be done”?