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Matthew 26: 36-39 | King James Audio Bible | KJV | King James Version
‘Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.’ (Matthew 26: 36-39 KJV)
Jesus leads his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, a place to be of sorrow and prayer. Overwhelmed with distress, Jesus pleads with God to find another way to fulfil Jesus’ mission, yet Jesus ultimately submits to God’s will.
Gethsemane | Our Life In The Light Of Jesus Christ | Meditations On The Love Of Jesus Christ
As Jesus led his disciples to this secluded place, weight of impending events pressed heavily upon him. Jesus’ heart was burdened with sorrow, and Jesus’ soul was deeply troubled. It is essential to recognize that, despite being the divine Son of God, Jesus fully embraced his humanity, experiencing exactly emotions and struggles as any human.
The intensity of Jesus’ emotions is evident as he takes Peter, James and John a little further into the garden. Jesus confides in them, revealing the overwhelming grief that fills his soul, reaching the point of feeling ‘exceeding sorrowful unto death’. In this moment, Jesus shows that it is okay to be vulnerable with others, to express our fears, and seek comfort and support from our friends in times of distress.
Jesus falls on his face and begins to pray. Jesus cries out to his Father, entreating God to find another way to fulfil God-Jesus’ mission on Earth. The ‘cup’ that Jesus refers to symbolizes the impending suffering, crucifixion, and separation from the Father. In his humanity, Jesus asks if there is an alternative path – knowing the death.
Jesus surrenders and trusts in God’s plan. Jesus’ prayer is essence of submission: ‘Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.’ Jesus prays to align human emotions and divine nature.
Jesus teaches that it is okay to bring fears and uncertainties in prayer, trusting in God’s sovereignty even when we do not comprehend God’s plans.
Gethsemane reveals the cost of our redemption and the immeasurable love of Christ. Jesus’ willingness to take on our sins and bear the weight of transgressions reflects a profound sacrifice. It was divine love that strengthened Jesus to endure the cross, providing hope.
May we come before God with honesty and vulnerability. Through Jesus, we find courage to surrender desires, embracing greater purpose of our lives in serving God and loving others. Jesus’ sacrifice expressed in the garden paved the way for our salvation.
‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.’ Psalm 55:22 (KJV)
Prayer To Jesus | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ | Gethsemane
Dear Jesus, thank you for your sacrificial love demonstrated in the Garden of Gethsemane. Help me to understand the depth of your humanity and the magnitude of your sacrifice. Teach me to surrender my will to yours and to trust in your perfect plan for my life. Amen.
A Prayer For Children | Gethsemane
Dear Jesus, when you were scared, you prayed and trusted God. Help me to remember that you are always with me and that I can talk to you when I’m afraid. Amen.
Saint Bede the Venerable (c. 673–735), monk of Wearmouth-Jarrow and the most eminent Anglo-Saxon theologian, offers in this passage a profound meditation on 1 Peter 2:9, wherein the Apostle applies Old Testament imagery to the new People of God. Bede’s theological genius lies in his ability to interweave patristic exegesis, liturgical spirituality, and historical typology into a cohesive vision of the Christian life as pilgrimage from darkness to light, from Egypt to the Promised Land [ … ]
On Tuesday, His Grace turns to the theme of Jesus’ hidden years. His Grace asks the students to consider questions concerning what really happened: ‘Who, for instance, was Joseph? Was he indeed a carpenter, or has Joseph’s true role in the society in which he lived been misconstrued and forgotten to us? Though it be a beautiful, simplifying image to grasp, which offers to us much that is of value in Catholic faith… ‘A wise elder, which carpenter could mean, or a great engineer, an architekton, which in the Greek does not mean carpenter. But carpenter in the Hebrew could mean a wise man…’ His Grace turns the pages of his Bible back and forth, as if to itemize the paucity of information. Then he says: ‘What I think I can say to you with confidence is that it is of profound significance that we simply don’t know what Jesus was doing for most of his earthly life. There are some very different possibilities. One idea cherished by the Church is that Jesus worked with his father Joseph as a carpenter. Another possibility is that Jesus lived and prayed and studied closely with John the Baptist. They were cousins, and very close, almost the same, in age. Luke’s Gospel tells us clearly that Jesus and John knew each other from within the womb before they were born. So there may have been something quite important happening there. You see, we don’t know – it is an impossible mystery to us – just how much Jesus had to learn. This is because, if Jesus knew everything, humanly speaking, even as a tiny baby, then how can we say he is fully human? We simply can’t probe too far into this mystery, but we can draw extraordinary truth and healing from this thought, which becomes of immense relevance in our own lives. Jesus came to know and to understand himself not merely as a son of God, but as God the Son, and so as self-identical with his Father. It is not an adoptive relationship. Jesus is God. Now so much is hidden here. But this is a great gift. If you think about it, how do we come to know that we are loved by God, that we have our relationship with God? What are we born with in here’ – his chest – ‘and what do we have to learn? This is to say, what is gifted to us by other Christians at our baptism? ‘Jesus must have studied, and experienced profound revelation about who and what he truly was, and, so it seems to be, these studies cannot have been confined to the Semitic world. But this is the important point: there is a hiddenness about all of this. No matter which schools and which sects our Lord might have encountered all these years, this to us is as a desert space. What this means is that we can enter into the hidden life of Jesus, and there we can discover our own being with God, our own sonship. Our own particular being loved by God can come to us, if we can enter within this great unknown – into this desert space, where we are loved by Jesus. I firmly believe that there may be a great Lenten mystery in this period of our Lord’s life.’ A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 1 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 2 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 3 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 4 | King James Audio Bible | KJV A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 5 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Holy Week | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 6
The second reading for today’s Office of Readings is taken from Apologia ad Autolycum (Apology to Autolycus), the only surviving work of Saint Theophilus of Antioch, a second-century Christian apologist and bishop. This work is a defence of Christianity addressed to a pagan named Autolycus, who was sceptical of Christian beliefs. In this passage, Theophilus argues that the ability to perceive God is not dependent on physical sight but on the inner purity of the soul. He draws a comparison between bodily vision and spiritual insight, explaining that just as blindness prevents one from seeing the light of the sun, so too does sin obscure one’s ability to recognize God [ … ]
