FOODFORTHOUGHT

As Jesus stepped into the garden, you were in his prayers. As Jesus looked
into heaven, you were in his vision. As Jesus dreamed of the day when we
will be where he is, he saw you there.

His final prayer was about you. His final pain was for you. His final
passion was you.

He steps into the garden, and invites Peter, James, and John to come. He
tells them his soul is “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” and
begins to pray.

Never has he felt so alone. What must be done, only he can do. An angel
can’t do it. No angel has the power to break open hell’s gates. A man can’t
do it. No man has the purity to destroy sin’s claim. No force on earth can
face the force of evil and win—except God.

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” Jesus confesses.

His humanity begged to be delivered from what his divinity could see.
Jesus, the carpenter, implores. Jesus, the man, peers into the dark pit and
begs, “Can’t there be another way?”

Did he know the answer before he asked the question? Did his human heart
hope his heavenly father had found another way? We don’t know. But we do
know he asked to get out. We do know he begged for an exit. We do know
there was a time when if he could have, he would have turned his back on
the whole mess and gone away.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t because he saw you. Right there in the middle of a world which
isn’t fair. He saw you cast into a river of life you didn’t request. He saw
you betrayed by those you love. He saw you with a body which gets sick and
a h eart which grows weak.

He saw you in your own garden of gnarled trees and sleeping friends. He saw
you staring into the pit of your own failures and the mouth of your own
grave.

He saw you in your Garden of Gethsemane—and he didn’t want you to be alone.

He wanted you to know that he has been there, too. He knows what it’s like
to be plotted against. He knows what it’s like to be confused. He knows
what it’s like to be torn between two desires. He knows what it’s like to
smell the stench of Satan. And, perhaps most of all, he knows what it’s
like to beg God to change his mind and to hear God say so gently, but
firmly, “No.”

For that is what God says to Jesus. And Jesus accepts the answer. At some
moment during that midnight hour an angel of mercy comes over the weary
body of the man in the garden. As he stands, the anguish is gone from his
eyes. His fist will clench no more. His heart will fight no more.

The battle is won. You may have thought it was won on Golgotha. It wasn’t.
You may have thought the sign of victory is the empty tomb. It isn’t. The
final battle was won in Gethsemane. And the sign of conquest is Jesus at
peace in the olive trees.

For it was in the garden that he made his decision. He would rather go to
hell for you than go to heaven without you.