Along the Journey 04-05-07

“Gethsemane…from Fear to Hope”

I confess that this year I’ve walked through Holy Week with a different outlook. As I read the events of the week, I find myself on Maundy Thursday in Gethsemane. Several years ago, a group from our church in Jacksonville shared communion in Gethsemane, then sat there quietly, deeply moved by the knowledge that this was where the Savior Himself once knelt, prior to His crucifixion. It’s a beautiful and awesome spot, an oasis of calm. But, figuratively speaking, Gethsemane is a place where no one wants to be. It’s the place where we prepare to die.

But we all have our Gethsemane. It’s not our Galilee, the place of preparation where we learn and grow, and one day return in triumph. It’s not our Golgotha, the place of ending and death. Gethsemane is somewhere in between. For Jesus, for His followers, and for us, Gethsemane is that place in life where you finally know that you are mortal, that death is inescapable, and is on its way.

Gethsemane is that one place in your life from which you can’t go forward, and you can’t go back. All you can do is cry out, “Father, if there’s any way, don’t make me drink it.” For me, on this Maundy Thursday, Gethsemane is that place where I know the end is coming, and I wish, so much like Jesus, that there was some other way.

On that first Maundy Thursday, I find myself with Him on that hillside; in the night, among the olive trees, with a handful of terrified and sleepy disciples. Like the disciples, I have little clue about what’s going on. I don’t know what will happen next, and, quite frankly, I’m afraid to know.

The strangest thing about being afraid is that you can only fear what hasn’t happened yet. When one of my friends from Newnan was told that his biopsy indicated the possibility of a malignancy, but that the final results wouldn’t be in until the next week, he nearly fell apart. He told me later, “I was overwhelmed by the fear of not knowing. After I was told I did have cancer, I was able to handle that much better than the fear of the unknown.” That’s the fear with every Gethsemane: that the worst has not yet arrived, but you suspicion that it’s on its way. And the longer you wait there, the worse it gets.

Three times Jesus cries out in agony to His Father: “Father, isn’t there some other way?” Gethsemane is that place where something in you dies. Your confidence in your own obedience. You finally know how inadequate you are to face life in your own strength. You finally face the fact that you cannot save yourself, let alone anyone else. Only grace will do.

Somewhere on the road from Galilee to Golgotha lies our Gethsemane. No one wants to be there. We pray for this cup to pass, for this trial to be over, this burden to be lifted, this sorrow to be gone. One day this will happen, but in the meantime, our path lies through the olive grove, not around it. Yet if Gethsemane represents our greatest fear, it also represents our greatest hope.

We know that somewhere on the other side of Gethsemane, God raised Jesus from a terrible death. At Gethsemane Jesus confronts the enormity of what lies ahead; there He finds the strength He needs in order to follow through. “Not my will,” He eventually says, “but yours be done.” In much the same way, those who follow Him to this place find that Gethsemane is where God takes the suffering, the failure, the broken fragments of our lives, and chooses to anoint them.

I confess that I’m in Gethsemane right now, gripped by fear, but holding on to hope. And some of you are also there. Wherever you find your Gethsemane, I pray it would be more than a place of darkness and dread. I pray it would also be a place of anointing, a place of discovery, and of yielding to God’s gracious will. May it be for you a place of knowing Christ in His sufferings in order to share with Him the life and resurrection only God can bring. Easter won’t come unless we’ve spent time in Gethsemane. So, no matter what our struggles are, no matter what seems about to crucify us, let us look to the resurrected and living Christ. It may be Thursday night, but Sunday’s coming. We may feel like we’re hanging on a cross, but the resurrection is on its way.

Jack