Jesus Prays on the Mount of Olives
He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of
Olives; and the disciples followed him. When he reached the place, he said to
them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Then he withdrew
from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you
are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Then
an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish
he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood
falling down on the ground. When he got up from prayer, he came to the
disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, and he said to them, “Why
are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of
trial.”
– Luke 22:39-46
In the beginning, there was a
garden. And the Lord
God created a man of the dust of the earth and placed him in it. And, out of
the soil of the garden, the Lord God formed every animal
of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what
he would name them. The man and the Lord God
worked together in this way. But the man was the only one of his kind, and the Lord God
loved the man so much that He created a companion for him out of the man’s own
flesh. In the evening, the Lord God
walked in the garden, and I imagine the man walking with Him in sweet
fellowship.
The man tilled the soil and kept it
and was able to eat of the fruit of every tree, including the Tree of Life at
the center of the garden, by whose fruit the man could live forever. But of the
fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Lord God
said, the man must not eat.
But the flesh of his flesh was
tempted by the serpent, and by the fruit that was good
for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, and
the man ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And when the Lord God
sought him in the evening breeze, the man hid himself in
his grief over what he had done, and he abandoned the sweet communion they
had shared.
In choosing to be apart from the Lord God,
the first Adam became separated from the Tree of Life, and from the garden, and
began an existence of wandering and of producing bread by the sweat of his
brow. But he, and all of his descendants, would remember Paradise, and long for
that home, and that sweet communion, and they would forever seek the Tree of
Life.
Thousands of years later, there is
another garden, and another man. He, too, has made a choice, but it is not to
abandon fellowship with the Lord God. Instead, he bends the will of his flesh to
the will of the Lord.
And, although he prays for relief, he offers his willingness in exchange
for the willfulness of the first Adam. He tells his friends to pray, too, for
he knows that each one will have to make a choice in the trouble ahead, and
that their own strength, the strength of their flesh, will not be enough to
sustain them.
Earlier in
the evening, he offered them bread of the fields, and spoke strange words. He
told of his body being broken and offered that they might become one with him,
flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. spirit of his spirit. But, so soon after,
the flesh is weak, and the disciples sleep in their grief, as if hiding in a
garden.
But the man is not alone; the Lord God
is with him. In the evening breeze, this man walks with God, and this man is
God, come down and formed from the dust of the earth of which all things are
made. He is with God in the beginning.
There is only one way back to Eden.
It is a path that leads to a very different tree, a strange tree made by man.
Only God’s choice can create this way back. Only the Lord God can restore Man to everlasting life and sweet
fellowship. Only the last Adam’s choice to obey will make a way.
But for now, there is this garden. Be careful, for there are serpents here.
It is beginning.
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