From the moment Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, everything heightens – the awe of the crowds, the anticipation of the disciples, the anger of the Jewish leaders. Where Jesus once tried to fly under the radar so as not to draw attention to Himself (too soon), He steps into the full spotlight in Bethany as He brings a man back to life (John 11, 12:17).
Tensions build. Emotions rise.
So by the time Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for Passover, the crowds are frenzied, convinced the Messiah who will overthrow the Romans has arrived. So their waving palm branches and hosannas are not small gestures (John 12:12-13; Mark 11:7-10).1 This is quite literally the moment they’ve been waiting for – for generations! The crowds are ready for their King to lead them in victory over their oppressors.
And the Jewish leaders are ready for Jesus to disappear. His appeal, His abilities, His non-traditional authority threaten their way of life – their comforts and influence and power (John 12:19). Even Jesus’ disciples don’t fully grasp what’s happening (v.16).
Instead of leading a revolt against Rome, Jesus heads to the Temple to stand in its courts – much as the prophet Jeremiah had generations before (Jeremiah 7:11) – calling out the corrupt Temple practices that have turned His Father’s house into a den of robbers (Mark 11:15-17). The crowds are mystified; the leaders are murderous (v.18).
But Jesus isn’t finished – because, as we saw last week, He then turns to the crowds to explain that He must die in order to fulfill God’s will (John 12:23,27-28), leaving them more bewildered than ever. They know from Scripture that Messiah will reign forever – so how can He say He’ll die (v.34)?
Boxed in by ideas of a militant Messiah, no one – not a single person – fully understands Jesus’ actual reason for having come to earth. They confuse His messages of repentance and salvation for revolt and safety from Caesar.
And this is how we enter the final week of Jesus’ life.
Amidst the Jerusalem crowds who have gathered to celebrate Passover, the days fly by full of Temple court teachings and healings, debates and dinners with friends. Then, it’s suddenly Jesus’ final night with His disciples. As the night moves on, the Passover Feast gives way to Jesus’ greater purposes so that the ‘Last Supper’ embodies His legacy for His coming Church. Bread becomes body. Wine becomes blood. The King becomes a foot-washing servant.
As dinner comes to a close, Jesus prays over them (John 17). He leads them in a hymn (Matthew 26:30). Then He and the Eleven (for Judas has already left to betray Him) walk across the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane.
The disciples walk with full bellies and hearts! Their minds are heavy with wine even as their thoughts spin with everything they’ve heard Jesus say around the table. Content yet unclear, they follow their Rabbi through the olive trees and bow to pray as He asks.
–Dramatic pause–
We feel tension in the air. We, like Jesus, know what’s about to happen. But the disciples do not and quickly fall asleep, clueless about what’s to come despite Jesus’ best efforts to warn them.
And I imagine how Jesus’ heart must be pounding – with sorrow for leaving life as He’s known it with all the teaching and traveling, all the friendships and special moments; with anxiety because He knows what pain lies before Him; with brokenheartedness for the Jews who refuse to believe Truth and for the suffering that lies ahead of them.
How alone He must feel – no one understands. His own disciples can’t even stay awake to pray for Him or even for their own tendencies toward temptation (Matthew 26:38,40-41).
But Jesus has One who gets it. One who actually authored all of this. One who has called Him to this very hour – since the beginning of time. Abba. So with all His feelings, Jesus goes to His Father. Matthew records three separate moments of prayer (vv.39,42,44), giving us an indication of Jesus’ angst. Luke elaborates, telling us Jesus prays so fervently that His sweat turns to drops of blood, giving us a visual of Jesus’ agony (Luke 22:44). But every Gospel captures Jesus’ Gethsemane Prayer in much the same way as Mark’s original:
“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Mark 14:36
Our fifth Jesus Prayer isn’t spoken with intent to teach or to demonstrate God’s willingness to hear and respond to our pleas. This prayer flows from a distraught heart. Despite all He has already confessed to His followers (as we saw in the Glory Prayer), now that the night of His dread has actually arrived, the emotions are raw. And very real.
Jesus does not want to die on the cross.
Everything is possible for You God – let this cup of suffering pass from me.
However.
Just as He taught His disciples to pick up their crosses, to lay down their will for the Father’s (John 12:25-28; Matthew 6:10, 16:24), Jesus submits to His Father’s will. He surrenders what He wants for what the Father desires.
Jesus shows us what it looks like to live as children of God, surrendered to our Abba. Because we love Him. Because we trust Him to know what’s best even when it hurts or feels upside-down to what we’d choose or desire.
Like losing those we hold dear.
Like living with chronic conditions.
Like leaving loved ones.
Our Abba sees us and loves us beyond our ability to fathom. Our Author sees the big picture – the one that spans from beginning to end. Our Sovereign, Holy, Righteous God sees it all and is working to make everything right.
Even when we can see it – or Him.
But we can see Jesus in Scripture. We can watch what He does as He responds to every situation and emotion. Over and over He shows us – prayer, time in the Father’s presence in order to know Him, to really know Him. To be transformed by His Word and Spirit. To discern His will (Romans 12:2).
Jesus shows us faith in living color – everything is possible for God. There’s not one thing God cannot do, yet not everything is in His will. It’s not all part of His plan. Therefore, Jesus shows us how to live with hearts willing to trust our Father’s will, to obey His will fully surrendered.
Jesus also shows us how our lives of prayer shape us. Think back to the Lord’s Prayer – the first Jesus Prayer (Matthew 6:10). The words of this famous and foundational prayer aren’t just words for Jesus to teach His followers. Rather, they also reflect how He prayed.
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done…..
The very words Jesus prayed for all His days on earth did a work in Him. They shaped His faith and prepared Him for this very Gethsemane moment.2 The repeated words transformed His brain and aligned His heart with God’s.
Not my will, but your will be done…..
So, as we move through this fifth week of Lent, may we consistently seek our Father – to know Him, to love Him, and to seek His will. May we pray each Jesus Prayer, trusting that their words are shaping and preparing us. May we speak the words of the Gethsemane Prayer, feeling each word of faith become our own and allowing our will to be laid down for our Father’s.
“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Mark 14:36
Lord, teach us to pray.
Father God, as we retrace these stories and prayers of your Son, we are reminded that though He was God, He did not think equality to You as something to strive for. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges, emptying Himself to take on the position of a slave, to be born a human. This moment in the Garden of Gethsemane paints the full picture of just how much Jesus humbled Himself in obedience to You – naming His will but surrendering it to follow yours, to die on a cross. He chose to trust your plans and purposes over His own pain and preference. He believed the cross was not the end – and He was right to trust You! For You elevated Him to the place of highest honor, giving Him the name above all other names. Now every knee, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, shall bow to His holy name. Every tongue shall declare that Jesus Christ is Lord – to your glory and for our good. Holy Spirit, we ask that You would continue to fill us with all Truth and power so that we, too, will choose God’s plans and purposes over our own pain and preferences. Train us to surrender our will for our Father’s. Help us to believe that everything is possible for God and to trust that His way is always for the greater good. May we live and love like Jesus. In His name we pray, amen.
(inspired by Philippians 2:6-11 and Mark 14:36)
Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.
- 1 – Kenneth Collins, in his Lent Wake Up Call series, unpacked the meanings behind the Triumphal Entry cries of the crowd as seen in John 12:13, “Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the king of Israel!”
Dr. Collins analysis is so revealing that I wanted to share it with you (emphasis is mine):
“The shout, the praise of the people, was an echo from the book of Psalms: “LORD, save us! LORD, grant us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. From the house of the LORD we bless you” (118:25–26). There are three parts of these two verses from the Psalter that are of interest to us.
The first part, “LORD, save us” or as the Aramaic phrase would put it, “Save us now,” corresponds to “Hosanna,” a word that, by the way, is used much differently today, often as a general expression of joy without the specific call for redemption.
The second part of this praise, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD,” could have been said of any holy man or woman who loved God, the Holy One of Israel. There’s nothing unique here.
Third, however, notice that Psalm 118 does not contain the last praise offered by the people: “Blessed is the king of Israel.” That tribute or honor is indeed unique, set apart, and it could not have been spoken about just anybody. - 2 – An idea I gleaned from Bible Project Podcast, “How Does the Lord Teach Us to Pray?” published May 13, 2024.
- 3 — (see Rhythms section below) JD Walt wrote an incredible post about this Gethsemane Prayer that packs even more revelation – I highly recommend it.
- When we sing along to the hymns and spiritual songs on our Spotify playlist, Embrace Prayer, we are filling our hearts and minds with Truth. Chris Tomlin’s song, “Jesus Messiah,” tucks-in much of what we read and prayed today. It can become for us an anthem of living and praying like Jesus — it gives us every reason, every promise, and every truth to cling to so that we might release our will for His!
- Each Wednesday I upload a “Teacup” teaching video that carries on the topic here. You can find all the videos on my Facebook Author Page, Instagram, and YouTube.
- Many of you have already found me on Substack! Thank you so much! While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective.
AND…don’t forget if you’d rather listen to these weekly posts, you can now do so on Substack — it’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post. - My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes of those who have subscribed on my website, and I post them on Substack — usually within the first week of the month. If you’d like to subscribe for future newsletters, you can do so on Substack here.
Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike. This Lent, we’ve put our focus on the rhythm of prayer.
- Today we turn in our Prayer Bibles to Mark 14:36 to highlight the passage and add our tabs so that we can find it easily. Now we have FIVE Jesus Prayers we can pray straight out of the Bible!
This week let’s practice this Gethsemane Prayer by praying our faith that everything is possible for God and our willingness to surrender our will for our Father’s. I will quote several of JD Walt’s words about praying this fifth Jesus Prayer because there’s no way to say them any differently — they’re just so good and true. JD helps us see just how much Jesus is teaching us with this heartfelt prayer:
[Jesus] prays faith. He prays hope. Now he prays love. Love is a surrender of self-interest in the interest of the other. Love is not resignation to a foregone conclusion. Love means a trusting surrender of one’s life to God, over and over and over again. Though trust deepens, it never gets easier, because there always seems to be more at stake to lose.
And let’s not miss the renunciation in the prayer. In the Lord’s Prayer, we train our hearts to beat to the rhythm of the prayer, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” Jesus takes it a step further here by renouncing his will.
“Yet not what I will, . . .” 3
- Something about this season opens people up a little more to hear God’s story and the work of Jesus. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. Maybe, just maybe, God will even give us opportunities to pray for people He puts in our paths. I’d love to hear about it when He does!
Featured Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash. “All the Bits and Pieces” photo by Aleksandra Sapozhnikova on Unsplash.
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