The Gospel of Gethsemane
Every step Jesus took had been perfectly in line with God the Father’s will. All the steps had led Him here to the garden of Gethsemane. He had given His final instructions to the disciples and eaten the passover meal with them. Then He brought them to the garden for His final hours before He faced the final test of His obedience to God. He was greatly distressed and troubled even unto death he told the disciples. What was ahead of Him left Him with great conflict. The pain and suffering would be unimaginable. He would also take on sin, all the sin the world had committed and would commit. He would become sin itself according to 2 Corinthians 5:21. He had never known sin before and this would cause a terrible situation where He would be separated from His Father. The presence of God, the peace with God would be interrupted and he would be alone with his humanity and continue His obedience.
He asked the disciples to stop and pray for Him, while He led Peter, James and John on a bit further. He asked them to watch with Him. He prays in
Matthew 26:39(NKJV), “O My Father if it is possible, Let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless, not as I will but as You will.”
God’s answer to Jesus is not recorded. But Jesus gets up and returns to the disciples and finds them sleeping. It’s possible this was a reminder to Jesus that all men were dead in their sins. Only He was alive to the Father. But God desired to be in fellowship with all men. All these men, Jesus Disciples. He knew He would be betrayed by Judas, and abandoned by the disciples and now He finds them sleeping. These failures of the men who had dedicated their lives to Him underscored the need for Him to go to the cross. These failures and Adam’s failure and all the failures of everyone in between and to come were represented in the sleeping disciples. These friends of God who knew Him face to face would walk away and prove out our need for a Savior. As Romans 3:23(NKJV) says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God” Ephesians 2:1 describes our plight, “And you were dead in the tresspasses and sins in which you once walked.” The disciples sleeping in the presence of God resembles our own condition. Dead in sin. God is unknown to us. Nothing could stir the sinners, three times He had to wake them up. The sinner’s fair chance was squandered by indifference and lack of regard for the Son of God.
Romans 6:23(NKJV) says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Our separation from God because of our sin is eternal. This is death, never knowing our Creator, the Father who loves us.
So Jesus seeing the sleeping disciples, was possibly an illustration from God that everyone lived dead to God. In Jesus’ words in verse 41, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Jesus’ prayer asked God if it was possible to let this cup pass from me. The cup he spoke of was to pay the wages of sin for everyone. As 2 Corinthians 5:21(NKJV) says, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” and in Isaiah 53:4-5 (NKJV) “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are Healed”
And then verse 6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Jesus goes and prays again with the illustration fresh on His mind and He prays in verse 42, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” This time having seen the disciples sleeping in death Jesus chooses to die. He died to His own will and chose to accomplish the Father’s will. He must take upon Himself the sin of the world and shed His blood and die a sinner’s death so that the world might be saved.
Three times He went down in prayer, three days He was in the grave. Here in the garden He has chosen to trust the Father with His life and go to the cross and go to the grave and to rise in Victory of eternal life. He invites us to join Him. He gets up from His final prayer, the sleeping bodies of the disciples before Him and He calls the disciples with great words that foreshadow the gospel. “Rise! Let us be going”
His call reverberates across the days and hours and centuries to you and I, to anyone dead in their sins to rise to a newness of life. As it says in Romans 6:4(NKJV) “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life.”
Jesus said, “Rise! “Let us” be going because those who believe in Him by faith will have peace with God and join Him in His work. There is a church to build, a world to save and Jesus is taking us with Him. He is with us as we struggle in this life, but with Him we live life facing grace! Knowing that Jesus has made it our destiny to become like Him. Joy! What Joy to hear Him say Rise! Let us be going.
One day soon He will return on clouds of glory and will call out once again, “Rise! Let us be going!” And we will rise to meet Him in the air.
John 1:12(NKJV) says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, To those who believe in His name.
Perhaps today you are hearing Jesus call for the first time. I want to invite you to accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord. I would love to help you as you begin to follow Jesus. You can comment below or send me an email!
