THE GARDEN

The account of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane is often included in the Stations of the Cross in the lead-up to Easter. Originally, the ‘stations’ were marked places along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. Christians on Lenten pilgrimage stopped at each station to consider what it meant for Jesus to experience the journey along this path to His crucifixion. 

Around the world, Christians still recreate ‘the way of the cross’ with stations to reflect on the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection. Today this devotion is your ‘station’, your time to stop and reflect on Jesus’ experience just before He was betrayed and to consider what God might want to say to you through this passage of Scripture.

Jesus asks His friends to stay awake and pray for Him, while He goes to God with His own intense struggle and sorrow about facing death. The friends fall asleep, and Jesus is alone with no-one to support Him as He falls, face to the ground, asking God to take the cup of betrayal, suffering and death away. 

Jesus understood that suffering is something that is taken into all our being, in the same way that wine is absorbed into the body when swallowed from a cup. Yet, Jesus put His trust in God, knowing that something bigger than suffering and death was going to be won: an eternal, life-giving relationship with God would be a cup offered for all to drink.

Over the years I have talked about Jesus’ life with people and walked with some as they have welcomed the amazing gift of life-giving friendship with God. It is often this account of Jesus, face in the dirt, sweating blood, that awakens an understanding of the costly, loving sacrifice of Good Friday. The only question left is how will you respond?

written by KATH HENRY