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Palm Sunday reflection: "Choice in the Garden" Matthew 26:36-46

by Clancy Nixon

April 9, 2006

Church of the Hoyly Spirit

www.holyspiritanglican.org

Our Palm Sunday drama is a powerful reminder that we participate in the suffering of our

Lord. It's not just that we remember those events, like a history lesson. We enacted

these events this morning so that we can participate in them anew, so that we can see

ourselves in the divine drama. We experienced the emotions of a participant, not a

detached observer. I always get shivers up my spine when I shout along with the crowd,

"Crucify Him!" It's hard to say, but it helps us to say those words, so we own our

participation in the crucifixion. We choose our sin, just as we choose to turn from our

sin, and turn to the Lord.

In the movie "The Passion of the Christ," the familiar actor Mel Gibson, who also

produced this movie, does not seem to appear in his own movie. But Gibson does appear

in the movie, just not his familiar face. His are the hands that held the hammer that nailed

Jesus to the cross. That great symbol is a reminder of what we did today reminding

ourselves that our own sin nailed Jesus to that cross, our own self-will demanded that he

be crucified. Jesus did not die only because of the sin of some people long ago, but he

died for your sin and mine.

As we begin Holy Week, I'd like to reflect with you on a small part of the passion play

that we enacted. That is the Garden of Gethsemane. Jerusalem was a crowded city in

Jesus' day, with no room for any gardens, so wealthy people owned garden plots outside

the city where they could get away from the hustle and bustle. Someone who knew Jesus

offered his garden as a place for him to rest and pray, because Luke tells us that Jesus

went there "as usual" to pray. Do you have a regular place where you go to pray? That is

holy ground for you. Jesus went to Gethsamane on Thursday night to pray with his

friends after Judas had left their Passover meal to betray him.

Now Gethsemane is a place on or near the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley

from Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Gethsamane is a Hebrew word that means "oil press."

Evidently, this was a place where olives would be put into a press and crushed, and the

oil was extracted and collected. The meaning of the word is telling, since Jesus himself

would be pressed and crushed, so that the oil of salvation could be poured out to you and

me.

This is the place that Jesus surrendered his life to the Father and agreed to go to a grisly

death. The Garden of Gethsamane is the crucible where the victory of the cross was

assured. This was Jesus' point of decision. Jesus knew that a cross lay ahead for him.

This Scripture is holy ground, and we enter it with reverence and awe. Jesus tenderly

asked his Father three times to take the cup of sorrow and suffering away from him. Jesus

did not want to die this way. He prayed for another way out. Yet he also prayed to his

Abba not for his own will, but for the Father's will to be done. He chose submission to

the Father, and Victory flowed from that choice.

This is life's hardest task: to accept things that we do not fully understand, even when it

means pain and suffering for us. We don't know what Jesus was thinking at that moment.

He was in such agony that he sweated blood out of his pores a condition called

hematidrosis. He was overwhelmed with sorrow. He suffered emotionally, as his friends

didn't stay awake with him in his hour of need, and as he thought of Peter's denial, and

Judas' betrayal. Jesus suffered physically, the blood he sweated a harbinger of greater

bloodletting at the flogging pole and on the cross. Most of all, he suffered spiritually, as

he began to experience his Father's face being turned away from him as he took upon

himself the sin of the world. How bitter to drink that cup the cup of distance from his

Abba father in Heaven. From all eternity past, the pre-incarnate Christ had only

experienced unbroken fellowship with the Father. But Jesus won the Victory here in

Gethsamane when he chose to do God's will, face his fears, and embrace his call to suffer

and die.

Whatever it is that you are facing today- what suffering, what shame, what sorrow - the

Lord Jesus understands right where you are. There are times when God will intervene in

power to save you and to and heal you, and make everything better than you imagined.

We praise God for those times, because God often works that way. The Lord also knows

that sometimes, the only path to victory is on the other side of a cross. The scriptures tell

us that Jesus has compassion on us that word compassion, means to suffers with. Jesus

suffers with you.

Every day, you and I have to make a choice: either we say, "Thy will be done;" or we say

"My will be done." Yes, it is important, it is very important, that every person make an

initial confession to turn our life over to God, to in effect say "Thy will be done" for the

first time. But we need to keep on saying it every day. Sometimes, our friends are asleep

or ignoring us; sometimes, our choices are few; sometimes, it even fells like a search

party is hot on our trail. Notice Jesus' example: There is nothing wrong with praying that

the cup of suffering and sorrow be taken from you, as long as you also pray, "but Thy

will be done."

When we pray that prayer, and really mean it, we have already won the Victory, no

matter how things turn out. When we choose God's way, Jesus' victories at Gethsamane

and Calvary become our victories, too. God is gracious. I have found that when I put my

trust in him and in doing his will for me, he often spares me the experience of the cross I

thought I had to face. Because he went to the cross for me, many times, I don't have to

go there myself. If I do have to go there, often he transfigures the cross, so that while I

must carry it, it becomes beautiful to me. My burden becomes my garment of praise. You

know what I mean?

That transfiguration is yours as you look to Jesus on Calvary. This Holy Week, I invite

you to experience all the drama of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.

Along with that holy privilege, I invite you to take some time to go to your garden or

other place where you can pray and reflect, and read the passion narratives in the

gospels, and take in the suffering of Jesus, the high price that God paid to redeem you,

even you, to make you his child. His Gethsamane choice puts our Gethsamane choices in

perspective. Choose Jesus. He has already chosen you. Amen.