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Thoughts on Jesus in the Garden

In one garden,
the lie was chosen
over the will of God,
and nature
groaned under the curse
and the grief
and the countless tears
of mankind
that followed.

In one garden,
quietly,
one full moon night
the will of God was chosen
over the lie
and nature knew
the promise of healing
that would free a woeful mankind
of its tears
had begun
in the unfathomable grief of
the one who said yes.

II
Night in the Garden

O Lord,
how the garden was filled
with moonlight peaking through the shadows
that last night.

How you suffered -
your desire to escape,
your grief,
your sure knowledge was in store,
the weight of sin,
all shadows trying to wrap themselves around you,
and yet you stayed,
obeyed the Father’s will,
and saved us all.

O Lord,
how today my life is filled
with dark shadow trying to cloak the light
you give me,
my garden experience.

O Lord,
I offer you up my sorrow,
my pain,
my grief at sin, and failure, and weakness,
my groaning under loads I don’t know how to bear,
my forgetfulness of your kindness,
my longing for escape.

O my Lord,
I am such a weak person.
Hold my hand each step of the way
as I walk through this valley of the shadow of death,
and though I sorrow,
I will fear no evil
for in the end, I know the light,
your light,
will lead me home to you at last.

III

Each beam of moonlight
peaking through the leaves
in the garden of olives
highlighted your growing struggle.

O sinless one,
how heavy the weight
of uncountable sin
must have dragged upon you,

how the silent night
must have shrieked within you heart
with all the evil
man can do.

Thank you, Lord,
for telling the Father yes
when your human body
longed to run,
and you could feel the separation
that sin builds
between man and God
in a way no mere mortal
could ever bear.

Amen.

Each beam of moonlight
peaking through the leaves
in the garden of olives
highlighted your growing struggle.

O sinless one,
how heavy the weight
of uncountable sin
must have dragged upon you,

how the silent night
must have shrieked within you heart
with all the evil
man can do.

Thank you, Lord,
for telling the Father yes
when your human body
longed to run,
and you could feel the separation
that sin builds
between man and God
in a way no mere mortal
could ever bear.

Amen.

Standing in the garden,
beneath the olive tree,
Look at him praying,
alone as he could be
He asked them to watch with him,
He asked them to pray
But the sleep stole over them
As he drew away,

Standing in the garden,
He fell down to his knees,
“Abba, Father, Abba,”
He cried beneath the trees.
He asked them to watch with him,
He asked them to pray
But the sleep stole over them
As he drew away,

“Take this cup away from me,
I do not want its wine,”
He prayed in the midnight,
“Not my will, but thine.”
He asked them to watch with him,
He asked them to pray
But the sleep stole over them
As he drew away,

Then standing in the garden,
He knew just what to do,
and woke the sleeping men up
So they would know it too.
No time left to watch with him,
no time left to pray.
The soldiers take him to the priest,
now time to run away,

Forgive us Lord for standing there
when we should be with thee,
forgive us Lord for failing to
come with you and see.
Help us to follow you,
help us to pray
And keep us always close to you
lest we should draw away.

“Love is not easy,” You once told me,
“Watch me in the garden, and you will see
How Love is a struggle, hard and heavy,
When Love and our wants do not agree,
And the prayer on our lips is, ‘Father, hear me!’
And we, hearing Him in Love, do not flee.
This is a sacrifice most pleasing.”

Love is not easy - I understand, but know
When I am touched by the hand of loss and sorrow,
The road of hard choices where Love has me go,
You have walked that hard road, too and the shadows only show
There is light up ahead, where you vanquished the foe.
Help me to love, Lord.

VII

Gethsemane moments -
moments when I confront
the realities that I must do,
when sitting in the shadows
I wrestle with a heart
that longs to run away,
that longs to cry
“Why me, Lord?”
that longs to scream into the darkness
“No no no no no!”
yet to do so would be to betray
my Hope, my Love, my Truth, my God,
and under the moonlit shadows,
I join Jesus praying in the darkness,
confronting the conflict between what the will wants to do
and what the will ought to do,
and with him, I pray
“Not my will but Yours.”

There are moments of heavy burden,
when I walk the Via Dolorosa,
the way of Sorrow, bearing my cross,
and the burden seems so heavy,
and my arms so exhausted,
and my knees so bruised from tripping,
and my back so scraped by the wood,
and my mouth so dry with the taste of the road’s dust
and the sweat of the labor,
and the blood from where I battered my face falling.
And then I see you Lord
walking ahead of me,
so wounded for love of me,
so beaten for sin of me
so valiant,
so loving,
so burdened,
that the tears roll down my face
for what I have done,
and somehow, this cross seems so much smaller,
and I stand up and carry on.

There are moments You plunge me into the reality
of Calvary,
Golgotha,
of the Place of the Skull,
the place of your death,
the place of our renewing.
Here I kneel in the bloodstained earth
and look up into your eyes
and see how far Love will go for love,
and see how far Light will travel into darkness,
and learn how very far the Shepherd will go
to call his sheep home.
Blood sacrifice,
drop by slow drop,
each drop a lover’s kiss,
each drop a promise of hope,
and in the miasma of pain,
shock,
confusion,
where you abandon each thing left to you,
your dignity,
your mother,
your life,
your awareness of the Father
until it is only you
and pain
and struggle
and at last,
even that is released
into the maw of death.
And I kneel there amazed
at such a self emptying
at such a sacrifice,
the Maker giving all for the made,
that I am breathless.
And my tears fall,
in remorse for the need,
in sorrow for the pain
in wondrous gratitude at the love.