The Garden of Gethsemane and choice

Not to long ago we passed one of the most important "holidays" for a Christian.... Easter. I tend to think it is the most important. Easter is what essentially sets Christianity apart from other religions. Jesus, claiming to be God and proving so, dies and then most importantly rose again.

Now I'm not going to dwell on this to much, but I want to zoom in on the Garden of Gethsemane, right before Jesus enters into His unjust punishment and death. Jesus, after the big "last supper", goes on one last walk-n-talk with His disciples before He goes to the cross. He chats with them a little bit and then asks them to just sit down, relax, pray, and wait. In the meantime He goes a little farther to pray on His own. It is at this point Jesus is entirely stressed (Matt. 26:37). He knows what's about to go down. He knows that Judas just got his big lump sum of money and is on His way. And, not surprisingly, Jesus goes to pray. He has a long time of prayer. It is so long that the disciples keep falling asleep. I wonder what was going on in their heads: "Man, this is taking forever", "What is taking Jesus so long", "If He is gonna take all night, I'm just gonna get cozy by this tree", etc. Anyway, I digress.

Jesus prays for multitude of items and people, including the entire world. But, also He prays for Himself. Now, I have read over this particular part of His prayer so many times over my life, but I didn't ever really lock into it. He prays, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will". This particular part is recorded in 3 of the 4 gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. He prays this a couple of times. I'm no Bible scholar, but, the general accepted interpretation of this is that Jesus is just so at His wits end that His human side of Him doesn't want to go to the cross. He is just praying that there could be another way to open up the door of eternal redemption without Him actually having to go through this suffering and death. Now, that seems perfectly reasonable. I can lock in with that idea and that type of prayer. And, who could blame Him, He knows everything that is going to happen. I imagine that getting beat to a pulp is stressful enough; but knowing you are going to be, down to the last detail before it actually happens has got to be more so.

So, Jesus prays this. And of course God responds to Him and tells Him He needs to keep going. And He does it. Like I said, I read over this a multitude of times, and that is the general conclusion I come to. Maybe sometimes i'm more emotional with it, more heartache, maybe less, maybe none. Nevertheless, the same conclusion. Is there anything else to gain from this part of His prayer.....

YES....Jesus' choice

Now, my initial Christianese response (It doesn't matter if that is a word or not, you understand). Jesus pushed through, because He was choosing to die for us, for me. He did it because He loves us. But, is that what really went down. We can't say for sure. Jesus does love us, but He loves His Father more. Now, it actually seems like Jesus was really ready to give up on us, give up on me. Well, He WAS ready to. The only thing that kept Him going was His Father, God. It took God to remind Him that He sent Him to do it. And Jesus needed to follow through with His Father's command, His will ("...not my will, but your will be done..."). If it were left up to Jesus alone, He probably would have backed out of the deal.

At this point, I'm sure I got a load of Christians pretty mad. I just told you that Jesus may have backed out of going to the cross and saving you. The flood of feelings that swell up thinking about it is enough to probably stop you from reading on. A few years ago, I would have stopped my thought there. The gospel, though, keeps me blogging on.

So, back on track, Jesus just may have backed out. God essentially says "No, I sent you to do this." Jesus being "sent" is the key to this. He was sent, he didn't necessarily "choose" to come and do this. Don't believe me.... let's review the standard, but often removed from context, pillar verse for Christians....John 3:16. I'm not gonna type it. Get a Bible out. God "gave" His son. That is an implied, sent. If you don't like things implied, read John 3:17. SENT.

Back to the garden. Jesus did this because of His Father. God sent Him because of His love, grace, mercy, but ultimately and actually for HIS glory. The implications of this are interesting to say the least and lead into a host of theological topics and debates. But, what does such a thing mean for us as followers of Jesus.

I don't believe that I just chose Jesus one day and became a Christian and that's it. I believe that Jesus moved in me first and my spirit had to respond to His moving. I'm a Christian because Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, moves in me to redeem my life, and if I want to live a life honoring and glorifying God, I need to do what He wants me to do. Jesus examples this here, not for an example's sake, but a real life move that forces me to think God's will first. Jesus didn't necessarily choose the cross. But, by the time He got to the garden, His mind was as far away from choosing it as He could be. But, He chose to follow His fathers will. God's will was the cross. If God at ANY point in Jesus' life told Him to be done with His journey and walk away, Jesus would have done it. He had to ("...Father, Your will be done..."). He was in the business of God. He would choose His Father's will.

This is why Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac. And, if you don't believe that Abraham was actually going to go through with it, you need to read that story again (Genesis 22) in conjunction with Hebrews 11:17-19. It was simply that God said so. God commanded Him to do it and was gonna do it.

This is amazing to me. This type of followship is incredible to me. And it revolves around a single notion. "Because God said so" The depths of this idea about Jesus, the dimensions this comes from, goes so deep it's hard to go much further in just chatting about it. This has to go to my core, my innermost being. This has to be what my spirit responds to. I have to be ready to put my will aside at any given moment for God's will, first. My heart has to fall in love with the Jesus that would choose His Father's will over me over humanity. Not just a Jesus that "loves me". A Jesus, THE Jesus, that follows God's will. My heart has to follow God's will. I guess that would have to be my prayer.... God's will be done.... A prayer to my Lord..... A Lord's Prayer as it may be!

Redemption....now

A few years ago, Jessica and I were a part of a church in Taylor. It was a small group of people meeting in a basement just trying to be the church as much as we could. One of the names (of many) that we rolled through was Make New. It was a name to reflect what Jesus is constantly trying to do in and through us, which was redeeming our lives and making them new.

Before that, I primarily thought of redemption as an after life thing. I knew inherently that there was more, but didn't put much thought into it. But, our Pastor and leader, Mike, would put the concept of redemption out as something that happens daily with our lives in Christ. I knew that Jesus was wanting to change me, but I didn't apply redemption to that change. Redemption was adding a new aspect to it. It wasn't that Jesus just was taking what was old and crappy and throwing it away, but transforming it into something new and pleasing to Himself.

Why He wants to continue to put effort into my life is beyond my understanding. But it is because of His love and for His Glory that He continues to redeem me and the stupid situations I get into. I'm incredibly grateful that He continues to care and punch away at me.

I'm self-employed as a home remodeling contractor. I like it in many ways, but it becomes stressful in many ways as well. Anyone who is self-employed understands this particular type of stress. In the past year, I have been blessed with steady jobs. I'm in general grateful for the work I get, but in this economy, I'm even more so. In the last few months I have actually had a bunch of jobs just stack right up. This was ALMOST to the point of having to turn stuff down, which I'm not a big fan of doing. I just hate losing work, because I don't have the time to do it.

Anyway, there were many days where some jobs were taking longer than expected (that's nothing new) and would really crunch things up. This would stress me out. I would sit, think, worry, try to plan, re-work, think, worry, and not know what to do. Of course, this boils into my family time. The place where it need not be. Then, I'm reminded to cast my cares to God, pray, relax, re-focus. And so many times and in so many ways God would do a literal miracle and things change, God redeems the situation. He didn't just take it away, but changed it just enough, in ways I could not. I needed to turn to Him and let the guy who can redeem, do the redeeming. He doesn't just want to change me, but make my life a new creation, daily.

This view on redemption really keeps putting the focus of my life back to Jesus. Jesus started the redemption process, from the moment Adam and Eve crapped it up, maybe even before then. He capped it off with His life, death, and resurrection. And that becomes an example and an umbrella for the redeeming of my life and YOURS.