Easter 2025 wk 1
Notes
Transcript
The Garden Prayer
The Garden Prayer
This morning we are starting a six week series that will end on Easter Sunday.
In the six weeks we will be looking at the events that Jesus faced as He prepared for His crucifixion and resurrection.
The events that we will look at all happened in less than a 24 hour period.
This morning we will be looking at the prayer that Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Week 2 we will look at Jesus being betrayed and arrested.
Week 3 we will look at how Pilate states three times that Jesus is not guilty.
Week 4 we will look at Jesus bearing the cross.
Week 5 we will look at the crucifixion.
Week 6 at a Sunrise service on the beach we will look at Jesus being buried and resurrected.
Then at the regular Easter service we will the living among the dead.
Our text this morning falls after Jesus and the disciples have celebrated the Passover, and Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper.
During the meal Jesus states that He will be betrayed, and then shortly after making the statement Judas gets up and leaves.
We must remember that Jesus knows exactly what is about to happen, and what He is going to face.
Jesus is preparing for the fulfillment of the plan that was made before even the creation of the world.
Jesus death and resurrection was the reason that He even came to earth.
Look with me at our text, Luke 22:39-46
39 And He came out and proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him.
40 When He arrived at the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
41 And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray,
42 saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.”
43 Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.
44 And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.
45 When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow,
46 and said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
Pray
Pray
I. Pray
I. Pray
39 And He came out and proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him.
40 When He arrived at the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
After Jesus and the disciples leave the upper room where they had celebrated the Passover and the Lord’s Supper, they head to the Mount of Olives where the Garden of Gethsemane is located.
Jesus has told the disciples multiple time at this point how He will be crucified and three days later will be resurrected.
The disciples even though hearing Jesus talk about it, have not truly understood it or believed it.
But Jesus proceeds on the way to the cross just as He had predicted.
Jesus spent a lot of time on the Mount of Olives.
37 Now during the day He was teaching in the temple, but at evening He would go out and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet.
This is how Judas knew where Jesus would be at, when Judas went and betrayed Jesus to the chief priest.
As Jesus and the disciples reach their destination, Jesus says to the disciples, pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Jesus calls the disciples to pray that they would not fold under the pressure of the temptation they were about to face.
Again we must remember that Jesus knew what was about to happen.
Jesus was not just calling on the disciples to pray but as we will see He also prays.
We need to see the importance of prayer.
Jesus prayed often, and especially before major events.
Jesus prayed before selecting the twelve disciples.
If prayer was important for Jesus we must understand that there is something special, important and powerful about prayer.
II. The Cup
II. The Cup
41 And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray,
42 saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.”
After calling on the disciples to pray Jesus withdrew or went a head of the disciples a stone’s throw away.
A stone’s throw away was considered to be a distance around 50 to 60 feet.
It was considered a short distance, and even still an hearing distance.
John McArthur in his study Bible states that the prayer Jesus prays is just as much for the disciples as it is for Himself.
Jesus prayed, Father, if You are willing remove this cup from Me.
These words tell us Jesus knew the suffering He was about to face.
Jesus is the Son of God and knew full well that He would be raised from the dead, and yet His soul experienced agony as He anticipated what lay before Him.
In the hours ahead, Jesus would be humiliated and abused, and suffer shame and pain on the cross.
But even more, He would be made sin for us and separated from His father.
He called this solemn experience drinking the cup.
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Because Jesus took on my sins and your sins, He paid the price, He took on the wrath of God for us.
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
Not only did Jesus take on the wrath of God, but God turned away from Jesus, as God cannot look on sin.
13 Your eyes are too pure to approve evil,
And You can not look on wickedness with favor.
Why do You look with favor
On those who deal treacherously?
Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up
Those more righteous than they?
Even though Jesus knew He was facing all of this, He finished His prayer with, Not My will, but Yours be done.
Jesus knew He was about to be beaten nearly to death, hung on a cross, bear the wrath of God, and have God turn away from Him, and yet Jesus is more concerned with the will of the Father being accomplished.
How many of us, could say that we would pray the same prayer.
III. Praying Fervently
III. Praying Fervently
43 Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.
44 And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.
Jesus prayed fervently for the trial to pass, but He submitted Himself to the Father.
Because the disciples slept, Jesus was alone praying and being buffeted by the temptation to forsake the Father’s plan, which was that the Son must go to death and bear the sins of the whole world.
The words of Jesus’ prayer showed that He was concerned not with His own interests but with the interests of the Father.
As Jesus is in deep agony and praying an angel comes to strengthen Him.
Jesus was in anguish with His sweat being like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Some consider Luke’s description of the sweat being like drops of blood to be a metaphor.
However, there exists a medical condition that produces the symptoms described and explains Luke’s mention of blood.
Hematidrosis is a rare, but very real, medical condition that causes one’s sweat to contain blood.
The sweat glands are surrounded by tiny blood vessels that can constrict and then dilate to the point of rupture, causing blood to mix with the sweat.
The cause of Hematidrosis is extreme anguish.
In Matthew and Mark we see the level of Jesus’ anguish, as they both record Jesus saying,
38 Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.”
The intense anguish and sorrow Jesus felt was certainly understandable.
Being God, Jesus knew all that was going to happen to Him.
He knew in painstaking detail the events that were to follow soon after He was betrayed by one of His very own disciples.
He knew He was about to undergo several trails where all of the witnesses against Him would lie.
He knew that many who had hailed Him as the Messiah only days earlier would now be screaming for His crucifixion.
He knew He would be beaten nearly to the point of death before they pounded the metal spikes into His flesh.
He knew the prophetic words of Isaiah spoken seven centuries earlier.
14 Just as many were astonished at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred more than any man
And His form more than the sons of men.
Certainly, these things factored into His great anguish and sorrow, causing Him to sweat drops of blood.
As our Savior bore the weight of the world’s sins on His shoulders, He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The spiritual pain no doubt greatly exceeded the intense physical pain the Lord endured on our behalf.
We see that Jesus was praying fervently not only because of the physical pain He was about to go through, but even more so because of the spiritual pain.
I do not know about you, but even in the most fervent times of prayer that I have been in, I have never sweated blood.
One of the most fervent times of prayer for me is when our youngest daughter was in pediatric ICU, because she feel off a horse and the foot caught her in the side.
This caused many injuries, like a collapsed lung, a bruised kidney, and bruised liver.
As an ambulance rushed her to Shans hospital in Gainesville, and we rushed behind, I prayed fervently, as we spent the night in that ICU room, I prayed fervently.
As fervently as I was praying that my baby girl would be ok, and not have to have a chest tube, I did not sweat blood.
Prayer is a powerful tool, that we many times do not utilize.
IV. Sleeping
IV. Sleeping
45 When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow,
46 and said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
Both Matthew and Mark record that Jesus went and prayed, came back found the disciples sleeping, went a second time prayed the same thing, came back and found the disciples sleeping, and went a third time and prayed the same thing, and a third time found the disciples sleeping.
Each time Jesus comes to the disciples, He awakes them and tells them to pray.
Jesus does not instruct the disciples to pray that He is not arrested, or crucified, but to pray that they may not enter into temptation.
Jesus rebuked the disciples for seeking physical rest when what they needed more than anything was spiritual strengthening.
Most of us are willing to prepare ourselves to meet physical threats.
Few of us, however, are willing to engage in the deep spiritual preparation necessary to meet spiritual threats.
Paul tells the Ephesians to prepare for spiritual battle.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Like the disciples we need to see the importance of preparing for spiritual warfare.
As followers of Jesus, we have targets on us, from evil forces, and just like in physical situations we prepare ourselves, we must prepare ourselves to face the spiritual situations.
Today is 3:16 and I want to close with John 3:16
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
We must remember that Jesus went through all that He did because He loves us, and wants to give us a way out of the consequences of our sins.
He died that we may have everlasting life.
