Gethsemane

Matthew 26:36-46

March 28, 2013 (Maundy Thursday) • Portage First UMC

When we are in a difficult place, when life seems to unravel, when we might even feel threatened or at least scared, there are places we go—places of comfort. We talk about “comfort food,” and some places have made an industry out of that idea, because in times of danger or distress we want something familiar. We want to be in a place, physically or emotionally, where we feel safe. Think about the sorts of things we did after 9/11 and how we turned to those people and activities that made us feel safe (some people even turned to churches!). Even if we can’t go physically to a place where we feel safe or happy, we’ll often pull out pictures or tell stories of those times when we felt safe, when life was good, when the danger that exists today wasn’t even a thought.

Jesus and the disciples have been celebrating the Passover meal in a borrowed room on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. It’s an ancient part of the city, dating back to King David, and the meal has been…well, strange at best. Jesus has upended so much of the traditional liturgy that the disciples are bound to be a little off balance. He had begun the evening by washing their feet (cf. John 13:1-17), which was not his job to do. That should have been done by a servant—or at least, the youngest among them. But Jesus did it, and he said his new command to them was to love one another, to serve each other (John 13:34ff). Then, he took the bread and told them it was his body. He took the cup and said it was his blood (Matthew 26:26-29). And then there was that thing with Judas, who took off in the middle of the meal. They assumed he went to buy something they needed for the upcoming festival or to make a donation to the poor (cf. John 13:39), but Jesus hadn’t really told them where Judas was headed. It was a strange and rather frightening atmosphere. They could even see the discomfort and—was it fear?—somewhat on Jesus’ face as he refereed between them when they argued about who was the greatest. He led them in singing a hymn (Mark 14:26), and then he told them they were going to go to Gethsemane to pray.

Gethsemane was one of those comfort places. Luke says they went there “as usual” (Luke 22:39). It was a familiar place, a place they often went to walk or to pray or to listen to Jesus tell stories. Gethsemane was a garden on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. At a brisk, steady pace, you can walk from the traditional site of the Upper Room on Mount Zion down through the Kidron Valley, past the Temple Mount and to the Garden of Gethsemane in about 21 minutes. But John seems to indicate Jesus didn’t hurry. In fact, it seems that as they walk, Jesus teaches them and prays for them. They pass the southern steps of the Temple complex, the place where Jesus had, from time to time, taught the people, the place over which there was a large grapevine inscribed. It’s likely he was looking at that when he told them, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener” (John 15:1). He reminded them they needed to be connected to him like a vine to a branch. Then he prayed that they would be one as he stood in the shadow of the Temple, the place many considered to be God’s dwelling place on earth. And, eventually, they arrived at the gate to the garden.

Today, if you visit the Garden of Gethsemane, there are really three parts to it. The most noticeable piece is the Church of All Nations, sometimes called the Church of the Agony, built over the top of two previous churches and having as its altar the rock that is traditionally considered the place Jesus prayed (Knight, The Holy Land, pgs. 146-147). Next to the church is a grove of olive trees, gnarled and twisted. Some botanists claim that some of these trees may be as much as 3,000 years old—which means, when Jesus prayed in this place, they were just youngsters at 1,000 years old (EO, Holy Land Study Guide, pg. 34). But whether these were the olive trees that were there in the first century or not, we know there were olive trees in this place, probably mixed in with other plants, because next to this garden area is a grotto, a cave, that is properly called Gethsemane. In the first century, this cave was the home of an oil press, which is what the word “Gethsemane” means—oil press or olive press. And even though this may have been a familiar place of prayer for Jesus, I believe he picked this location on this night for a very specific reason. Just as olives were crushed into oil, so too, this night, Jesus was being crushed in a place called Gethsemane.

To understand the symbolism of the Gospel accounts, we need to know a bit about how olive oil was made in the first century. When we were in Nazareth last summer, we were able to see a recreation of a first-century olive press and we were walked through the three-stage process of turning olives into oil. First, olives were picked from the trees and poured into a round, stone basin. A millstone would be rolled around the circle to crush the olives with the resulting oil that coming out one side of the basin. There are set-ups like these that have been found all over Israel, including in Jesus’ “own town” of Capernaum. This first pressing of the olives would produce the purest oil, what is called virgin or extra-virgin olive oil. It’s the best stuff, produced without any other means than the olives being crushed, pressed by the millstone. No chemicals, no enhancements, just pure oil. The next step would be to gather the crushed olives, place them into flat, wicker baskets and then put the baskets under a tall, rectangular stone. The immense stone’s weight would press down on the olives, squeezing out the next round of oil into a channel where it could be collected. This “second press” oil was inferior to the first, but still useable, sell-able. Once there was as much oil squeezed out as possible on the second round, then the baskets with the crushed olives would be moved to a wooden press, and blocks would be screwed down on the basket, squeezing out the very last bit of oil that was left (lecture at “Nazareth Village,” 6/18/12; cf. Thompson, Handbook of Life in Bible Times, pgs. 152-153). The last bit was not considered all that useable, but it would be sold cheaply to those who didn’t have much in the way of resources—to the poor, the outcast. Three crushings to produce the olive oil. Three times the olives went through a “gethsemane.”

How many times does Jesus go to pray when he’s there in the garden? When they arrive at the garden, Jesus tells most of the disciples to wait by the gate. He’s going to go further in to pray, but he takes with him the group that is sometimes called “the inner circle:” Peter, James and John, those disciples he called first while borrowing their boat on the Sea of Galilee. Even then, he asks them to stay a stone’s throw away (cf. Luke 22:41) while he goes a bit further in to pray. “Stay here,” he tells them, “and keep watch with me” (26:38). “My soul,” he says, “is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” Another way to translate that is to say that his soul is weighed down, is heavy, is pressed down so far that death would be welcome. In that mood, Jesus goes to pray. His first prayer: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me” (26:39). Then he comes back, after an hour or so, and he finds the disciples failing to keep watch. They’re asleep. They’re weighed down in their own way: weighed down with exhaustion and weariness (cf. Mark 14:40; Luke 22:45). “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asks (26:40). No, they couldn’t. It’s too much.

Then Jesus goes back to pray. A second prayer: “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (26:42). Do you notice the difference in his prayer this time? Something has happened to Jesus in that first hour of prayer. Something has been squeezed out of him. The first time, he asking for the cup to be removed, but the second time, he recognizes that’s not possible, so let the Father’s will be done. It’s a different prayer the second time. And then he comes back, after perhaps another hour, and finds them sleeping again. This time, he doesn’t bother to wake them up, which is, I think, why we don’t have any words specifically that Jesus prayed the third time. Matthew says he said the same thing, and I think his third prayer was really simply repeating over and over again that last phrase, “May your will be done. May your will be done. May your will be done.” Three prayers, one prayer for each time the olives are gethsemane-d, because in this garden, underneath the full moonlight, in the shadow of these trees, Jesus is being crushed; he’s being gethsemane-d as well.

Now, every analogy breaks down, but I don’t think it’s an accident that there in Gethsemane, Jesus is crushed three times, and every crushing takes something from him. The first crushing removes the possibility of another way. The second crushing removes his human will to run away, to flee what is coming. And in the third crushing Jesus gives everything he has left. When he returns from that third time of prayer, there is nothing left in him except the desire to do what the Father wants. Everything else has been stripped away during his time in Gethsemane.

Now, olive oil in that culture was used for a variety of things—cooking, for instance, much like we use it today. But oil was also symbolic. It was a symbol of healing. Oil was placed on a wound to speed along healing, and in New Testament times, it was put into the wrapping of a wound as a sort of salve. Oil meant healing. It also meant holiness. Oil was used to anoint the priests and kings, to set them apart for their service to God. That tradition goes back a long way in Israel’s history, to their very beginning as a people. Moses’ brother, Aaron, the first high priest of Israel, was anointed with oil to be set apart for special service, to be marked as holy unto the Lord. That doesn’t mean he always got it right, but the oil was used to indicate God’s presence with him, to remind him that he belonged to God. The oil represented the holy life he was called to.

Jesus is there in the garden, a place of comfort where he has been to pray before, but this night he finds no comfort. He goes to the garden to prepare for the cross. Tomorrow, he will hang between heaven and earth in order to provide salvation for the whole world. But tonight is when the crushing begins. In the garden, Jesus is crushed so that we might find healing and holiness. The prophet Isaiah saw this centuries before when he described the work of the savior this way: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Did you hear that? Jesus chose to be crushed for us. He was crushed by the weight of the world so that we wouldn’t have to be. He took on himself the punishment that rightfully belonged to us. So that sin that hangs on, that you can’t seem to get rid of? You don’t have to live like that anymore. Jesus already took the punishment. He was crushed so that you could be holy as he is holy (cf. 1 Peter 1:16), so that you could be healed by the healer of all. That broken relationship, that lack of forgiveness? You don’t have to live like that anymore. Jesus was crushed in the garden so that you could be made whole and holy. “By his wounds,” Isaiah says, “we are healed.” All because in Gethsemane, in the place of crushing, Jesus gives himself over to his Father: “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Even at the table, earlier that night, he was anticipating this moment. He told the disciples to take the bread and the cup and to remember…remember what, to them, had not yet happened. But Jesus knew he would be crushed, just like the grain and the grapes. He would be crushed so that we could be saved. Tonight, we take crushed grain and crushed grapes as a reminder of our salvation, of his sacrifice, of Jesus’ willingness to follow his Father’s will. Tonight, we come to the table, to his table, to prepare for the cross just as he did. Tonight, we celebrate as he told us to do on that night. The bread—his body. The juice—his blood. Broken and spilled out, for every one of us. This is our Gethsemane, our call to live in a new way, our call to recognize that Jesus was crushed so we wouldn’t have to be.

Tonight, we’re going to sing our Great Thanksgiving prayer, and then you’ll be invited to come and receive the crushed grain and grapes. After you’ve received that, on each side on the communion rails there is a small bowl of olive oil that comes from Israel. I invite you, if you want, to touch the oil, perhaps make the sign of the cross on your forehead with it, or just put a bit on your fingertip to remind you of Jesus’ Gethsemane experience. There’s nothing magical in the oil; it’s simply a reminder that we don’t have to live bound by sin anymore. Jesus gave everything he had so that we could know healing and holiness. Broken bread, poured out wine, crushed olives—tonight, these are symbols of the only hope we have in this world. Thanks be to God.