Jesus spent around three years traveling and teaching before his crucifixion. Yet all four gospels give overwhelmingly more attention to one week, the week that led up to and included the events of what we now call Easter, than to any other point in Jesus’ ministry.
Exercise:
Level one – Read a whole Gospel.
Mark will take you about 45 minutes at an average reading speed.
Matthew will take about 75 minutes at an average reading speed.
Luke will take about 80 minutes at an average reading speed.
John will take about an hour at an average reading speed.
Level up – Read all 4!
There are ways to listen if you prefer that to reading, and listening is also a great way to use traveling time. YouVersion allows you to listen to scripture as well as read it on your smartphone or other device, for free. Audible has versions available including the NIV audio bible. It takes 83 hours and 13 minutes to listen to the whole Bible, so a gospel or two is easy… You have 168 hours in this one week.
Reading a gospel this week will help you prepare for the significance of Easter as well as allowing you to listen in on how Jesus conversed with God. Jesus made a practice of spending time alone in prayer as well as praying with others. He regularly paused before eating in order to express gratitude. He taught on prayer regularly, encouraging people to bring their needs to God and showing how to have a healthier approach to prayer as conversation with God rather than a performance or ritual.
Questions:
- What are some of the specific things that Jesus encourages us to bring to God in prayer?
- Jesus made prayer a regular habit. Where are some of the places and times that have best worked for you to pray?
- Of the seven times that Jesus’ words are recorded during his crucifixion, at least three of those are prayers. What are they? What do these tell you about Jesus?
On the night that Jesus was betrayed and arrested he went out to a favourite prayer spot. Knowing what was about to happen he didn’t want to be fully alone:
Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” Luke 22:39-46 (NIV)
Questions:
- Jesus tells them twice to ‘pray that you will not fall into temptation’. What will their temptation be?
- Why were the disciples falling asleep?
- What is Jesus asking to be taken from him when he refers to ’this cup’?
As we have reflect on the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection, it’s easy to overlook the very human aspect of these events. Jesus was arrested and crucified because he had become a political threat. Those in power were losing influence and control over people because of Jesus. It might seem crazy that Jesus was a threat, it’s hard to see how teaching people to love one another could get you killed. Hard to see, until we look around our world, where it almost doesn’t matter what you say, if you are a voice of hope that can be heard, then someone else is not being listened to, and they tend do what they can to change that. If they have the power, they will turn themselves up, they will turn you down, or if needed, turn you off.
Jesus was about to knowingly allow himself to be put in their hands. ‘If there is another way, if you are willing…yet not my will, but yours be done.’ The vulnerability of forgiving love will meet the hostility of insecure power, and overcome it forever, by surrendering to it. Because that is God’s way.
Question: Jesus knows that what he is asking for will have consequences. How does ‘not my will, but yours be done’ show trust in God?
Now let’s dip into Matthew’s version:
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” Matthew 26:36-46
Matthew gives us more details, letting us know that Peter, James, and John were close by as he prayed.
Questions:
- How would Jesus have felt seeing them fall asleep three times?
- We are told that Jesus prayed the same thing three times, how might that encourage us in times of difficult conversations with God?
The events of Easter are unique and yet they have daily application as well as implications. As we reflect on a love that would suffer death, even death on a cross, we can find strength in our own challenges to love others. Living out the love of Christ requires vulnerability. There may be times when our conversation with God involves asking that we might avoid that. We can take comfort from the fact that was also true for Jesus. Jesus’ conversation shows us that in such times we can trust both the goodness and power of God. So we too can say to God, ‘If possible, yet not my will, but yours be done.’
A prayer for this week:
May we proclaim the good new to the poor,
May we bind up the broken hearted,
May we proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
May we proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
And when that becomes a threat to the insecure powers of this world, may we continue to offer the vulnerability of a love that holds on to the way of Jesus.
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Philippians 2:1-13