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Focus Text: Luke 22.39-46

There were very few people who loved Jesus more than His apostles (save Judas, of course). However, on this fateful night, even their great love for Him could not stay the exhaustion that their sorrow brought upon them. The time had come! Jesus was on this very night to be betrayed into the hands of sinners and begin the arduous and excruciating journey to Calvary.

“Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. When He came to the place, He said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation.’ And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.’ Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. Then He said to them, ‘Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation’” (Luke 22.39-46).

While Jesus literally sweated blood, His closest friends slept! What of the great city in which these momentous events were transpiring? They were going about their lives, caring not that the very Son of God was about to be illegally tried and marched to His death just outside their gates. Their sleep was uninterrupted that night except for those who gathered together for the illegal kangaroo court that tried Him and for the evil men who testified of His “wrongs.” In Jesus’ most painful hour, in the most painful hour that any man ever had to face, Jerusalem slept. The men who had defiled the Jews’ religious rituals and turned the temple into a den of thieves were in charge – and Jerusalem slept!

If justice is blind, never was it so blind as it was on this night; she was not only blind, she was also deaf and mute! While evil men rejoiced over their apparent triumph, justice went begging. While lethargy paralyzed the hearts of the citizens of Jerusalem, Satan entered the heart of Judas and led him to collaborate with the most brazen hypocrites to ever flaunt evil in the face of good. The hundreds and thousands of opportunities which Jerusalem had seen previously were now of little consequence; lust had conceived, sin was born, and death was but a breath away. Nothing can compare with the darkness that swept over the hearts of Jerusalem that night, not even the darkness that covered the earth the next day as Jesus was suspended on the Cross! Never before had men conspired to literally kill God and come to the brink of seeing their plans come to fruition!

Of course you know the rest of the story. Jesus did die, but He resurrected three days later. In the grand scheme of things, what place to begin preaching the gospel of the resurrected Christ could be more fitting than Jerusalem? And what message could be more fitting than the message to “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light” (Ephesians 5.14)?

Questions:

1. Why do you think Jesus’ enemies chose the night time as the time to arrest Him?

2. Why did Jesus say His disciples were sleeping?

3. What did Jesus’ enemies hope to gain by putting Him to death? What did Jesus have to gain by allowing them to do so?

4. Where was the gospel first preached? Do you see irony in this fact? What better way could Jesus have demonstrated that indeed His love for man was universal than through these events?

"Voice of Inspiration" from Andy Castro

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