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by Sandy Shaw
We have slowly reached, and deliberately so, Luke Chapter 22 and verse 39, where Jesus Christ leaves the Upper Room where they had celebrated The Passover, and He makes His way to that place to which He resorted when He wanted peace and quiet and space, to pray.
There would be a full moon, giving sufficient light to see where you are going. It was Passover.
Jesus tells His disciples to pray so that they would not fall into temptation. They did not pray, and soon fell.
First they fell asleep, then they fled, and to flee is to fall.
It pays to pay attention to what Jesus says. Jesus knew that the enemy was around, on the rampage, like a roaring lion, and Jesus is so concerned about His disciples.
He wants to keep open the lines of communication with the Father.
Jesus takes Peter, James and John a little further than the others - Matthew 26 : 37 and Mark 16 : 33 tell us this - and then Jesus leaves these three disciples, walks on a few yards, falls on His knees and begins to pray.
Nobody can really tread this road with Christ. It has to be travelled alone - very alone. Before He goes to the Cross, He has this desire to pray and to commune with His Father. Jesus enters this aloneness and prays.
In verse 42, we read something of the tension, where Jesus prays a prayer to which the answer is "NO". The Father was not willing. It was not the will of the Father to remove the cup. We too must accept God's answers to our prayers, and at times they can be similar to this. "NO", especially if we pray out of His Will, asking for something to happen which is NOT His will. At such a time His answer will likewise be "NO".
Jesus had to go through this baptism of suffering. It is a baptism of suffering. He is immersed in suffering and saturated in suffering. To speak of baptism as sprinkling is as meaningful as speaking about ‘frying snow’!
Jesus had to drink the cup willingly. Jesus comes to that point where He says, I will drink the cup, praying, not My will but Yours be done.
The Father begins to minister to His Son. An angel comes from the Father. "Go to My Son in this His hour of need. Strengthen Him."
Jesus Christ is agonising in prayer. The battle is on. There have been conflicts and skirmishes over the past week in Jerusalem, but now the battle is on. The battle starts in the Garden, in the prayer ground, and this is where the battle is won.
Here we are in the middle of a mighty crisis, and Jesus is praying. Surely there is something more You can do than pray. NO.
Jesus Christ is praying and the disciples are sleeping, and note the consequences. When the storm breaks, Jesus Christ is prepared and poised and at peace, but, the disciples panic and run away.
How we act and behave when we are called to prayer greatly influences how we react following the call to prayer!
Alexander 'Sandy' Shaw is pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn is 17 miles east of Inverness - on the Moray Firth Coast - not far from the Loch Ness Monster!
Gifted as a Biblical teacher, Sandy is firmly committed to making sure that his teachings are firmly grounded in the Word.
Sandy has a weekly radio talk which can be heard via the Internet on Saturday at 11:40am, New Orleans time, at wsho.com.
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