REDEMPTION
Matthew 26:36,38 Then Jesus brought them to an olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go on ahead to pray.” He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and watch with me.”
Jesus was alone, half kneeling, half laying on a large boulder. He looked so tired, overwhelmed by what was to come. Several feet away in a small grove of trees lay his friends; sleep having won out over their anxious prayers and whispers.
The Basilica of the Agony, also known as The Church of All Nations, was darkened, lit only by candles. The vigil had begun. A priest, barely perceptible, entered and knelt at the altar. Every twenty minutes or so he would read from the scriptures the story of Christ’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane. The night grew long as he knelt, read and prayed.
My eyes were fixed on the beautiful mosaic image of Christ on that rock. The night he prayed so hard his sweat turned to drops of blood. The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, says that spiritual transformation depends on personal identification with the crucified and risen Savior, which is only possible because the Savior first identified completely with the rest of humanity. God became human. In a popular song of the 1990’s, Joan Osborne sings, “What if God was one of us... just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home?” Well, God was one of us, with prayers and fears so fierce that his tears became drops of blood. Fears, tears and blood - all for us, all because of us.
Crucifers appeared, and with the priest, led the congregated people out into the night. A single note from an iron gong mixed with the smoke of incense as the people - people just like Jesus crying on that rock - processed around the olive trees on rocky ground. Another dark night in the garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives, outside the gates of Jerusalem.
Brooks Sutton
Matthew 26:36,38 Then Jesus brought them to an olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go on ahead to pray.” He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and watch with me.”
Jesus was alone, half kneeling, half laying on a large boulder. He looked so tired, overwhelmed by what was to come. Several feet away in a small grove of trees lay his friends; sleep having won out over their anxious prayers and whispers.
The Basilica of the Agony, also known as The Church of All Nations, was darkened, lit only by candles. The vigil had begun. A priest, barely perceptible, entered and knelt at the altar. Every twenty minutes or so he would read from the scriptures the story of Christ’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane. The night grew long as he knelt, read and prayed.
My eyes were fixed on the beautiful mosaic image of Christ on that rock. The night he prayed so hard his sweat turned to drops of blood. The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, says that spiritual transformation depends on personal identification with the crucified and risen Savior, which is only possible because the Savior first identified completely with the rest of humanity. God became human. In a popular song of the 1990’s, Joan Osborne sings, “What if God was one of us... just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home?” Well, God was one of us, with prayers and fears so fierce that his tears became drops of blood. Fears, tears and blood - all for us, all because of us.
Crucifers appeared, and with the priest, led the congregated people out into the night. A single note from an iron gong mixed with the smoke of incense as the people - people just like Jesus crying on that rock - processed around the olive trees on rocky ground. Another dark night in the garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives, outside the gates of Jerusalem.
Brooks Sutton
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