SCRIPTURE: Luke 22:42-45 “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.”
THOUGHT: Prayer is the antidote to temptation.
Earlier in his ministry, Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray: lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Now, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus needs them to remember that. He wrestles with unimaginable temptation while his best friends handle their sorrow by sleeping. Jesus begins the process of literally shedding his blood in an all-out war to say ‘no’ to his flesh and ‘yes’ to God’s will — without a friend to pray with him. It’s a war that continues until all his blood is drained on our behalf, and even his Father has forsaken him.
Where do you go when sorrow (or stress or anxiety or difficulty), and the temptation to alleviate it, are overwhelming?
QUOTE: “In Luke, the agony in the garden is not a prelude to the Passion, but its very commencement, because Jesus’ stern determination to accomplish the Father’s will causes his blood to flow for our redemption.” — Patrick Henry Reardon
SONG: Awakening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_J9BI6AFO0
PRAYER NEEDS: That God would keep us awake and in prayer — despite sorrow, and in the midst of temptation.
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