God in the Garden
Luke 22:39-53
Today is the day we celebrate Palm Sunday. It is a day which we celebrate with children waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna.” It is a joyful experience. And it should have been when Jesus the Messiah came to Jerusalem. Indeed, there was a lot of joy. But when Jesus comes to the city, instead of a voice or triumph, there is instead a plaintiff wail over the city by Jesus. Little did the people of Israel understand.
This day can also be celebrated as Passion Sunday. It is a day in which we remember the great pain Jesus suffered and his crucifixion. This is the very opposite of joy. And this is where we are headed this morning. But there is a common link between the two events. The Jews sang through Psalms 112 through 118 on the day they came up into Jerusalem. As they approached Jerusalem, they would be singing the 118th Psalm. This text contains the text “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.” We certainly can see the appropriateness of this Psalm as Jesus enters the city.
On has to go to the end of the 14th chapter of Mark to find the other link to Psalm 118. These same Psalms of Ascent were sung during the Passover meal as well. Mark records that Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn just before they left for the Mount of Olives. This being the end of the supper was also Psalm 118. This Psalm does contain the joyous elements we see celebrated this morning. But it also contains the motif of suffering and rejection. It says that the stone the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone and that this was a marvelous doing in the sight of God. One needs to read all of Psalm 118 and not just lift out the Hosanna. It talks about the suffering of the Messiah and His rejection by the Jewish people. They in a way got Palm Sunday right, but in a tragic sense could not have been more wrong.
The Psalm also has the verse which has become a praise chorus today. “This is the day the LORD has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” It seems to be well suited for Palm Sunday. This is the day of the LORD. But one has to look to the warning of Amos who says that the Day of the LORD is not a day of celebration but of darkness, of judgment. This is echoed in Joel 2 as well. The Day of the LORD was not just a day of vindication for the righteous but a day of horrible judgment. We tend to put this day out to the end of the age or eschaton. But for the Lord Jesus, THIS was the Day of the LORD. It would bring both judgment and vindication. The wrath of God on our sin would be poured out first. But Jesus would be vindicated when He arose on the third day. This same pattern of vindication is found in the 22nd Psalm which Jesus quotes “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” as He is suffering on the cross. But the 22nd Psalm ends up as a song of praise for deliverance as well. We also see in Hebrews 12 that Jesus “For the joy set before Him, despised the cross, enduring the shame.” But the text also says that at the other end of the cross was not just resurrection but exaltation to the right hand of God.
The Christian creed of Chalcedon had to struggle with the person of Jesus. Some had thought that Jesus was no more than a specially anointed man who could be called son of God in the sense that all people who are created in the image of God are His children. Jesus may have been the best of the bunch, but He was not divine. Others saw Jesus as being God in the appearance but not the substance of human flesh. In other words, Jesus had a human form, but was not human. He could not really be tempted. The Church concluded that Jesus was both fully human and fully God. Both natures were distinct in Jesus, but there is only one Christ. This leaves an element of mystery that is beyond our level of understanding that we simply must believe.
The Gospels also had to come to grips with this issue. When we look at Jesus in the Gospel of John, He is in total control of everything. He speaks “I AM” and the soldiers fall on their backsides. He commands that the disciples be allowed to depart which would have been contrary to normal Roman practice. He does not allow Judas to identify Him but instead identifies Himself. In other words, we see a portrait mostly of Jesus as the Son of God. He does say that He is submitting to the Father by drinking the cup, but there is no mention of the agony of the Garden. Surely this would suit for a picture of God in the Garden.
The other gospels show Jesus the man of sorrows. The humanity of Jesus predominates here. So when we take these Gospels and John together, we see two pictures side by side. They are both true portraits, but there remains the mystery of how to put them together. They can be harmonized as far as the event is concerned. For example, when Judas comes with the soldiers, Jesus first intervenes before Judas can plant the kiss. But after the second time Jesus identifies himself, the stunned Judas goes and kisses him. Whatever happened there so traumatized Judas that he committed suicide by hanging on an accursed tree, an eternal curse.
So let us look now in depth at the experience of Jesus in the Garden as recorded in Luke. First of all, only John mentions that there was a garden at the Mount of Olives. This is Luke’s designation for it. Mark and Matthew called the place “Gethsemane” which means “olive press.” The Mount of Olives is where the Bible says that the Messiah would appear here at the end of time, something which Luke makes explicit in the first chapter of Acts. Zechariah mentions that they then will look upon the One they pierced at this place. The Jews believed that the Messiah would come here to raise the dead at the last day, or the Day of the LORD. Yes the LORD shall come. But He was already here in the Garden. First the cross, then the glory.
Luke said that Jesus made a habit of coming here which would make it pretty easy for Judas to find Him. They may have rented the olive press as an underground shelter to stat as hotel space was limited at Passover in the city. It could be as a sort of womb, a place of safety. But here it is closer to the stone tomb which the dead body of Jesus would be placed later that day.
The text says that Jesus came out of this press and went out to pray with three of His disciples, charging them to stay awake and not to enter into temptation. They soon fell asleep. Symbolically sleep is used for death in the Bible. You might say they fell into a dead sleep. One can look at this naturally. It was late and the day had been emotionally exhausting as well. This is true enough. But one should remember is that they slept also on the Mount of Transfiguration where they saw the glorified Jesus. This too was the sleep of death. On those occasions in the Bible where God appeared in glory to men, the common response was one of dread and doom. They thought themselves to be dead men. So is this sleep in the garden in an ironic way a vision of God in the Garden? How could this man of sorrows be God in the Garden? See the man on his knees in agony praying to the Father. See the sweat mingled with blood dripping from Him, See the very life of Jesus being squeezed out of im in the way that the heavy beam and weight of the olive press squeezed the very life from the olive. Is this a theophany of God?
Its not like the glorious theophany that Jacob saw, when he saw the LORD at the top of the staircase with the angels ascending and descending to earth to do their ministry. Instead Jesus is the one about to be lain on stone for a pillow. Jesus has become Jacob. He is about to bear Jacob’s sins as well as the sin of the entire world to the cross. The Son of God has become the Man of Sin in our place, He who never sinned is to be treated like the one who had committed all of them. Now instead of being at the top of the stairway to heaven, he is at the bottom. The angels instead of ministering to Jacob and comforting him in his flight have come down to strengthen the LORD who had descended that staircase himself to take our place. Yes, this is God in the Garden! There is glory in the cross? The LORD of glory had come down. He had become incarnate in the womb of Mary. He was born and lived among us. God was indeed now with us, our Immanuel.
This time it was not Adam who with Eve was tempted in the Garden to go their own way apart from God. Satan has a much more difficult opponent. He tempts the human Jesus to give it up. There must be another way. This is the more convenient season the devil looked for ever since He left Jesus in the wilderness after the Temptation. But Jesus remains steadfast in prayer. He will not take of the apple. He felt the full force of temptation here. He knew the pain and suffering that awaited Him. The Tempter might have said to Him, “Run!” But Jesus did not run. The Tempter might have said: “Call down ten thousand angels and save yourself.” But He did not call the angels down to save Him. They did descend to minister to and strengthen Him, but not to save Him. It is not the Father’s will. All of humanity depends on the free will decision of Jesus. If He saves himself, all of humanity is forever lost.
Jesus prays through the agony and drinks the cup of wrath, the last cup of Passover. He drinks in all the judgment for the world upon Himself. He is going to the cross! We are saved! There is hope for us! Jesus makes the decision as temptable man, but the glory of his divinity shines through the humanity. As Charles Wesley said “Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see! Hail the incarnate, Deity!” Jesus is our Immanuel! God is with us! God has chosen for us! Humanity can wake up now! Jesus has paid it all on the cross! He has won the victory by Himself by his own right arm. He has fought the battle singlehanded, and has won! He did not win the battle by the divine power as the LORD of Armies (Hosts). He wins it here in the weakest possible was, as a lamb being led to the slaughter. But win He did!
Yes, we can no cry out: “Blessed is He who came in the name of the LORD! But now we understand better what Palm Sunday really means. The Day of the LORD has fallen upon Him. For those who believe in Jesus, there is hope and true joy. We can sing this some as the redeemed in a way that the Jews on Palm Sunday could not have appreciated. When the day of the LORD comes and He returns in glory to the Mount of Olives, we will be able to sing with joy: “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!”
But this message has to be believed if this day is to become a day of joy for you. The Scripture says that you must believe in your heart that God raised this Jesus from the dead as well as confess that Jesus is LORD. Now call upon His name in faith as it says also that whosoever calls upon the name of the LORD will be saved. Jesus decided for us. Without this decision there is no hope for anyone. Now he calls on you to decide for Him.
