“THE GARDEN” Luke 22:39-53
FBCF – 3/17/24
Jon Daniels
INTRO – When you think of a garden, what do you think about?
- Flower garden
- Vegetable garden
- Herb garden
- Olive Garden!
A garden is a place of life – a place where there’s growth – most of the time, it’s a place of beauty w/ healthy plants, beautiful flowers.
It’s also a place of work. It must be tended & cared for. That’s why some people employ gardeners whose job it is to make sure the garden produces what it is intended to produce.
The garden that we are considering today in this message is a garden like no other.
- The Garden of Gethesemane - It is a literal olive garden found on the western side of the Mount of Olives which is just to the east of Jerusalem & about 300 feet above the city. I’ve been to this garden. In this garden are olive trees that are at least 800-900 years old (show pics). Massive trunks that are knotted & gnarled. Some people believe that some of these trees in the Garden of Gethsemane may have actually been in the garden on the night when Jesus was in the garden. If that’s so, & if these trees could speak, oh what a story they could tell.
- Gethsemane literally means, “oil press” – Had a giant oil press to get the valuable olive oil out of the olives. Heavy stone slabs would be lowered down onto crushed olives to squeeze the oil out of them so it could be collected.
Let’s step into the garden now as we continue in “These Final Moments” of Jesus’ life. After today, we will only have the cross & the empty tomb. But we have to go through the garden. So let’s go.
EXPLANATION – Luke 22:39-53
APPLICATION – Jesus’ submission to God’s will is the only way we could be saved.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN?
HE PRAYED – v. 39, 41 – Jesus was a prayer warrior. This prayer in the garden definitely wasn’t His 1st time to pray. It was His regular practice to come to this garden to spend time in prayer – “…as was His custom…” (v. 39).
- Mark 1:35 – “Very early in the morning while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, & went out to a solitary place where He prayed.” (NIV)
- Luke 6:12 – “At about the same time, [Jesus] climbed a mountain to pray. He was there all night in prayer before God.” (MSG)
- Luke 5:15-16 – “But despite Jesus’ instructions, the report of his power spread even faster, and vast crowds came to hear him preach and to be healed of their diseases. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.” (NLT)
But this prayer was going to be different. It was going to be a prayer filled w/ struggle, w/ the extreme heaviness of a burden that no one had ever had before or will ever have again. It was a burden that only He could bear. And that burden led to this prayer that drove Him to His knees before His Father – v. 41 – “And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw & knelt down & prayed.” Mark wrote, “And going a little farther, He fell on the ground & prayed…” (Mark 14:35). Matthew – “…He fell on His face & prayed…” (Matthew 26:39). One commentator wrote: “The usual manner of prayer at that time was to pray in a standing position. That Jesus knelt down proves the violence of His struggle in Gethsemane.” (Geldenhuys)
- Do you feel the weight of this time of prayer? Moments of tremendous burden & life-altering decisions demand deep struggling in prayer – even “violence” in prayer.
HE AGONIZED – v. 42-44 – We regularly share prayer requests in church & w/ other Christians. But none of us have ever shared a prayer request of the magnitude of what Jesus as requesting of His Father – “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.” Matthew & Mark record that He made this same prayer request 3 times to His Father.
He agonized in this prayer.
- Hebrews 5:7 – “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.”
- Amazing that His disciples were able to sleep as He cried out to His Father.
He was in such an awful state of agony that His Father dispatched an angel to come & strengthen Him (v. 43). What a beautiful, touching display of the love of the Father for His Son! We are not told what the angel said or did, but the angel could have:
- Shared w/ Jesus how His impending death would honor & glorify His Father b/c He was doing exactly what His Father wanted Him to do;
- …how His death would result in His own glory & honor & exaltation – Philippians 2:8-11 – “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
- Maybe the angel ministered to Jesus in some practical ways – hugging Him, holding Him as He convulsed w/ anguish. Verse 44 – Maybe the angel wiped the sweat & blood that began to course down Jesus’ face as He “prayed more earnestly”, so much so that the blood vessels & capillaries beneath the surface of His skin ruptured in an actual medical condition called hematidrosis.
Let’s make sure we remember the reason for His agony – It was not b/c He did not want to do God’s will. He was in agony b/c of the cup that He was about to drink.
- This cup represented the final judgment of God upon the sins of the who world. On the cross, Jesus would drink that cup & receive, bear, & satisfy God’s righteous judgment on the sins of the world. He was about to be separated from His Father. He was about to become the ultimate sacrificial Passover Lamb.
- “Jesus became, as it were, an enemy of God, who was judged & forced to drink the cup of the Father’s fury, so we would not have to drink from that cup. Taking this figurative cup was the source of Jesus’ greatest agony on the cross.” (https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/luke-22/)
- THERE is the agony! There’s no way that you & I can truly fathom the depth of this agony. Spurgeon: “I am never afraid of exaggeration when I speak of what my Lord endured. All hell was distilled into that cup, of which our God & Savior Jesus Christ was made to drink.”
HE DECIDED – v. 42b – The moment of truth – “…Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” He made His final decision to be completely surrendered to the Father’s will - & remember that His Father’s will had been determined before the beginning of time. Jesus came to earth to do what He is committing to right at this very moment.
- Told His disciples at the well in Samaria: ““My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” (John 4:34)
- John 5:30 – “I can do nothing on my own…I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
- John 8:29 – “…He who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”
- John 14:31 – “…I do as the Father has commanded me…”
HE SUBMITTED – He prayed. He agonized. He decided. And He submitted. And how do we know He submitted to His Father’s will? B/c He did it!
- Matthew 26:46 & Mark 14:42 both say the same thing: “Get up! Let’s GO!” (CSB)
- He stood up, faced His betrayer & His enemies, & about 8 hours later, was hanging on a cross w/ His blood pouring out for our sins & our salvation.
CONCLUSION – Let’s go back to the introduction of this sermon. I stated that a garden is a place of life & a place of work. Now that you & I have walked through the Garden of Gethsemane, let’s consider those points again:
- If a garden is a place of life, then this garden was certainly a place of life – the place where the Savior of the world turned directly toward the cross to give HIS life so that we might HAVE life – eternal life.
- If a garden is a place of work, then this garden is certainly a place of work – eternal work – hard work – agonizing work – the place where the Savior of the world worked fervently in prayer & pain to get Himself ready to take on the sins of the whole world.
- One final thought: Gethsemane – a word that refers to a massive weight that presses out valuable oil. The weight of the world sins pressed down on the Savior of the world as He hung on that cross. And something infinitely more valuable than the world’s finest olive oil flowed from Him: His own precious blood.
- Sing this w/ me: “O the blood of Jesus, O the blood of Jesus, O the blood of Jesus, that washes white as snow.”
