Tag Archives: overwhelmed with sorrow

GETHSEMANE – THE PRESS

Christian Life, ,

GETHSEMANE – THE PRESS

“He took Peter, James, and John along with Him, and He began to be deeply distressed and troubled. ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death’, He said to them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’” (Mark 14:33, 34, NIV).

Gethsemane was an olive grove outside Jerusalem where olives were cultivated. The Greek word, gethsemane, meant “olive press” which symbolised the crushing weight of sin that Jesus bore on the cross. It was also symbolic of the weight of the human burdens which the Jewish people carried and the economic leash which tied the poor to the wealthy of Israel. The masses waited eagerly for Messiah to come, a Branch from the stump of the olive tree, to release them from their burdens.

Olives had great economic and religious significance for Israel. They were more than food. Olive oil had many uses, including in religious rituals. Olives underwent a laborious process to extract the precious oil. Firstly, an animal-drawn millstone was rolled over the olives to crack them open. The cracked olives were then gathered into bags and stacked beneath an enormous stone column which pressed the olives and forced the oil to drip into a pit at the base of the “gethsemane”, from where it was collected.

This process also had deep spiritual significance for Jesus in His agonising hours in the garden. As the oil was pressed from the olives by the weight of the stone column, so the world’s sin, pressed into His body, made the blood run from the pores of His skin.   

Every year, on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, a bull and two goats were chosen for the sacrifice. The High Priest would sacrifice the bull on the altar and sprinkle the blood on the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies to purge the tabernacle/temple from defilement caused by the misdeeds of the priests and their families. One of the goats was chosen by lot and sacrificed as a sin offering for the people. The High Priest would again enter the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the goat’s blood on the Mercy Seat.

The second goat, called the Azazel or scapegoat, was chosen to carry the sins of the people away into the wilderness. The High Priest would lay his hand on the goat’s head and press the sins of the people onto the goat as he confessed them over the animal which was driven away into an uninhabited land to bear away the people’s sins for another year. In Isaiah 53, the prophet saw this event in the spirit and wrote, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

As the oil was pressed from the olive, as the sins of Israel were pressed upon the goat, so Jesus bore the weight of the world’s sin in His own body, for us.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – THE FLESH IS WEAK

Bible Study, ,

THE FLESH IS WEAK

32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”
35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that, if possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
39 Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. 40 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.
41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer Mark 14:32-42

We can’t really blame the disciples for going to sleep while Jesus went off to pray. In spite of His many warnings, they didn’t know what lay up ahead for them. They had drunk wine at their Passover supper and it was late at night. They had not yet learned to be vigilant over their souls. They were perhaps not yet aware of the nature and intensity of the war they were in. While Jesus was fully aware of His struggle, they were not. It would only be on hindsight that the whole terrible picture would become clear to them.

Had we been any of them would we have been any different? Apart from their immediate circumstances, their minds were out of sync with Jesus and would remain stuck in their rut until the Holy Spirit came to dwell in them and to lead them into all truth.

Throughout their journey with the human Jesus, how much praying had they ever done? They were deeply impressed by His prayer life and begged Him to teach them to pray, but no amount of instruction would take the place of actually praying. It seems that they had not yet reached that stage of maturity in their walk with God. They were still spectators, watching and admiring Jesus, but not yet fully in the game themselves.

Is it any wonder that He told them that it was to their benefit that He would leave them? How were they ever going to become involved if He were always there to live the life for them? They needed to be thrown into the deep end, to be aware of their vulnerability when He was no longer with them, so that they would learn to lean hard on God through the Holy Spirit’s presence in them. Jesus was the only one, at this moment, who understood the struggle between flesh and spirit. To the one who simply follows the dictates of the flesh, there is no struggle, but to the one who sincerely desires to live for God, the war is on and only the power of God can give victory over the flesh.