Tag: Gethsemane

Gethsemane Unappreciated

” Then he returned and found the disciples asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour?” 

Mark 14:37

I honestly think what broke Jesus up the most was being disappointed by His trusty disciples.  This was devastating.  I believe that He was counting on the disciples to be there for Him.  They simply fell asleep while sitting with Jesus. Now it’s no secret that we need sleep.  Sleeping is a part of life, it is something that we require.  But we can forego it, without too many issues.  Truck drivers and med interns do it all the time–it’s no big deal.

But precious Peter sleeps through the most critical time of His best friends life–even after an explanation.  Jesus craves their closeness.  The humanness of Jesus yearns for His friends–His companions. He was lonely, and alone.

robin1aThere is a legend of the Brittany peasants that explains how the robin got its red breast. As Jesus was being led out to Calvary, a bird, pitying Him, flew down and plucked one thorn from the crown of thorns He wore. The blood spurted from the wound and splashed the bird’s breast.  It would be from that moment on the bird with the red breast– the valiant robin.

The robin did what it could.  The disciples didn’t. After sleeping for a bit, they would scatter.  They gave Jesus no solace, no comfort. All they did was to make Gethsemane harder.  Death was something Jesus knew was imminent.  The torture would brutalize Him even before the cross.  But, He would go it alone, without His friends.  Jesus would take all the sin on His shoulders and carry it away from us.

Today, we can make up for the disciples gross negligence. In some way, we can sit with Jesus, and spend time with Him, alert to the intercessory burden He carries for the Church. It is an active ministry of simple availability to being used in this way.

“Christ bears the wounds of the church, his body,  just as he bore the wounds of crucifixion. I sometimes wonder which have hurt worse.”

Philip Yancey

“So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore.  14 For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.”

Hebrews 13:13-14

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To Sit and Wait, by JR Miller

“Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder.”   

The Biblical “Rose of Sharon”

Matthew 26:36, KJV

by J.R. Miller


You and I have often felt that experience, that disappointment. There has arisen, mayhap [‘perhaps’] a great opportunity for Christian service. Some are sent to the front; some are sent to the middle. But WE are made to lie down in the rear.

Perhaps sickness has come; perhaps poverty has come; perhaps obloquy [‘censure, blame’] has come; in any case we are hindered and we feel sore. We do not see why we should be excluded from a part in the Christian life. It seems like an unjust thing that, seeing we have been allowed to enter the garden, no path should be assigned to us there.

It is a hard thing to be kept in the background at a time of crisis. In the Garden of Gethsemane eight of the eleven disciples were left to do nothing. Jesus went to the front to pray; Peter, James and John went to the middle to watch; the rest sat down in the rear to wait.

Methinks that party in the rear must have murmured. They were IN the garden, but that was all; they had no share in the cultivation of its flowers. It was a time of crisis, a time of storm and stress; and yet they were not suffered to work.

Be still, my soul, it is not as thou deemest! Thou art NOT excluded from a part of the Christian life. Thinkest thou that the garden of the Lord has only a place for those who walk and for those who stand! Nay, it has a spot consecrated to those who are compelled to SIT…….

When that experience comes to thee, remember, thou art not shunted. Remember it is CHRIST that say ‘Sit ye here.’ THY spot in the garden has ALSO been consecrated. It has a special name. It is not ‘the spot of wrestling,’ not ‘the place of watching’, but ‘the place of waiting.’

There are lives that come into this world neither to do great work, nor to bear great burdens, but simply to be; …….they are the flowers of the garden which have had no active mission. They have wreathed no chaplet; they have graced no table; they have gladdened the sight of JESUS. By their mere perfume, by their mere beauty, they have brought Him joy; by the very preservation of their loveliness in the valley they have lifted the Master’s heart. Thou needst not murmur shouldst thou be one of these flowers!”

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J. R. Miller (1840 – 1912) James Russell Miller was born on March 20, 1840 at Frankfort Springs, Pennsylvania and died on July 2, 1912. Besides authoring over 80 books, booklets, and pamphlets, Dr. J.R. Miller was the Editorial Superintendent of the Presbyterian Board of Publication, and a very active pastor in a succession of churches. He had a strong popularity among that generation of believers.

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This was sent to me from a dear friend; she had taken it from a very old devotional, published in 1925.  However, the truths are not dated.  They speak to us, long after the writer has gone to heaven. 

These principles come to us, especially with our disabilities– mental, emotional and physical. Perhaps they meet us in a hard place, but they can lead us into hope and purpose. 

 

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