Pressed to Pray

30/03/2022 6 min
Pressed to Pray

Listen "Pressed to Pray"

Episode Synopsis

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation." He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, "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." (Luke 22:39-46)   Gethsemane is not a word that Luke uses.  But it's not that he doesn't say it.  Gethsemane is a word that translates to "oil press."  Presumably the garden grove of Olive Trees on the Mount of Olives had an oil press within it, such that it was called by that name. "Gethsemane."  Oil press: it is the best description not just of the place, but also of what happens here, especially as Luke tells it. But again, Luke doesn't use that word.  He just says "the place."  Upon reaching "the place," Jesus told the disciples to pray so that they would not fall into temptation.  Why?  Because temptation was pressing in.  Satan had asked to sift the disciples like wheat.  Peter had been told that he would soon disown Jesus.  And they still didn't understand anything about greatness, violence, or power when it came to the kingdom of God.  Some of this had perhaps become apparent to them as Jesus rebuked and warned them while they were still at table in the upper room.  Luke reports that they were exhausted from sorrow, and maybe that's why.  In any case, as the press of temptations and forces hardened around them: the disciples went limp in their emotional exhaustion, desponding in sleep rather than responding in prayer. But strong pressures were also pressing in on Jesus.  Out of his humanity, he pleads for mercy.  Instead, he receives strength.  But it does not stop him from praying even more earnestly in anguished cries to his Father.  It is here, in anguish, feeling the crushing press of Judas' betrayal, the disciples' emotional exhaustion, and the rejection and crucifixion that lay ahead that Jesus' sweat falls like drops of blood.  Luke doesn't use the word Gethsemane, but he does give the most vivid example of it.  The law of firstfruits said that the first pressing of oil from one's olives belonged to God, and the second to us.  So it is here.  Jesus is pressed like olives at 'the place' of Gethsemane to the point that his blood begins to drip to the ground.  This first pressing is for God, offered up in anguished cries of prayer and surrender.  Of course, the second pressing on the cross would be for us.  "Drink from it, all of you: this cup is the new covenant in my blood," Jesus said, after all.  This gift pressed from Jesus and given to us is exactly what strengthens us today for the prayerful battle against temptation.  So: receive Jesus' gift and hear his command—it is time to awake and pray.  

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