Places 18: Silent Witness
NOTE: For the second Sunday in Lent, I wrote about the cause of Jesus agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. If you want to read the poem first, please scroll down.
Have you ever wondered what Jesus “will” was on the night He sweat great drops of blood and cried out, “Not my will, but Yours be done?” This poem is about the olive trees’ silent witness to Jesus’ agony that night. Did they hear what He was praying about?
Some say Jesus wanted to escape the cross. That’s highly unlikely. He knew it was inevitable. A day or two before, Mary of Bethany had anointed him with perfume and He said it was for his burial. Others say He was praying for His physical body—that He wouldn’t die before His work was finished. I’ve wondered if He was asking His Father about calling on supernatural power rather than suffering and dying in the weakness of a fully human man. Or did he want to limit the demonic darkness surrounding Calvary? He knew God’s eternal plan—that, as the Passover Lamb, He would atone for our sins by taking our death. Physical death might have seemed easy to Him— was His agony over the possibility of experiencing the lonely desolation of separation from God, of lifelessness, of an existence without love? Probably not. I don’t think He anticipated that possibility for He must not have known why God left Him when He cried out, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?” Was His agony, then, perhaps about His coming journey to Hell?
And what about fear? Jesus was fearless. Always. His perfect love allowed no room for fear. And no room for compromise or drawing back. If Jesus had given way to fear of flogging, fear of shame, fear of pain, death and hell, He would have failed in Love. We know that His willing obedience to death on the cross broke the curse of sin. But when did God let Him know about the details? Was God asking Jesus if His love and His pursuit of a Bride was strong enough to overcome Adam’s human response to sin? He had to do it— to set us free.
Adam’s response to his sin was threefold—he saw his own nakedness and covered it, he was afraid, and he hid. As the second Adam, Jesus was stripped of all covering and protection, He could not hide and He had to be fearless. It’s one thing for us to be fearless— for the Holy Spirit will help us. But on the cross, forsaken, as a fully human man, feeling the weight of all human sin, without the love of God, Jesus had to be fearless alone. He did it! There is a mystery here. I am so grateful we have the Holy Spirit to help us today. In Him, all who believe can turn to Jesus and ask for His fearlessness in faith. Lord help us, each one who reads this, to ask and receive.
Actually, Scripture doesn’t tell us what Jesus was thinking at Gethsemane, and I’m glad, because somehow, in that silence, I know that whatever “worst” we face, Jesus has been there before us—and come through.
His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up. . . exalted to the right hand of God, and has received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit . . .Acts 2:31-2
The promise of the Holy Spirit was for us. He loves us all— believers or not. And His Spirit is available now—today—for all who believe and accept His sacrifice for sin. Perhaps that night in Gethsemane He was agonizing in prayer for those who would refuse His love— crying out for universal salvation, that all whom He loves might know the Father, that all would believe and receive forgiveness for their sin. That all will join His Bride and be baptized into His faith, hope and love in this life and the next. (See Acts 2:31-38) That was not His Father’s will, and, of course, He knew that He would surrender to the justice of Holiness.
Or was He praying for believers? For you and for me and not for Himself? That we, His Bride, would not fail? Was He asking Our Father to spare us from suffering? Did His Father show Him that many must follow in His footsteps and suffer and die rather than deny His love? Oh, oh—may we pray, pray, pray for faith to believe and grace to follow Him fearlessly in Love. I don’t know yet what I might do if confronted with persecution— do you?
But we do know that with Jesus Christ in our life there will be Life in our death and that united with Him, by faith, we will never experience the torments of Hell or the desolation of existence without our Heavenly Father’s sustaining love.
Prayer: Father, in the circumstances before us today, may we pray, “Not my will but Yours be done.” May we love You enough to gladly turn away from our own ways and fully, lovingly surrender to Your directions. Give us the great love that moved Jesus to want God’s will and not His own.
Silent Witness —The first version was written after a visit to Jerusalem in 1993
I
I’m a tourist here today,
on the outside, looking in—
locked gates and fences bar my way
from these ancient olive trees
in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Did Jesus lean his back into their bark?
Do traces linger deep within—
left by sap and growth long dried—
traces from His Life
when His earth-birthed flesh survived?
Why must barriers
forbid my ache to touch?
I long to run my hand along a living trunk,
reach in toward hollowed heartwood,
feel His witness in my fingers.
Touch me, Lord, with love, until I know
I do not need to feel the bark
of any earth-grown tree
or feed on remnants from Your time
to feel Your life in me.
But like the night these trees once knew,
I would stand—steadfast—
in a watch with You—
or would I? Could I?
II
The last time He prayed here—
Oh, it was a horrible night.
Wights from late-night lewd-fests,
pogroms, wars and famines,
living demons taunting,
vile secrets breathing
lies from the destroyer’s mind
were in the air,
all about to burst with blackest hate
upon a lonely man,
wrenched by betrayals,
consumed with love.
Would I? Could I watch with Him?
Knowing His body’s life, or mine,
was just about to end?
He held to love,
Love held to Him,
And hold He did!
Against all enemy onslaughts
luring him to sin
Love held.
Through all that lonely night
and all the coming day—
(when evil looked to rule and sway)
Love held—
Love held to hope—
enough to buy forgiveness—
and held to faith—
to free all men from sin.
Love out against all doubt —
in Jesus Christ Love paid the price
Love turned death and desecration
into pure and Holy sacrifice.
III
Lord, may we watch with You
through our dark-nights,
held safe within your life and light.
In trust, like You,
we would survive
to testify that death had died.
Give us enduring witness,
just like these gnarled ancient trees—
that endure in old Gethsemane.
g emery ©
Note: Botanists believe that some of the oldest living olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane were alive the night Jesus was betrayed. You can read more about the olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane at https://www.myolivetree.com/ancient-olive-trees-garden-gethsemane/
