March 3: The Garden of Gethsemane
♫ Music:
Day 18 - Saturday, March 3
Title: The Garden of Gethsemane
Scripture: Matthew 26:36-44
Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.” And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.” Again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more.
Poetry: Descending Theology: The Garden
By Mary Karr
We know he was a man because, once doomed,
he begged for reprieve. See him
grieving on his rock under olive trees,
his companions asleep
on the hard ground around him
wrapped in old hides.
Not one stayed awake as he’d asked.
That pierced him like a sword.
Above him, the sky’s black membrane,
which he’d pass through
soon enough. He wished with all his being
to stay but gave up
bargaining as a child might. He knew
it was all mercy anyway,
unearned as breath. The Father couldn’t intervene,
though that gaze was never
not rapt, a warm mantle around him.
This was our doing, our death.
The dark prince had poured the vial of poison
into the betrayer’s ear,
and it was done. Around the oasis where Jesus wept,
the cracked earth radiated out for miles.
In the green center, Jesus prayed for naught
but the pardon of Judas,
who stared up into the same punctured sky
till his neck bones ached, blind
to its myriad blazings. So he failed to walk over
and weep with his brother.
BETRAYAL
In Jerusalem at dusk one Good Friday long ago, I walked to Gethsemane, that ancient grove of olive trees in the valley between the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives and the Eastern Walls of the Old City, in the company of a multitude of pilgrims, each bearing a candle. In the flickering light, we gathered together around a large rock and listened to an unforgettable sermon on the subject of what is traditionally known as the “harrowing of hell.” The preacher helped us to envision Christ in those moments as he realized the full weight of what he would suffer when he willingly laid down his life for us.
Jesus anticipated Judas’ betrayal, but he was surprised that his disciples could not keep watch with Him. Abandoned by His people, he was utterly alone.
Deeply grieved, Jesus knelt by the Rock; we are told, sweating blood. The Father revealed the horrors of human depravity and sin in excruciating detail so that Jesus would know fully what he would endure. Jesus, alone in that dark night experienced the fullness of his humanity and the meaning of the imperative of submitting His will to His Father. He saw everything, and was Himself the truth illuminating the darkest corners of human suffering, of every soul who has ever and will ever live, He realized that the debt He was to pay was too great for a human being to bear; and yet, He would, out of love for us.
He anticipated the binding of his hands and feet, when the guards would take Him away. He felt the tightness of the restraints on his wrists and ankles before He knew the pain of the Cross. He realized the meaning of the loss of His freedom. His mind travelled ahead, taking in the fullness of the meaning of his friend’s hardened heart, a friend who would betray Him with a kiss, and tormented by the truth of his action, would destroy himself, and Jesus prayed for forgiveness for the cruelty of that necessity, and prayed that God would forgive Judas too.
Jesus is with us, even to the end of this Age. He is with every hostage taken against their will, every prisoner robbed of their freedom, every hurt and lost soul, even those in the depths of Hell. He is just, and He is merciful. We can trust Him with the final accounting, but the time that remains is short. Will you trust Him and follow Him, because you can no longer resist Him, but long for a relationship with Him?
Oh God, who is with us, as we kneel and weep at the Rock, may we, in gratitude, give up our freedom and embrace our suffering to know you ever more deeply, to willingly submit, to feel the cutting of the binding of our feet and hands, to follow you, to take up the Cross. There is no more radical act than to submit to the will of Christ, to accept His claim on us, to worship Him in our deepest suffering, and to feel His presence, mercy, compassion, and love.
Prayer:
As we pray, today we remember in particular those who are struggling: those who are imprisoned, those who are enslaved, and those with suicidal thoughts. If you are struggling right now, believing that your life is in ruins, that you cannot go on, seek help. Christ suffers with you, and redeems all that is lost.
Amen
Judith Mendelsohn Rood
Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies
Department of History
Biola University
If you are someone struggling with suicidal thoughts, you are not alone.
Please reach out and talk to someone.
Help is available every day 24/7 at the bottom resource.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
About the Artwork:
Agony in the Garden
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
1889
Oil on canvas
73 x 92 cm
Norton Museum of Art
Palm Beach, Florida
Paul Gauguin's Agony in the Garden was painted while he was living among the peasants in Brittany, France. Gauguin envisioned himself as a tortured modern artist who had been forgotten by younger contemporary artists, including Van Gogh and Bernard, who had served as his disciples and alter egos. Here Gauguin paints himself as a redheaded Christ during the agony in the Gethsemane, betrayed by his followers. The painting’s symbolism personalizes not only Gauguin’s connection to Christ, but also Jesus’ connection to the suffering believer. Gauguin wrote "That's my portrait I've done there...but it also goes to represent the crushing of an ideal, a sadness as divine as human, Jesus abandoned by everybody, his disciples are leaving him, a scenario as sad as his own soul.”
About the Artist:
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist who was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and writer. His work influenced Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, André Derain, Fauvism, Cubism, and the American Arts and Crafts Movement. As the Impressionist movement was culminating in the late 1880s, Gauguin experimented with new color theories and semi-decorative approaches to painting. In the 1890s he began to develop a new style that married everyday observation with mystical symbolism, a style strongly influenced by the "primitive" arts of Africa, Asia, and French Polynesia. Gauguin's rejection of his European life for the exotic South Pacific has come to represent the romantic idea of the artist as the wandering mystic. Gauguin was one of the key participants during the last decades of the 19th century of the cultural movement known as Primitivism. The term denotes the Western fascination of less industrially developed cultures and the romantic notion that non-Western people might be more genuinely spiritual, or closer in touch with elemental forces of the cosmos, than their comparatively "artificial" European and American counterparts.
About the Music:
“St. Mark Passion: XIX. Agonia” from the album Golijov: St. Mark Passion
Lyrics:
Abba, Abba, Abba…
Aparta el cáliz de mi
apártalo de mi
Él volvió y ellos dormían
y llamó a Pedro:
Simón!... Duermes?... Duermes?
Siquiera una hora
pudiste velar?
Si al anochecer
a medianoche
o a la mañana...
(eco de los anuncios)
Despiértense...
para evitar la tentación.
El alma quiere la verdad
pero la carne es débil.
Abba, abba, abba...
Aparta el cáliz de mi
apártalo de mi
Él volvió y dormían
Los ojos de sueño
cargados tenían
Abba, Abba, Abba...
Aparta de mí el cáliz
aparta el cáliz, apártalo...
Pero no lo que quiero yo
sino lo que Tú
Duerman ya
la hora llegó
Si al anochecer
a medianoche
o a la mañana
Vámonos, vámonos, levántense
No ven que el hijo el hombre
va a ser entregado
en manos de los pecadores?
Vamos, se acerca el traidor ahí,
el hijo el hombre ya se va, sí
Ya se va el hijo del hombre...
Ya se va el hijo del hombre…
[Translation]:
Abba, Father,
all things are possible unto thee;
take away this cup from me.
And he cometh, and findeth them
sleeping, and saith unto Peter:
Simon, sleepest thou?
Couldest not thou
watch one hour?
At evening,
or at midnight,
or in the morning.
Watch ye and pray,
lest ye enter into temptation.
The spirit truly is ready,
but the flesh is weak.
Abba, Father,
all things are possible unto thee;
take away this cup from me.
And when he returned,
he found them asleep again,
(for their eyes were heavy).
Abba, Father,
all things are possible unto thee;
take away this cup from me.
Nevertheless not what I will,
but what thou wilt.
Sleep on now,
the hour is come.
At evening,
or at midnight,
or in the morning.
Rise up;
behold, the Son of man
is betrayed
into the hands of sinners.
Let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand.
The Son of Man goeth,
The Son of Man must indeed go.
The Son of Man must indeed go.
About the Composer:
Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1969) grew up in an Eastern European Jewish home in Argentina. He studied musical composition at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy in Israel, immersing himself in the colliding musical traditions of the Holy Land. Golijov moved to the United States in 1986 to study with avant-garde composer George Crumb. In 2000, the premiere of his St. Mark Passion took the music world by storm. Commissioned by Helmuth Rilling for the European Music Festival to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, the work is a powerfully visceral retelling of the Passion of Christ according to the Gospel of Mark. Critic Greg Sandow reports, “It rolls with the beat of Cuban and Brazilian percussion, blended with gutsy Latin singing by a Brazilian soloist and a chorus from Venezuela. There’s also Afro-Cuban dancing, classical singing by soprano Dawn Upshaw, a brass section that sounds like a Latin big band, and classical instruments, mostly cellos and violins, textured so that they sound both earthy and unearthy.”
About the Performer:
Biella Da Costa is one of Venezuela’s most acclaimed vocalists. She studied at the Jose Angel Lamas Conservatory and Opera School of Caracas. Biella has shared the stage with internationally renowned artists such as Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, Blood Sweat & Tears, Caetano Veloso, David Sanborn, Chuck Mangione and many others. Biella performs extensively in Latin America and has appeared in prestigious jazz festivals and venues throughout Europe, North America, Russia and Australia. Currently Da Costa is a professor at The National Experimental University of Arts - UNEARTE. In 2010, Deutsche Grammophon released a two-disc recording of Osvaldo Golijov's “La Pasión Según San Marcos” that featured Da Costa.
About the Poet:
Mary Karr (b. 1955) is an American poet, essayist, and memoirist from Texas. She rose to fame in 1995 with the publication of her bestselling memoir The Liars' Club. She is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University in New York. Her memoir The Liars' Club which delves vividly into her deeply troubled childhood was followed by two additional memoirs, Cherry and Lit: A Memoir, which details her "journey from blackbelt sinner and lifelong agnostic to unlikely Catholic." Karr won the 1989 Whiting Award for her poetry, was a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry in 2005, and has won Pushcart Prizes for both her poetry and essays. Her poems have appeared in major literary magazines such as Poetry, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly.
About the Devotional Writer:
Judith Mendelsohn Rood is Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies at Biola University. Her most radical act was to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as her savior and redeemer, and she is dedicated to serving the Church, the Muslim world, and the Jewish people. Her specialization is Jerusalem in world history. She was the first woman to do research in the Islamic Archives in Jerusalem and has spent the past seven years seeking to understand Arab Christianity and the origins of Islam in order to help Israelis and Palestinians reconcile at the foot of the Cross, praising Jesus as the only possible reconciler of all that is broken in our world.