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My
Father would not set any bounds to his love,
and so I would not set any bounds to mine.
I had counted the cost of that decision,
and accepted it willingly
for love of you, my brothers and sisters.
I knew that I was to be arrested on that very night.
I knew who would lead the guards to me
at a time when they could expect
to find me asleep
and so unable to offer any resistance.
I knew what would follow my arrest,
and I experienced in my imagination
all the agonies that I would suffer the next day.
If I had not gone to the garden of Gethsemane,
but just a few fields further on,
Judas would not have found me
and he would have been punished
for misleading the Chief Priest and the Sanhedrin.
If I had told just a few of my friends
exactly what was going to happen,
they would have stayed awake
and guarded me through the whole night.
But I had been sent by my Father
to fulfill every last word of the Scriptures.
Still, I hoped
that like Isaac,
I should be saved at the last moment,
that my faith and trust
in my Father’s love
would be enough.
And if there had been any other way,
then I knew that my Father would take it.
But as soon as I asked the question,
and in my heart I felt my Father weeping,
I knew that there was no other way.
Every word that he had put
into the lips of the prophets,
had to be seen to be fulfilled.
Nothing that comes from the lips of God
can be wasted;
nothing is ever spoken unnecessarily.
My Father could only send
an angel to comfort me.
Everything was now in my hands;
the fate of creation rested on my decision.
In the beginning,
I had created everything at my Father’s command
and now it was for me to agree
to recreate everything
as my Father had wanted it to be.
My brothers and sisters,
can you imagine my agony
as I struggled to stay in that garden,
knowing the horrors that lay ahead?
None of you will ever have to suffer
as I did in the garden,
because I was the first among you to do so,
and you have my example to give you hope.
You know, as I did not,
that your death to yourself
will not leave you dead but empty
so that I can pour new life into you.
For me, the garden was all darkness,
leading to even greater darkness.
I could see and accept
the sacrifice that was necessary,
but I could see the reward that followed.
Whenever you find yourself in the garden
remember that I am there with you,
and rejoice that I will lead you
from there into new life. |
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