This weekend we begin the Holy Week journey to Jerusalem where Jesus will eat Passover, be crucified, die, be buried and be raised. There is so much drama in the Passion Narrative—love, betrayal, fear, abandonment, grief, anger, pride, doubt, violence, injustice. As I have lived my life and listened to yours this week and that of the world, my attention is drawn to the garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus often went to that garden to hang out with his friends, to be alone, and to pray. It was one of his sacred places. On what he suspected would be the night before his arrest, Jesus took his closest disciples with him to pray. The gospel writer of Matthew quotes Jesus this way: “’My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.’ Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’”(Matthew 26:38-39).
In light of events at the Texas State Legislature this week attacking the children of the LGBTQ community and their physicians; the debates about voter access; the school shooting in Nashville; the indictment of the former President; and the process of the State’s takeover of HISD, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of dismay/despair, if not death. Yours may be too.
Jesus does not shy away from his despair, grief and fear. Instead, while his brothers in faith abandon him, he takes all his feelings to God in prayer. His desperate cry to God includes the hope that these trials will pass him by; he nonetheless asks for strength to relinquish his ego and to be grounded in God’s being…”not as I will, but as you will.”
Like Jesus, we face trials, abandonment, persecution, fear and despair. Taking him as our Lord and Savior means that we trust in his model of grace and love. May we too have the courage to live as we pray…not my will, but Yours.
-The Reverend Lisa Hunt, Rector