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Monday, February 21, 2005
There's been a lot written about the movie that came out last year entitled "The Passion." You remember, the Mel Gibson movie that everyone was talking about for about 5 weeks?
Anyway, the movie starts out with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemene and he is praying. The scene is dark and foggy...the moonlight gives the only lighting in the scene.
It shows Jesus in agony as this time of prayer before His crucifixion begins. Other accounts in the Bible tell us that Jesus was under such duress that His sweat was like drops of blood. The disciples were sleeping.
Jesus was shaking...leaning up against trees for support. He was sweating profusely. At one point He was face down in prayer, voice quivering, praying with all His might.
From what I can tell, while the rest of the movie takes liberties here and there (and this scene does too) I think the film does this moment in Jesus' life justice. I think Jesus was in agony. The weight of the whole world, literally, was on His shoulders. And now He was making time to grab some moments with His Father...to maintain that relationship...to experience His grace in that moment of need.
And before we look at the specifics, it's important to get an overview of the nature of tis prayer:
In verses 1--5, we see that we are to share in His life.
In verses 6--12, we see that we know His name.
In verses 13--19, we see that we have His Word.
And in verses 20--26, we see His prayers for future believers.
See, sometimes in reading this section, particularly in the New American Standard translation, you can get lost in the sentence structure. It can be a difficult read and it helps to have a semblance of where Jesus is going.
So think about that for a second...
We are to share in His life.
We know Him.
We have His Word to help us through this life.
And he prayed for us.
The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, on the night in which He was betrayed, prayed for us.
That we would live a life for Him and with Him.
That we could have a relationship with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
That we could live practically and holy in this world...in fact, we'd been "set apart" especially to do exactly that.
And we would show unity and glorify Him by how we lived.
He knew He was going to die.
And our High Priest was concerned about the spiritual life. Our spiritual life.
Here in Dallas today its 80 degrees and beautiful. It's the perfect day to get out and evaluate your spiritual life, don't you think? Try to scrape together some time, even if the sun has set, to be alone and think through your spiritual life. Show concern for it...
...and talk to God. Read through John 17 with the outline in mind, and we'll break it into more detail later this week.
Brent 7:12 AM
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