Beholding Jesus

I will start out with just kind of going through in my own words with this meditation how I feel about each step of the story. I have been dwelling on each one throughout the week and they have all inspired me greatly.

It begins in the garden of Gethsemane which happens to be my favorite part of the story of the cross. Jesus end up just taking Peter, James, and John with Him. Now I know He loved all His disciples, but from what I can gather these three were the closest to Him personally. He takes these three disciples with Him to this very personal place of prayer communing with the Father. You have to know that something was going on in these guys heart that would cause them to fall asleep. When I think about being able to go somewhere and pray alongside Jesus personally with the Father I feel like I would be attentive no matter what the situation. I guess I would have probably in my human weakness have done the same or something similar to what they did. It just makes me sad in my heart that sometimes we can’t even stay up with Jesus when all He asks is for us to give up a short time and pray with Him.

I love the prayer that He prayer here. Mark doesn’t go into too much depth in His prayer, but John does. I love that Jesus just completely gives up His own desires and submits to the will of the Father. He is selfless in His love for His Father and His love for us. He even says, “Father, I desire.” He says it in regards to us. He desires that we would be with Him and His Father where they are. This prayer that He prays to His Father God ends up being the most important prayer ever prayed in the Bible. It is all for us and for the life that we are going to have in God and in Jesus. It is in a way the ultimate prayer showing Jesus’ intercession for believers. This prayer holds a very high calling in it for us and for our lives in Jesus. It calls is to be one with God and Jesus as they are one in each other. It also says that the glory (movements of the Holy Spirit, signs and wonders) which was given to Jesus from God will be given to us. It also says that God has loved us in the exact same way that He loves Jesus. It calls us to the position of beholding the glory of Jesus and the Father in Him. This whole prayer bridges the way in which we have access to the Father and His glory and the experience of His love for us.

When this prayer is over He sees and in some form or another rebukes the disciples that they cannot even stay away with Him for a short time.

They then go into the garden where they are overtaken by the officers seeking to arrest Him. The only reason that they found Him was because of the betrayal of Judas. I wonder how Judas felt the moment that Jesus’ eyes fixed on him. I wonder if a huge shame flooded him when he had to go forward and kiss him on the cheek as a sign to the troops. It had to have dawned on him in that second exactly the magnitude of the crime that he had committed. It must have done something to him because we went away and took his own life after that very moment. Even though what happened was awful, it was all in the perfect will of God. Jesus had to die because without that blood atoning for our sins then we ourselves would be obligated to pay in blood.

The trial that He goes through is almost like a game. The men that have him on trial know that they aren’t going to let Him go. They are out for His blood and they wont be satisfied with anything else. Later when He goes before Pilate, they even have a choice between Jesus, a pure lamb and a murderer. They of course against all logic choose the murderer to go free in Jesus’ place. It had to have happened because that is just one more example of how He took our place just like He took the murderers place to go to the cross. Pilate almost lets Him go and recognizes that Jesus is innocent, but He is too afraid of what the people will think and do so He sentences Jesus.

The last of the story is of Jesus going to the cross. This is my least favorite part of the entire story, but at the same time it is a beautiful illustration of love that has never been matched in history. He was beaten and bruised and scarred for us. It is no small thing that he gave everything up for us. We are just so flippant about what He did. I just don’t think that we (even I) will be able to understand the magnitude of His sacrifice. I love when He exclaimed on the cross the phrase, “I thirst.” I’ve just really been dwelling on the fact that He didn’t mean physical thirst. He meant that He desired us. He thirsts for our love. I just wish that I could react to Him in the same way back.

I guess that this is what this story causes us to do. It causes us to think on Him and in turn it causes us to learn these different aspects of His personality. We begin to study Him and understand His love and then in turn because He loved us we are able to love Him back. Sometimes I feel like if I think on the cross too hard that I will begin crying and not be able to stop. Something about it breaks my heart in such a way that I cant explain. At the same time this story refreshes my spirit and while I become sad it lifts up my head again. I am able to have full access to Jesus and the Father. I am able to love Him. I am able to be with Jesus where He is. I am given everlasting life forever and ever. I am given the divine privilege of being in His glory the rest of my days. I am given all of this because of what He has done.