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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
In tonight’s Reading we heard how Jesus came out of the Upper Room, which we heard about and reflected on last week. And, tonight we also heard how Jesus went, as was His custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed Him, and we heard what happened when He came to the place. So, tonight’s second sermon of this Lent’s Special Sermon Series themed “Places of the Passion according to St. Luke” focuses on “The Mount of Olives”.
Bernini123’s picture of the olive trees of Gethsemane is from here and is used unchanged in keeping with the license linked there.
Tonight’s service outline has a picture of what are called the olive trees of Gethsemane, which means “oil press”, and we may be more used to calling the second “Place of the Passion” by that name, “Gethsemane”, as Saints Matthew and Mark in their Gospel accounts further so name the perhaps enclosed parcel of ground on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:30, 36; Mark 14:26, 32), though St. Luke does not call the place that, nor does St. John, though St. John uniquely both tells that the place was across the brook Kidron and calls it a “garden” (John 18:1; confer John 18:26). The Divinely‑inspired St. Luke had already mentioned the Mount of Olives several times, by one name or another (Luke 19:29, 37), and he would mention it again (Acts 1:12). In one case, St. Luke uniquely mentioned Jesus’s lodging on the Mount of Olives earlier in Holy Week (Luke 21:37), perhaps as a guest of the same host as of the Upper Room (Wenham, Easter Enigma, 58), and so, not surprisingly in tonight’s Reading, St. Luke uniquely mentioned Jesus’s going out to the Mount of Olives “as was His custom”.
In tonight’s Reading, Jesus led the way to the Mount of Olives with His disciples following; Jesus arguably took the initiative in going where He knew that His betrayer Judas, one of the twelve, and so also those with Him, could find Him (Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Luke 22:39, p.80). Jesus repeatedly told the eleven disciples who were there to pray that they might not enter into temptation, and Jesus was drawn away from them about a stone’s throw, perhaps by the violence of His emotion (Plummer, ad loc Luke 22:41, p.508). Having placed His knees, Jesus Himself was praying repeatedly that He might resist the temptation not to follow through on His suffering and death (confer Hebrews 5:7). Meanwhile, instead of praying as Jesus commanded, the disciples were sleeping for sorrow, St. Luke uniquely reports, perhaps as prolonged sorrow produces sleep (Plummer, ad loc Luke 22:45, p.511). Then, Judas betrayed Jesus, with Jesus subtly reminding Judas that he was betraying the Messiah. At least one disciple tried to prevent Jesus’s arrest, cutting the right ear off a servant of the high priest, but Jesus rebuked the resistance, healed the ear, as uniquely reported by St. Luke the physician (Colossians 4:14), and arguably suggested that the discreet arrest belied its being un‑justifiable.
God could justifiably “arrest” and sentence and execute us for our sinful nature and for all of our sin. As we heard last week, Jesus told the disciples that Satan demanded to have them to sift them like wheat (Luke 22:31; confer Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Luke 22:40, p.80), but Jesus also described them as those who had stayed with Him in His “trials” (Luke 22:28, for example, ESV) or “temptations” (for example, KJV, ASV). Yet, like Jesus’s disciples in tonight’s Reading, we do not pray as we should that we might not enter into temptation. Instead of staying awake and watching vigilantly, too often we are asleep for sorrow or for some other reason. By nature we resist God’s plan of salvation for us, until His Holy Spirit calls and so enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, even as Jesus is said to have tried to turn His about-to-be captors by referring to the power of darkness (Roehrs‑Franzmann, ad loc Luke 22:47-53, p.80).
In tonight’s Reading, Jesus as true man agonized over the temptation not to suffer and die on the cross for our sins, and Jesus as true God remained in control over what was happening to Him. Jesus’s human agony, the struggle between the Divine will and His human will, was so great that, St. Luke says, Jesus’s sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground, likely what is called hematidrosis or “bloody sweat”. Yet, Jesus’s divinity went on to expose Judas treachery, heal the high priest’s servant, and so protect His disciples (Roehrs‑Franzmann, ad loc Luke 22:47-53, p.80). As we pray in the Litany, by His agony and bloody sweat, the Good Lord helps us. Out of love for the fallen world, at the hour appointed by God, Jesus submitted to the power of darkness, through which God was working to do good (confer Romans 8:28). Ultimately Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the whole world, including your sins and my sins. He died on our behalf, in our place. When we trust God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake, then God does forgive us, and so we have peace with God and rejoice in the forgiveness of sins.
In tonight’s Reading, St. Luke uniquely reports that an angel from heaven appeared to Jesus on the Mount of Olives, strengthening Him—a report that may have seemed unfitting of Jesus enough to some copyists so that they deleted it from their copies of St. Luke’s account (Metzger, 177). As with Saints Matthew and Mark’s reports of angels’ ministering to Jesus in the wilderness after His fasting and temptation (Matthew 4:11; Mark 1:13), we do not know exactly what the angels did for Jesus, though we know that when an angel of the Lord strengthened Elijah food was involved (1 Kings 19:4-8; Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Luke 22:39-46, p.80). And, likewise, we know that with bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and with wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, the Lord strengthens and preserves in body and soul to eternal life us who are baptized and absolved. God’s Word and Sacraments create and strengthen our faith and so transform us that we at least want to keep His Commandments and actually begin to keep them.
As those who are at the same time justified and still sinners, we continue to struggle with our doing God’s will, of course. We try to pray that we might not enter into temptation. We try to stay awake and watch vigilantly. We know that, if God strengthened Jesus to do something as difficult as die for the sins of the world, then surely God can and will strengthen us to do the less‑difficult things that we should do according to our various vocations in life. Yet, we will continue to sin, and so, with daily contrition and faith, we live in the forgiveness of sins that we receive from God in His Word and Sacraments. Ultimately, if necessary, we will be raised from the dead and, either way, we will be glorified in God’s presence so that we are free from sin and its ill effects for all eternity.
This evening we have considered the second of five “Places of the Passion according to St. Luke”. In what happened on the Mount of Olives, again contrasts abounded: contrast between the unfaithful disciples and faithful Jesus, and contrast between Jesus as true man and Jesus as true God! We have considered both our unfaithfulness in sin and God’s faithfulness in the forgiveness of our sins by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, including how God forgives and strengthens us through Christ’s Holy Supper. At the end of tonight’s Reading, Jesus is about to be seized and led away to the high priest’s house, where next week we will go by Reading and reflection, as God wills and with God’s grace and blessing.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +