A Place Called Gethsemane

Palm Sunday: March 29

Today is Palm Sunday, a day where Christians have for first centuries reflected upon the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. In churches throughout the world, believers are waving palm branches and singing, “Hosanna in the highest.”

These moments recall the crowds that celebrated the arrival of the King of the Jews in the Holy City. For years, Jesus had been known as a great teacher and a miraculous healer. He had traveled throughout the region, proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God. All who met him had no doubt that He was an anointed one from God. Even those who tried to stop Him knew there was something different about this man.

So on that glorious day, King Jesus rides into His capitol, ready to inaugurate His reign, and the crowds celebrated their coming king.

Yet here in this moment, as we begin our reflections for Holy Week, the crowds are nowhere to be found. They have all gone back to their homes and are sound asleep. The excitement has gone away, and in its place is the silence of the night.

We see King Jesus on the outskirts of His Holy City, ready to inaugurate His reign, but there is an entirely different atmosphere.

In the garden, Jesus sits and prays. Do you sense the heaviness in the air, a feeling that something terrible is about to happen? Can you see the weight on His shoulders, the trouble in His face, the tears in His eyes? Do you hear the tone of His voice as He cries out to the Father?

It is in this moment that Jesus asks His friends to join Him. In His moment of trial and sorrow, knowing full well what will lay ahead and the anguish and separation He would soon endure, He wanted His friends to be with Him. He doesn’t ask for the crowds, He isn’t organizing a rally, and He isn’t trying to platform Himself. He just wants His closest friends to sit with Him as He prays.

This moment is reflective of the scene of Job’s friends coming to sit with him in his time of grief. Of course, we know that Job's friends were of little help when it came to advice, but they were wonderful when it came to the ministry of presence. Unfortunately, for Jesus, His closest friends failed at both.

Before we too hastily judge them, however, their actions easily reflect ours as well. We put all of our focus on the excitement of the pomp and circumstance, thinking that triumph is demonstrated through worldly treasures and accolades.

There is a room in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam that demonstrates this contrast well. On one side of the room is a painting of Emperor Napoleon, clothed in his robes of satin and finest fur. On top of his head is a golden laurel, and he’s holding a scepter, looking with confidence over his supposedly conquered world.

Directly opposite of this false emperor is a statue of Jesus, his hands bound in chains and body wrapped in a shabby cloth. His head is lowered, cast down from pain and sorry and topped with a crown of thorns.

The contrast is amazing, and if you didn’t know the story, you would think you were looking at a criminal on one side and a "true" king on the other. But we know the difference.

We know that Christ’s Kingdom will not be inaugurated with crowds and wealth and false glory. In fact, the golden laurel of Napoleon is a cheap knockoff compared to the glory of the crown of thorns Jesus wears because it is only through suffering that He will set us free and fully inaugurate the Kingdom.

So, in this moment, as the King is feeling the weight of what is to come, will you sit with Him?

We have the historical privilege of knowing what happens at the end of Holy Week, and it is right for us to celebrate His ultimate triumph.

At the same time, it is also good for us to sit in silence and mourn alongside Jesus because of the road that is to come. His Kingdom is not won by cheap Grace, but rather a costly sacrifice, and it is not too high a price just to sit with our friend for a few moments.

Father, thank you for sending your son. Help me to understand just a glimpse of the weight that is sitting upon His shoulders in this moment. Help me to recognize the depth of suffering He had to endure so that I can better understand the fullness of His victory. He is unlike any king we have ever known or ever will know, whose Kingdom knows no end, and whose reign will continue throughout all eternity.

Help me this week to be a reflection of the Kingdom in how I love and care for others. Would you please well up within me a commitment and love for Christ that will cause me to stay awake and alert until the day our King returns?

Written by Faculty Members of the Gary Cook School of Leadership at Dallas Baptist University.