The Garden

 

It has been a week full of emotions. The people had cheered him into Jerusalem just a few days earlier.  Anger and rage flooded him as he saw his fathers house the temple of prayer turned into a den for thieves.  He has just eaten an emotional farewell meal whilst celebrating the Passover with his closest friends. And now, well now all Jesus felt was absolutely fear.  Jesus is terrified because the end is coming, the ultimate crescendo of love is about to be lived out.  Jesus goes out of the city to the nearby gardens of Gethsemane to be with his father in prayer.  As was his usual pattern.  But this time he can not go alone.  No, tonight he needs his friends, he needs support, tonight he needs them to give him courage, pray for him, and to bring him peace.  For tonight Jesus is scared.  At the edge of the garden, Jesus filled with panic, stress and anxiety says to his friends ‘my soul is crushed with grief to the point of death, please stay and watch over me’.  Jesus goes deeper into the garden where he prays to his father, no he begs the father, pleads with the father ‘Abba Father, everything is possible for you, please take this cup of suffering from me, yet your will not mine be done’.  And as he says it we hear the desperation in his voice, the panic, how hard it was to spit out those last incredible words.  And as he says these words we can see the body trembling, tears running down his cheek and we can see the incredible site of blood cracking open from his forehead.  Jesus sweats drops of blood, caused by hyper anxiousness, something experienced years later by both Allied and Nazi soldiers as they too awaited certain death in the bunkers of the first world war.  Jesus is scared to death.  Terrified and bleeding he needs his friends, his followers, so he goes back to them only to find they have fallen asleep.  Jesus at his weakest, most vulnerable, with tears and blood covering his face, unable to cope, what does he do?  He goes to his followers, his friends those he teaches and those he leads.  Jesus at his most vulnerable goes to his people for support.

In a society where leaders have to be faultless, without fear, with no weakness and without feeling we are given an incredible example of what a Gethsemane leader might look like. And in the church where often the pastor is set apart, professional and always together we are given a stunning picture of what it might look like to imitate Jesus in our leadership.  Because Jesus at his weakest and most vulnerable moment went to be with his people.

I am a member of the new wine network and recently there was a conversation about ‘numbers’.  All the churches, even the biggest ones talked about having a big front door, lots of people coming to church and trying it out, but those churches also seemed to have an even bigger back door.  People having tasted and seen but not found the community that they are looking for.  My feeling is that people are looking for far more than great preaching and amazing bands, as important as they may be, but people are looking for a passionate community.  A place to be real, honest and vulnerable and a place to journey together towards Christlikeness and towards life in all its fullness.  I do not think these communities are possible unless as leaders we set an example.  That as leaders we may become Gethsemane leaders and follow the example of Jesus.  This will then give the church ‘permission’ and then perhaps we can begin to be the broken but being healed, sinful but becoming holy, lost but being found community we are called to be. 

John Fawcett gives an example in his beautiful poem ‘Brotherly love’ of what such a community might look like.  In 1776 John and his new wife Mary began pastoring an impoverished Baptist church in Wainsgate.  After 7 years of devoted service, John received the call to be the minister of the influential Carters Lane Baptist church in London.  The wagons were loaded ready for the move and the Fawcett’s looked out at their people gathered to say goodbye.  Mary said ‘John, I can not bear to leave, I know not how to go’.  John replied ‘nor can I either, we will stay here with our people’.  They pastored that church for 54 years! Having unloaded the wagons, the following Sunday, Mary preached and said these words ‘we just can not break the ties of affection that binds us to you dear friends’.  John expressed himself with the following poem which I will end this blog with.  But first!  May your church community reflect that expressed in this poem.  If you are a leader, may you imitate Jesus at Gethsemane by being vulnerable and going to your people weak as well as strong.  And may our communities become the places people are desperately searching for, places like the church at Philippi, a people who Paul said shone like stars. 

 

Brotherly love by John Fawcett

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

We share each other’s woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.