The Crushing Place - Making Sense of the Senseless

Matthew 26: 36-38 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."

The 26^th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew tells the acceleration of the end of Jesus ministry here on earth. Jesus being anointed at Bethany, Judas agreeing to betray Him, the Last Supper, the arrest and Peter's denial are all part of this chapter. Tucked in the middle however is the visit Jesus makes to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray before He is betrayed and arrested. The name Gethsemane is the transliteration of the Aramaic "Gat-Shemanim" which means 'oil press' or the "crushing place." What a fitting name as this was the place where Jesus was crushed in His spirit as He knew He was facing the end. Gethsemane is the place where the weight of the world rested upon His shoulders. Where things almost didn't make much sense. It is the place where Jesus was tempted to give up:

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26: 39

The crushing place is where we start to possibly doubt the plan of God. Jesus here prays that what He knows is ahead for Him might be taken from Him. Jesus is admitting in all of His humanity that He does not want to face the coming trials. Yet in all of His Godhead He recognizes the ultimate sovereignty of God and defers to the will of the Father. Jesus is crushed so badly in Gethsemane that in the Gospel of Luke He is portrayed as literally sweating blood.

We all face the crushing place in our lives as well. We all get to the point where things cease to make sense. When what is going on around us begins to overwhelm us. Where we perhaps start to question God, His role in the events of this world, and in our own lives personally. We look around and see the state the world is in and wonder why. We see the callousness and wonder why. This past week brought us closer to the heart of darkness that lies within man as we watched Jared Loughner walk into a Safeway in Arizona and attempt to assassinate a sitting United States Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords. Not satisfied with firing a bullet into her head, Jared Loughner than proceeded to kill six other people, including a nine year old girl. This past week, the crushing place was in Tucson Arizona. The place where I dropped to my knees and asked why. Perhaps you may have as well. Either way, we all visit Gethsemane at different points in our walk with God. The place where we feel that weight upon us. The place where we ask God to take it from us. The place where the agony seems like we will sweat blood. The place where we try to make sense of the senseless.

As always, we need to look to the Word of God when we seek answers. The story of Gethsemane provides interesting answers for us as we face the uncertainty of humanity within our world and our lives. First of all, we should realize that Jesus chose to go into the crushing place and he did so to pray. He could have easily prayed where they had gathered for the Last Supper earlier in the day. He could have chosen anywhere to pray. But Jesus chose to face the crushing place. He chose to face the fears He had. He chose to face the problem head on. That is also how God intends for us to deal with the doubt and pain we experience. We live in a society that encourages covering up problems and avoiding them. Most medication is designed to disguise symptoms as opposed to resolve problems. That is not the way God has outlined for us however:

Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4: 8-10

God does not want the senselessness we face in humanity to drive us away from Him. He wants us to draw closer to Him! Then He will draw closer to us. In our humility we will be lifted up. It is so sad that it is events such as the Giffords shooting that will cause some doubters to doubt God even more. They will take the actions of man and lay it at the feet of God. The hardened heart rarely sees God in anything. They seek the opposite.

Secondly, the story of Gethsemane reinforces the importance of prayer and the necessity of persistent prayer. We live in a microwave society where we expect answers immediately and we are conditioned to give up. So many Christians simply refuse to prevail in prayer. They submit a prayer, give it a little time, and then give up. They wrongly assume that God has said no or that the heavens are brass that God does not hear them. Yet look at the story here in the garden. Jesus not only prays to the Father to take this cup from Him but He does so three times! God does not mind persistence in prayer beloved, He requires it.

Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: "Suppose you went to a friend's house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, 'A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.' And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, 'Don't bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can't help you.' But I tell you this--though he won't do it for friendship's sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence. Luke 11: 5-8 (NLT)

This parable is given during a teaching on prayer. God is closer than any friend we may have on this earth. He will not care if it is three o'clock in the morning when you come to Him. He will not mind that you repeatedly come to Him. We may not always get the answer we think we want but He always hears our prayers; especially in the crushing place.

Next, it is in the crushing place where God wants us alone with Him. We can no longer rely upon others in our lives. We can no longer rely upon spouses or parents, pastors or friends. Note who Jesus takes with Him into the Garden of Gethsemane. He chooses Peter and the sons of Zebedee. Peter is arguably one of the closest disciples Jesus has and James and John are also referred to as the "Sons of Thunder" elsewhere in the Gospels. Together, they would pen eight of the books of the New Testament. In His humanity, Jesus asks those closest to Him to go with Him a bit further. To help Him to "keep watch." Each time He asks this of them, He returns to find them sleeping. Here is the last exchange:

Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Matthew 26: 45

The crushing place is not a place to rest. It is not a place to sleep. It is not a place to be distracted. Jesus had warned these three after the second time that the spirit may indeed be willing but the flesh is always weak. God is teaching us here that even our closest friends can let us down in the crushing place. That when we are faced with such moments in our walk that the only person we need to seek is God. The only direction we need to look is up.

What is further interesting is that each time Jesus wakes His friends He equates their sleepy state with falling into temptation. What is God saying to us here? I think it can become too easy to not see the crushing place for what it is. To become so calloused to the world and the depravity we must face every day that we can become numb to it. That we could be sitting in a garden with God Almighty and even though He is sweating blood over the agony He witnesses, we can casually fall asleep. We can watch the horrors unfold on our televisions such as the Giffords shooting and dismiss it out of hand as if it is some reality show. We can have the opposite reaction to the crushing place. We can become indifferent to the need to pray and intercede. We can become so self-centered in our Christianity. We can become so prideful. But God teaches us the opposite:

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2: 20 (NLT)

And He gave Himself shortly after Gethsemane. The crushing place is also the refining place. The place of purification. Olives are crushed for their oil. Grapes for their juice. For their essence to be fully realized, the crushing process is necessary. Each time Jesus prayed in Gethsemane He presented His concerns to God. He knew what was to come. He knew He would be tortured and crucified. He knew that the Father would turn His back on Him when He assumed the sin of the world. Yet for each time He asked for the cup to pass from Him, Jesus always finished His prayer by asserting the priority of the will of God over His own. In a very real sense the Gethsemane experience for Christ was an emptying of the last of His will and the overflowing of the Father's will in His spirit before He faced Calvary. From this point forward, we see the resolution in Jesus to carry out the will of the Father. His doubt and agony led to Gethsemane the crushing place. His crushing led to Him accepting the plan of God. The plan of God led to the redemption of mankind.

I wish I had the answer why bad things happen to good people. I wish I knew why the Jared Loughner's of the world open fire into our collective sense of security. I do not know why Congresswoman Giffords lies in a hospital room and why nine year old Christina-Taylor Greene is no longer with us. But I do know this much. I know that it is wholly possible for man to be inherently evil while God remains unwaveringly good. I know that the depravity we see from man every day does not mean that God is somehow an absentee landlord. In fact, it is these incidents that remind me of how gracious God is. Of how deep and wide His mercy truly extends. Because while God had His only son sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, I was still a sinner. While God was telling His only son, "no, the cup is yours and it cannot pass from you", I was still a sinner. When my flesh was still weak, the spirit of God was still willing. For that, Gethsemane must be a place where we draw closer to God during the crushing not where we allow the enemy to speak doubt into our hearts. The darkness within the hearts of man can never triumph:

The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. John 1: 4-5 (NLT)

It was through the life of Jesus Christ that light penetrated the darkness of this world. That light cannot be extinguished because it lives in you and me and all who call on the name of Jesus Christ for salvation. According to Jesus, we are now the light of the world. That light penetrates any darkness the world may throw at us. It pierces into the Garden of Gethsemane we all face from time to time in our walk before God. It penetrates that crushing place in our lives. When we try to make sense of the senseless. When the weight of it all seems too unbearable. When we come face to face with the true darkness in man, even within ourselves.

It is at those moments that God wants us alone in His garden. He wants us to rely upon Him even more in prayer. He wants us to be even more persistent in prayer. Not so much for the answer as it is for the strengthening of the relationship. For the deepening of faith. So that when we walk out of the crushing place we are even more resolved to do the will of the Father. More resolved to spread the Gospel message of love and salvation for all who call upon the name of Jesus Christ. More resolved to be light to the world that sees nothing but the darkness wrought by Jared Loughner.

May God continue to heal Congresswoman Giffords as a testimony to His miraculous power.

Reverend Anthony Wade January 11, 2011