Intense Prayer

It was a moment packed with tension. After celebrating Passover with His disciples, Jesus revealed that one of them would betray Him. Then, He led them to a garden, calling them to prayer. Going apart to be the Father, Jesus prayed so “fervently” that “His sweat became like drops of blood” (Luke 22:44).

Through the centuries, this scene has been depicted in countless ways as artists have tried to describe this moment. In his 1890 painting, “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane,” German painter, Heinrich Hofmann, envisioned Jesus kneeling, leaning against a boulder, eyes looking plaintively into Heaven.

Ambrogio Bergognone imagined this moment quite differently in “The Agony in the Garden,” painted in 1501. He depicted Jesus with a kind of cold serenity, a distant reverence, with a background of light.

In 1889, Nikolai Gay imagined the scene in near total darkness in his painting, “Christ and the disciples going out into the Garden.” We detect the outlines of Jesus and a few disciples. We sense the mystery, the danger, and the many unknowns.

In our own lives, each of us needs to enter into this holy moment for ourselves, in the Spirit. A moment to sense all that Jesus went through that night. The agony He endured. The depth of His suffering. How much He cared for His disciples. How much He wanted them to watch and pray that they might not enter into temptation. To realize that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Seek to enter that moment in your heart and mind. Praying. Seeking God. Humble. Overwhelmed.