Jesus once again tells us a parable. One like the “Temptations in the Wilderness,” which we cannot know by observation. He alone revealed it after His resurrection. This story is also about His assumption of all things human. The vicarious Life through which He carries us into His! It is filled with meaning because we all struggle with letting go of what we know to reach for what we do not! Our Lord has compassion on us in our struggle to become, for He knows the entrance into Life through His own resurrection! This struggle is prayer.
Luke 22:40-46 MSG
Leaving there, he went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. When they arrived at the place, he said, “Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.”
He pulled away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.
He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief. He said, “What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.”
Searching for the Good
MacDonald says, “He (God) calls to us that we would find Him in our pursuit. That there would be communication. The exchange of life that belongs to children and their Father!” This communication is prayer.
Notice that this story of Luke’s in the garden before Jesus’ betrayal begins and ends with, “Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.” Jesus is praying here because He, too, was tempted to choose the path of least resistance. “Father, remove this cup from me…” Jesus was fully man, as well as entirely God, and His humanity did not want to suffer and die as He would. His “flesh” wanting to take an easier and less painful way forward. To be tempted, to want to put our self-interest first, is to be human. “For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:18 NASB) “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15 NASB) He continues in Luke from above, “…But please, not what I want. What do you want?” This agony in prayer is with His Father and the Holy Spirit as He searches for the good, finding the love and doing it! Prayer’s full expression found in the doing of what our being has embraced!
Jesus on Prayer
We are more accustomed to prayer in the formal sense. Prayers that are often rehearsed and spoken in beautiful ways, both aloud and silently. This form of prayer is almost always a monologue — things we need or wish to say to God in adoration, worship, praise, and petition.
However, prayer like Jesus’ here is a different form of prayer, an ordinary one within, one of dialogue. But, unfortunately, we, too, often wrestle like this and fail to recognize it as prayer. Instead, we see it as a debate between our light and shadow sides within—a purely internal argument with ourselves, the temptation to selfishness.
The Spirit speaks Dale
Would not the Spirit’s voice within sound like us? Do we think God’s voice would be more formal, deeper in tone, and authoritative? Is this struggle not against God, but together with Him? Our not being alone in it, but together with Them in the temptation? Like Jesus in His temptation, we too wrestle with crises, events, situations, and circumstances in which we are conflicted. Yet, we also must find the good, the love, and do it!
This paradigm shift must resonate with anyone who takes faith seriously at all. If we can acknowledge it as prayer, recognize that the Spirit is contending with our spirits. We will be comforted and encouraged, encouraged that we are praying children after all. That even in our searching for the Truth, we are not alone in our struggle!
Jesus on Prayer is an introductory reflection on the Unspoken Sermon linked below: