Sweating Blood
The Gethsemane Prayer (52 Ways to Pray)
In the garden of Gethsemane, on the eve of his crucifixion, we see Jesus at his most human.
He knows what is coming. The gravity is sinking in. He’s praying fervently, searching for the strength to face his fate.
“And his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” (Luke 22:44)
This was a moment of incredible, almost unbearable tension. In it we see, as Ronald Rolheiser says, “the necessary connection between suffering and faith.”
But we are averse to tension. The culture we inhabit is obsessed with quick relief, with black and white, with us and them.
Our discomfort with tension is the root of both our impatience in traffic and our hopelessly polarized politics. It is simply easier to be all on side or another than to stay in the stretching space in between.
We go to incredible lengths to spare ourselves the pain of tension. We medicate our every illness. We avoid conflict with others. We numb our anxiety with social media and alcohol and television. We flee to ideological tribes rather than navigate nuance. In the arena of our faith, we want so badly to tie a neat theological bow around every hardship.
But tension, Rolheiser says, is a gestation process. It is a long-suffering that slowly, eventually, gives birth to transformation. We cannot abort it early.
“[Jesus] carried hatred, anger, jealousy, and wound long enough until he was able to transform them into forgiveness, compassion, and love. Only someone who has already sweated real blood to remain true to what is highest and best will be able to look at his or her own murderers and say: ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.’”
-Ronald Rolheiser
When we cannot find words for the great tensions in our lives, when we don’t know what to pray, we can draft in Jesus’ faith by borrowing his words:
Mark 14:32-36
32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”
35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba,[f] Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Practice
36 “Abba,[f] Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Mark 14:36
In this short prayer, we see three profound movements:
Intimacy with the Father
Abba, Father, everything is possible for you.
Call him Abba. Rest your prayer in the sure arms of your Father in heaven. Remind your soul of his strength and his goodness.
Honesty in suffering
Take this cup from me.
Admit your pain. Ask God to take it away. Don’t sanitize your suffering.
A yielding to God’s will
Yet not what I will, but what you will.
Release your expectations. You may even open your palms wide as an embodied symbol of letting go of what you want. Bow to the higher thoughts and ways of God, and ask for the faith to trust him.
“The location at which we say Abba to God has always something of Gethsemane about it; it is the place where the son comes home to the security of his father’s love and knows that he can trust it and all the provisions that will make for him, but it is also the place where he is called and enabled for a new and costly obedience, where the way ahead is going to have in it something of death and something of glory, till at least there is final death and final glory. That is the inheritance of all God’s children.”
Thomas Smail
Amen.
Comment below:
Where in your life are you currently being asked to live in tension rather than resolve it?
Which part of Jesus’ prayer is hardest for you right now: intimacy, honesty, or yielding?
What would it look like to stop rushing your prayers and stay with God in discomfort?
If this stirred something in you, share it with a friend who’s craving a deeper way to pray:
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Grace and peace.
-gb
What was tremendously healing for me was the first time I recognized that even Jesus prayed--"if there be any other way, nevertheless thy will be done." In desperate (tension) times it has been a relief to just offer up that prayer.