Weeping Jesus

WEEPING JESUS

a prayer to open

Help me experience your presence. Lead me to deeper levels of trust.

Give me the courage to put my hands in yours.

Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”

Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, “My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done.” When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open.

So he went to pray a third time, saying the same things again. Then he came to the disciples and said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But look—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”

• Use your imagination to enter into this passage of Scripture. Close your eyes and picture yourself there with Jesus. Where do you find yourself? Are you on the sidelines or at the center of the action? What do you see, hear, smell? What do you notice about Jesus?
• How did you experience Jesus in this imaginative time?
• Read Isaiah 51:17-23. What does Isaiah’s prophecy illuminate about Jesus’ experience in the garden of Gethsemane?

Lord Jesus, you wept and grieved as you drank

down the dregs of my sin and the sin of the world.

May I feel the weight of your grief.

May I know the pain of your weeping.

May I sense your presence in the darkness.