Abide - Luke 22

Man holding Bible

Lizzie Reynolds offers the community a reflective and meditative space to journey together through the pages of the Gospel of Luke.

If you long for a change of pace and moments of contemplation, Lizzie helps us explore the themes in Luke chapter 22, verses 39 to 46, where Jesus prays passionately on the Mount of Olives.

Speaker: Elizabeth Reynolds
Chapel Date: Wednesday March 16, 2022
Download MP3 File of Abide - Luke 22
View All Chapel Podcasts
Subscribe to Podcast Feed


Podcast Transcript

Welcome to Abide: a time for us all to pull away into our spaces; to quiet the mind and the heart, and to become attentive to the Word of God - attentive to the Spirit of God in our lives. So, take this time now to find a place where you feel safe - where you feel comfortable where you won't be disturbed. And maybe this is sitting up nice and straight with your eyes gently closed or looking down, or maybe you're on a walk, or maybe you're lying down and just starting to quiet the body.

And let's all just take a nice deep breath in together to connect ourselves with our bodies with God and with one another. So, take a nice inhale in, and exhale out. And again, inhale in, and out.

I wonder, as we begin this prayer and we start to become aware of God with us, if you might just want to remember that image we've spoken about in the past, of a basket. And now is a good time to just place any worry or concern or responsibility or things that are on your list of things to do today, and just place each one into the basket in front of you. So, I'm going to give you a moment for this practice, to sort of unload the backpack of concerns and to make space - to make room for the Word of God to dwell.

I'm reminded anew each day that Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who weary and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest.” This is a time where we can lay down the burdens and experience some rest, and that it is Christ’s desire to do this- for us to come to Him, and that He would take these burdens so that we can leave this prayer time feeling lighter - more free.

So, if anytime during this prayer those thoughts and concerns hop out of the basket and back into your lap, that's OK. You can just gently, mentally take that thought or concern and put it back in the basket and just be reminded that Jesus is right there with you, and He desires for you to let go and to release these things into His care. So, begin to relax your face and the muscles of the face, the eyes, the cheeks, the jaw by just gently unhinging the jaw; relaxing the shoulders, the back, the stomach, the hips, the legs, all the way down to the feet. Soften any of the tight places in your body and release, and let go. And allow your body to let down into the presence of a loving Savior.

Our gratitude practice today- there's quite a bit of freedom in space. And so, I'm going to give you 2 minutes on the clock, and I'd love for you just to reflect what the past few days have been like for you, and where has God – in His mercy and grace – come nearer to you? Maybe it would be in very small ways. Maybe it'll be in very big ways. But let's take this time now to look back and see, and notice, and thank God for all His goodness. And so, we'll start the time now.

You're doing such a beautiful job, that's one minute, and now we have one more to go. And again, it can be many things or maybe just one thing, and you really focus in on it. Discover the beauty of it again.

Today our Scripture reading is in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22, verses 39 to 46. And we've journeyed quite a distance with Jesus in these months, haven't we? We've gotten to watch Him love and serve and speak to; to heal, to give truth, to see the outcast to see the broken. And now we are getting down to the final week of Jesus’ life on Earth. And Jesus has spent time with the disciples in the Last Supper; He has washed their feet. He has given everything of Himself, and now we are at the place where He will go and pray in the garden. And so, I'm going to read the scripture two times, with pauses in between. And in between the pauses I'll say a phrase that we’ll repeat together, that can be quite meaningful in this time, in this passage. And if it's helpful for you to bring physical gestures into this prayer today, you might want to gently open your hands and lay them on your lap. It's just an opening- that your soul is open, that your heart is open, that your hands are open to receive this word today.

Jesus went out, as usual, to the Mount of Olives and His disciples followed Him. On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation”. He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

An angel from Heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. And when He rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, He found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. “Why are you sleeping”, He asked. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. Stay with me. Remain with me. Watch and pray.”

Stay with me. Remain with me. Watch and pray.

As I read the Scripture again, listen for a word or a phrase that intrigues you - that sticks. And allow the Spirit to guide you to that phrase or that word.

Jesus went out, as usual, to the Mount of Olives and His disciples followed Him. On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation”. He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

An angel from Heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. And when He rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, He found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. “Why are you sleeping”, He asked. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. Stay with me. Remain with me. Watch and pray.”

Stay with me. Remain with me. Watch and pray.

As I read the Scripture a third time, see how that word or that phrase takes more shape or finds its way into your own heart, your own life, your own circumstances.

Jesus went out, as usual, to the Mount of Olives and His disciples followed Him. On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation”. He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

An Angel from Heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. And when He rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, He found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. “Why are you sleeping”, He asked. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. Stay with me. Remain with me. Watch and pray.”

Stay with me. Remain with me. Watch and pray.

We read here that Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives. That this was a regular place to connect with the Father. Jesus is so committed in obeying His Father– so committed in living out the life that the Father has for Him. We see this commitment every step of the way in the life of Jesus, and I ask you and I ask myself today, what does it mean to be committed to something? How do you stay committed? What does it mean to be committed to our journey with Jesus? How do we stay committed?

This will not be easy. It will take prayer, reading and friends and accountability and effort, grace, faith, trust. Jesus, as we sit here with our hands open, our hearts open, we ask you to help us stay committed to our lives - our lives that are made to serve you alone, to follow you alone.

As Jesus heads up the mountain, He sees that his friends are following Him and asks His friends to pray because Satan is behind a lot of forces that are happening right now, and work and watching and waiting and praying are required in order to stay committed. And I ask us, are we aware of the daily temptations that keep us sleepy or lazy? Or the temptation to drift and to lose interest? It seems here that Jesus is asking us to keep watch and stay on guard as if we need to take care of our hearts and our minds and our bodies, and that it will take effort to care for such things.

We so often fail to stand by Jesus, to stay awake, to remain to watch and to pray. Yet we are encouraged to continue to do so and so Jesus, as we sit here with our hands, open our hearts open. We ask for a renewed strength to keep watch, to stay awake, to pray, to continue to be on guard for our hearts, our minds, our bodies as we continue to walk and stay committed to you.

We enter deeper into the Scripture as we see Jesus kneeling down and praying. He's talking openly and gently and intensely and desperately to His Father: “Father, if you're willing, take this cup from me.” We see Jesus - he's in extreme pain and stress and doubt and fear, and He's releasing all of this to His Father. What an important practice to kneel down and to surrender all of this grief to the Father. And maybe today you have grief about our broken world, or maybe you're hurting from broken relationships, from disappointments of friends and parents and pastors. Maybe you are so sad about losses of loved ones and stresses of class and papers and just the daily-ness of life.

This is such a wonderful example we have from Jesus to kneel down and to release all of our sorrow and our cares to the Father. And we see hereafter Jesus releases all of that – all of His desire – He then says, “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” Again, such an important invitation that after we share our deep sorrows, or deep frustrations, or broken dreams that we turn toward the greater good – the greater plan – which the Father has for us and we commit ourselves to that.

And so, Lord, again with open hands and open hearts, we ask that you would help us to communicate freely with you the challenges of everyday life in relationships and living in the world– the suffering, the small things and the very, very big. Lord, we ask that you would give us the strength to then shift to your will, for your greater understanding of our lives and the lives of those we love and the lives of all people. We surrender that under your care again today.

We then have an angel from Heaven appear to Jesus, and strengthen Him. I wonder, have you noticed the angels in your life that come to strengthen you to encourage you? Now this angel did not take away Jesus’ task or make everything better. But it was a relief for a moment; it was a strengthening; it was a kindness; it was a compassion. I wonder if this is an invitation for our eyes to see and be aware of the ways in which God the Father wants to communicate to us in the midst of our suffering– in the midst of the world suffering– that He will bring messengers of hope, of love, of light, to help us endure what is happening.

So, God once again we open our hands and our hearts to see and to know that you send messengers to encourage us to help us take a breath, and then to continue deeper into our story.

We see here that after the angel strengthened him, Jesus, being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Our Savior, bearing the sorrow of the world here. And so, we just sit and we honor Him. We thank Him, and we receive strength from His example to carry out His commitment to the Father- His commitment to us.
And Jesus rose after this experience and went to see his disciples because they are very sad and very confused about all that's happening. Jesus reminds them to keep watch; to pray so that you won't fall into temptation, for these are challenging times. And so, friends, as we continue on our journeys in this life, in our own sorrows and in the sorrows of the world, may we open our hands and our hearts to know that our Savior walked this road before us and showed us the way, that He is the perfect, most beautiful Savior and that we can take great comfort and strength in Him.

So, as you go forward into the rest of your day, may this word, may these phrases, may these Scriptures rest upon you and give you His peace and His love and His hope. We pray all these things in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, as it is now, and as it ever shall be, world without end. Go in our Saviors great, vast love and care this day.

— End of transcript —