Shaping a Prayer on the Anvil of the Knees.
The last of these pictures is like Raphael's Sistine Madonna in the
Dresden gallery; it is in a room by itself. One enters with a holy hush
over his spirit, and, with awe in his eyes, looks at _Jesus in
Gethsemane_. There is the Kidron brook, the gentle rise of ground, the
grove of gnarled knotty old olive trees. The moon above is at the full.
Its brightness makes these shadowed recesses the darker; blackly dark.
Here is a group of men lying on the ground apparently asleep. Over yonder
deeper in among the trees a smaller group reclines motionless. They, too,
sleep. And, look, farther in yet is that lone figure; all alone; nevermore
alone; save once--on the morrow.
There is a foreshadowing of this Gethsemane experience in the requested
interview of the Greeks just a few intense days before. In the vision
which the Greeks unconsciously brought the agony of the olive grove began.
The climax is among these moon-shadowed trees. How sympathetic those inky
black shadows! It takes bright light to make black shadows. Yet they were
not black enough. Intense men can get so absorbed in the shadows as to
forget the light.
This great Jesus! Son of God: God the Son. The Son of Man: God--a man! No
draughtsman's pencil ever drew the line between His divinity and humanity;
nor ever shall. For the union of divine and human is itself divine, and
therefore clear beyond human ken. Here His humanity stands out,
pathetically, luminously stands out. Let us speak of it very softly and
think with the touch of awe deepening for this is holiest ground. The
battle of the morrow is being fought out here. Calvary is in Gethsemane.
The victory of the hill is won in the grove.
It is sheer impossible for man with sin grained into his fibre through
centuries to understand the horror with which a sinless one thinks of
actual contact with sin. As Jesus enters the grove that night it comes in
upon His spirit with terrific intensity that He is actually coming into
contact--with a meaning quite beyond us--coming into contact with sin. In
some way all too deep for definition He is to be "made sin."[23] The
language used to describe His emotions is so strong that no adequate
English words seem available for its full expression. An indescribable
horror, a chill of terror, a frenzy of fright seizes Him. The poisonous
miasma of sin seems to be filling His nostrils and to be stifling Him. And
yonder alone among the trees the agony is upon Him. The extreme grips Him.
May there not yet possibly be some other way rather than _this--this!_ A
bit of that prayer comes to us in tones strangely altered by deepest
emotion. "_If it be possible--let this cup pass_." There is still a
clinging to a possibility, some possibility other than that of this
nightmare vision. The writer of the Hebrews lets in light here. The strain
of spirit almost snaps the life-thread. And a parenthetical prayer for
strength goes up. And the angels come with sympathetic strengthening. With
what awe must they have ministered! Even after that some of the red life
slips out there under the trees. By and by a calmer mood asserts itself,
and out of the darkness a second petition comes. It tells of the tide's
turning, and the victory full and complete. _A changed, petition_ this!
"_Since this cup may not pass_--since only thus _can_ Thy great plan for a
world be wrought out--_Thy--will_"--slowly but very distinctly the words
come--"_Thy--will--be--done._"
_The changed prayer was wrought out upon His knees!_ With greatest
reverence, and a hush in our voices, let us say that there alone with the
Father came the clearer understanding of the Father's actual will under
these circumstances.
"Into the woods my Master went
Clean forspent, forspent;
Into the woods my Master came
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him;
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
"Out of the woods my Master went
And He was well content;
Out of the woods my Master came
Content with death and shame.
When death and shame would woo Him last
From under the trees they drew Him last
'Twas on a tree they slew Him--last
When out of the woods He came."[24]
True prayer is wrought out upon the knees alone with God. With deepest
reverence, and in awed tones, let it be said, that _that was true of
Jesus_ in the days of His humanity. How infinitely more of us!
Shall we not plan to meet God alone, habitually, with the door shut, and
the Book open, and the will pliant so we may be trained for this holy
partnership of prayer. Then will come the clearer vision, the broader
purpose, the truer wisdom, the real unselfishness, the simplicity of
claiming and expecting, the delights of fellowship in service with Him;
then too will come great victories for God in His world. Although we
shall not begin to know by direct knowledge a tithe of the story until the
night be gone and the dawning break and the ink-black shadows that now
stain the earth shall be chased away by the brightness of His presence.
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