May, 1934
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Father. He needed to pray, that He might have strength to face the death that lay before Him. He went a little farther on and knelt and prayed. After a while He came back to Peter and James and John. He found them asleep. He said: “What, could ye not watch with me one hour?” A second time He went and prayed. And a second time He came back and found them asleep. And a third time He came, and still they slept. When He needed them most, they were not awake and ready to help Him. Only a few minutes before, Peter had said to Jesus that no matter what should happen, and no matter who should forsake Jesus, he would go with Him, even to prison or to death. And there Peter was, sound asleep 1 He hadn’t the strength to even keep awake! If he had only asked God to give him strength, how differently he should have acted! He, too, might have been with Jesus, praying with Him that God would give strength for the great, hard task which lay ahead.
fers to “Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock" It is the same Greek word. 2. As we approach the garden of the agony of our Lord, let us not be afraid to see here the genuine struggle of One who was truly human. It is no honor to Him to empty this scene of its awful reality, and make it a mere Docetic sham, as some of the church fathers did. They did it to pro tect, as they thought, His true deity. But any diminishment of His humanity is just as much an error as to diminish His deity. Let us affirm both without reserve. The problem here is not any fear of physical death. It is rather the perfectly normal reaction of His holy humanity, in perfect communion with the Father—a shrinking away from the dreadful experience of being made sin and incurring its doom in separa tion from God. But our Lord won the victory, as He always did, and walked the path of obedience to the Father’s will. 3. Pictures of our Lord generally show Him kneeling in the garden. And it is true that Luke says: “He . . . kneeled down” (22:41). But this is not the whole picture. Mark says He “fell on the ground” (14:35). And Matthew says that He “fell on his face" (26:39). 4. There is infinite pathos in the failure of the three disciples in our Lord’s hour of need. They were closest to Him of all the twelve; yet they slept while He fought the battle alone, except for an angel sent from heaven to strengthen Him (Lk. 22:43). Golden T ext Illustration In the city of San Jose, California, close by a pretty little park where palm trees rustle and a tinkling fountain sometimes gently plays, stands Trinity Church. My eager steps often lead me along the street where the dim shadow of the cross upon the church tower slowly changes in re sponse to the swing over the heavens of the glowing sun. I love that shadow and what it represents, though it be beneath my feet. It depicts the cross that typifies the divine love of Christ down in the haunts of busy men. On cloudy or stormy days, we do not see the outline on the pavement, but always above us is the cross itself. Just so in the dull and bitter days of life we lose sight of the shadow if we look for it, but when we cast our eyes toward heaven, we perceive the reality of the great event of 1,900 years ago—we see the glory and the hope of the tree on which Jesus died.— W. C. A llen , in A Modern Cyclopedia of Illustrations, by Hallock. Jesus Praying M atthew 26:36-46 Memory Verse : “Not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39). Approach: The time had come when Jesus was to die. Even yet His disciples didn’t understand what was to happen. Jesus had tried to tell them in'many dif
In the midst of Christ’s agony, the dis ciples could calmly sleep, insensible to His need and suffering. He had told them to “watch and pray” that they might not enter into temptation. But not seeing anything against which they should watch, they promptly fell asleep. Perhaps, had they really watched and prayed, there would have been a different story to tell of their experiences on that night. There are many falls which have their beginnings in the failure to obey this inj unction of our Lord: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” When the struggle was over, the Lord re turned to the sleeping disciples and re vealed a calmness and confidence that could have come only from close fellowship with His Father. In our Lord’s manner during those hours, there was a dignity indescrib able, a quiet confidence which accompanied the victory gained when “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” He gained the victory by His integrity of purpose to have the Father’s will fulfilled, whatever cost to Him might be involved in the fulfillment of that will. Here we see the height of human perfection and divine love. Here we see what surrender to the Father’s will really is. Points and Problems 1. The English word “offended,” in verses 31 and 33, scarcely conveys the full meaning of the original. The Greek word is skandalidzo. It means “to cause one to stumble.” Certainly our Lord has in mind here His arrest, trial, suffering, and death. In the face of His own teaching, the dis ciples failed utterly to understand the ne cessity for His Passion as the path to His glory and kingdom. Therefore, He warns them that the apparent triumph of His enemies will “cause them to stumble.” In 1 Corinthians 1:23, the Apostle Paul re-
O bject Lesson S aying “Y es ”
Objects: A straight stick; a crooked stick, burned at both ends; and a glass full of ashes. Lesson: “Yes” is often a very difficult word to say. It is easy to say it when Father or Mother wants you to do some thing you like to do, but it is hard to say it when they ask you to mow the law or dry the dishes. It is well for us to always remember that Jesus said “Yes” to His Father even at times when that answer would mean the doing of something very difficult. He said: “Not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Not only did He say “Yes” to God in the garden of Gethsemane, as we learned in our Sunday- school lesson, but He had been saying it always. We are reminded of a verse in the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes: “Remem ber now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” Each boy and girl should remem ber God. This verse does not mean only that we should be reminded that God made the world, but it means that we should re member to do His will. JIf we do His will, we will accept Christ as Saviour, for to receive Jesus is the first thing that God wants each one to do. Do you boys think you could make some thing out of this straight stick, if you had a good jackknife? Yes, it is clean and straight, and could be shaped into some thing beautiful. God wants boys and girls in their youth to accept Christ as Saviour, and to allow their lives to be shaped in ac cordance with His will. What is the matter with this stick? It is burned and crooked. There is little or nothing that could be made of it. It was once clean and straight, but now it is warped and burned. Sin burns and twists tbe life. This is the reason why God wants us to remember Him in the days of our youth. Could you make a piece of furniture out
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ferent ways, but they couldn’t believe it. Wh en even His friends could not un derstand wh a t He mus t suffer, how lonely and sorrowful He must have felt! L esson S t o r y : Evening had come. Jesus went with His disciples into a gar den to pray. He left
all but three of the disciples at the entrance. They were very tired and they could rest there. He took Peter and James and John on farther with Him. He asked them to watch with Him as He prayed to the
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