Luke 22:39-46

This morning I spoke at OCC on Luke 22:39-46.

He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.”

These are interesting verses as they precede the whole death, burial and resurrection sequence.

They are also interesting from the perspective of the decision that Jesus made. It is truly frightening to think of what life would be like if Jesus had gone... "oh stuff it... this is all too hard... I'm out of here". If Jesus had not surrendered his will to that of God's we would be completely up the creek. Fortunately for us he stood strong.

This contrasts with the disciples in this story who 'went fetal'. They checked out and gave up.

I guess this is one of the challenges for a modern day Christian. How do we surrender ourselves to God's will and not 'go fetal'? It seems to me that they answer is to look at what Jesus valued and follow that. Essentially this is making what Jesus wants in our lives more important than our wants. We surrender our desires to his.

The funny think is that when we do this, things seem to work better. This is because we start living our lives the way they are designed to be lived. Sometimes this takes a while to happen but it is always better.


This sermon was the first sermon I have done off bullet points. I am trying to learn how to speak without a word for word script. It is quite different. I think I still have a lot to learn.