Once again, while I am away speaking (at my final conference of the summer), I have not left you Podcast-less!
Welcome to Decision Night at Hartland Christian Camp.
As you will hear in the PODCAST, even though this message was not delivered at Safe Haven, it is the perfect followup to last week’s discussion of Passover.
I mentioned last week, and will remind you now, that before His arrest, Jesus had to keep a divine appointment in the Garden of Gethsemane. I didn’t explain that then; I do explain it now.
If you want to know what it meant for Jesus to bear the weight of your sin (and mine), this is THE picture of exactly what that meant.
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
They say that “one picture is worth a thousand words.”
Sometimes, on rare occasions, one word is worth a thousand pictures. As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, this is one of those occasions.
In this case, that one word is “Gethsemane.”
As in the Garden of Gethsemane, that very garden to which John referred when he wrote,
“On the other side (of the Kidron Valley) there was a garden, and Jesus and his disciples went into it.”
I would not be overstating the case to suggest that everything you and I need to understand about the Gospel is contained in that one word all-telling, “Gethsemane.”
Gethsemane, ironically a place of peaceful repose, first pops up on our radar in Matthew’s account of this anything-but-peace-filled night. He wrote with no explanation,
“Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, ‘Sit here while I go and pray over there.’”
No explanation was needed, at least for Matthew’s original readers. All would have been abundantly familiar with the modest-sized cultivated enclosure nestled snuggly into the base of the Mount of Olives. A scenic/welcome retreat from the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem in general and the Temple complex in particular.
Now, courtesy of this podcast, let me take you there.
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.