Thanksgiving and Giving Thanks

It’s an odd sort of thing we do this time of year.

I don’t mean odd in a bad way.  It’s actually quite beautiful to set aside a day to spend with family “giving thanks” for all that God has given us.  We all know that Abraham Lincoln signed Thanksgiving Day into existence as a national observance over a century and a half ago.  We also know that the holiday itself has much deeper roots than that.  Even on American soil, the holiday is over five centuries old, dating back to the classic feast celebrated by the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock. 

And it’s not like the Pilgrims made the idea up.  God’s people have been sharing thanksgiving meals together since the dawn of written history.  We’re all aware of the “animal sacrifices” of the Old Testament.  In Christian theology, we usually speak of these sacrifices primarily in terms of the blood offerings which somehow foreshadow the work of Christ on the cross.  This aspect of the sacrificial system is indeed important.  But we often miss the equally important celebratory aspect of the offerings.  Most of the required sacrifices commemorated some special act which God had done in the life of His people.  All but a very few also involved a communal meal.  The blood and fat of the animal was sacrificed, along with one hindquarter.  The remainder of the animal was taken home by the celebrant and eaten together with family and friends, party style.  When we read that Noah sacrificed on an altar after the flood, there was almost certainly a thanksgiving feast involved.  Likewise with Abel, Abraham, Job, and Moses.

The impulse to give thanks is so primitive, in fact, that it’s really odd that we haven’t gotten better at it over time.  Many families will gather, eat until they can’t move, plow through the Mall Mobs on Black Friday, and complain about bad calls in a myriad of football games without ever pausing to reflect on why we call the day thanksgiving to start with.  Some of us will only be thankful when it’s over.

One day a year has been set aside for us as a nation to give thanks, and we struggle to meet that simplest requirement.  We’re like gratitude camels, storing up our thank-yous all year long in hopes of remembering a few of them at the kick-off of the Holiday eating season.

By rights, there should be no Thanksgiving holiday.  We should be thankful continually.

Maybe we should institute a National Day of Griping, instead.  For 364 days out of every year we should be gloriously, exuberantly thankful.  Then on the third Thursday in November, we could gather to voice all of the complaints we’ve been storing up all year.  We could comment on how the Turkey is even drier than last year and how bad the crowds are at the mall.  We could paste on dreary faces.

We could all become University of Kentucky football fans for the day.

Then, when it’s over, we could all return to our grateful, thanksgiving-filled lives, knowing that Christmas and basketball season are just around the corner.

Barring all of that, though, we should at least find within ourselves the grace to spend one day in joyful reflection for all of what God has done for us.

May your turkey be moist and your Thanksgiving Day truly blessed.

A Well Rounded Faith

A couple of years ago, Jeff Foxworthy hit the television with a show called “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”  The premise of the show was familiar.  Contestants answered questions to earn money.  They decided when to keep what they had earned and when to risk their earnings in order to answer another question and earn even more money.  The twist involved the nature of the questions.  Questions for the show were gleaned from elementary school text books.  In other word, they were things that all of us, once upon a time, probably knew but have now mostly forgotten.

As I comb my memory for factoids I remember from elementary school, the most enduring thing I can dredge up is “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”

I’ve since learned that Columbus was probably not the first European to land in the Americas, and that he had no idea before he set out that there even were Americas.  It’s become fashionable to trot these facts out at Columbus Day to sort of knock a bit of the luster off the story we learned in fifth grade.  In spite of these little quibbles, though, what Columbus did was wildly remarkable.

Scientists in Europe had been speculating on the shape of the earth for some time, of course.  Aristarchus is the first to have published the theory, back in the third century, only to have his ideas quashed by the prevailing Aristotelian school of philosophy.  In Columbus’ day, astronomers found themselves at odds with the Roman Catholic Church.  Nevertheless, the idea that the world was round and orbited around the Sun had gained traction in the thinking community, and most experienced sailors had quietly shifted from the old way of reading their navigational instruments to new procedures based on the new science that just plain worked better.

Within a decade or so of Columbus voyage, Copernicus would publish his famous paper which would launch further explorations by scientists like Galileo and Kepler.  Galileo, in particular, would face sever persecution from the Church for his insistence on this new picture of the universe.

So what did Columbus do?  He didn’t make the Earth round, of course.  Neither was he the first to say that he thought that it was.  He didn’t even succeed in proving that the Earth was round.  The debate about the shape of the Earth continued for centuries after his famous voyages.

What he did:  Columbus found himself living in a world with two very different ideas about the shape of reality.  He chose one, and he set about the business of living as though it were true.  For Columbus, the question of the shape of the world was not merely academic.  It was a matter which shaped his actions and course he plotted through the world.  He didn’t just say that the world was round, he lived it.

I think modern Christians are often far too preoccupied with polishing up the details of our belief system.  We speak of “belief” in terms of the things we are willing to say are true, and we promote the idea of a salvation based solely our academic insistence on this particular set of facts.  I’m not sure that this is what Paul had in mind when he used the word “faith.”  Biblical faith appears to be a more dynamic and active sort of thing…  not so much what we say is true as living as though we really believe it.

If the church at the turn of the sixteenth century had been watching, they would have witnessed a profound act of true faith being perpetrated by a heretic.

Chasing Chariots

Over the last couple of weeks, the Common Lectionary has taken us on a couple of road trips. 

Last week, Luke's gospel recounted the story of the Road to Emmaus, the famous post-resurrection event in which Jesus walks along the road with his disciples unrecognized until he is invited into their home to break bread.

This week, we Encounter Philip in the eighth chapter of Acts as he comes alongside an Ethiopian eunuch to teach him about Christ. 

Philip is known (traditionally) as "the Evangelist," based largely on the weight of this story.  The setting falls into the period immediately following the first Jewish persecution of the church in Jerusalem.  Many of the first converts to Christianity (including Philip) have left the city to live in the world at large.  Traditionally, the Apostle John travels to Asia Minor, for example.  One legend places Mary Magdalene in southern France during this period.

Philip, evidently, decided not to stray so far from Jerusalem.  The first we hear of him outside of Jerusalem places him in Samaria.  You don't have to be much of a Bible scholar to know how Traditional Jews felt about Samaritans in those days.  The bad blood went back generations.  That Philip would set out from Jerusalem to take up ministry in Samaria says a lot about his heart and character.  What ever drove him from Jerusalem, it probably wasn't fear, and it certainly wasn't a desire to find a comfortable place to live out his years.  This was a man driven by his calling, and a man who believed that the fulfillment of his calling meant living and ministering among marginalized people.

The trend continues in the story of the Ethiopian eunuch.  The text tells us that this man was returning from worship in Jerusalem.  What the text doesn't tell us, because the author would have assumed that his readers all knew, was that as a foreigner and a eunuch, the man would have been doubly forbidden to enter the Temple.  Evidently, he traveled there to simply get as close to the God he had come to believe in as he could.  It would have gone without saying in his own mind that there would always be some irreconcilable distance between himself and God.

But what distance he can cover for himself, he covers.  In fact, he has either borrowed or purchased a copy of a scroll containing the writings of Isaiah.  This is one of several indicators in the story that this man was a somebody.  Regular joes didn't drive around in chariots or own scrolls.  This fellow was some kind of dignitary.

According to the text, Philip ran to meet the chariot.  Apparently, he also jogged along side the chariot for at least a few minutes, discussing the scriptures, before the eunuch finally invites him to step up into the chariot.

The parallels between these two stories can hardly be coincidental.  Just as Jesus walked along side the disciples on the road, so his disciple, Philip walked alongside the eunuch's chariot.  Just as Jesus waited to be invited into the disciple's home, Philip waited to be invited into the eunuch's chariot.  In both stories, scriptures are explained.  In both stories, Jesus is ultimately revealed.

It's almost as if Philip is trying to imitate his rabbi.

I wonder what it would look like to "walk along side" the marginalized in our own time?  What if we learned to simply wait until those whose journeys we share were ready to ask their questions and invite our responses?

This is a scriptural picture of evangelism that I think the church needs to recapture for today.

By the Way...

I once heard a comedian comment that he loved people with a sense of humor.  He told of a time he overheard a passenger aboard an airplane ask the stewardess how much longer until the plane landed in Miami.

"Gosh.  I don't know," she answered.  "We've never actually made it that far."

I hope she was joking.  And not just because planes are supposed to land in airports.  We all know they usually do.

But if I ever DO wind up on a plane destined to go down in a ball of flames, I'd like to think there's a chance that at least one person on the plane would meet the occasion with good humor.  After all, is there any evidence that bracing yourself against the seat in front of you and hyperventilating actually makes any sort of difference in this situation?

Nope.  Didn't think so. 

May as well enjoy what's left of the ride.


Look at it this way:  at least there's a chance that you and your baggage will land at pretty close to the same time.


All kidding aside, the real problem with airline travel is airports, anyway.  And it's not just that they're anonymous, soulless buildings with over-priced restaurants.  It's the whole idea of a whole mode of travel that's destination-driven.  Air travel is a beginning and ending with a vast empty space in between.  No number of in-flight movies or bags of peanuts can make up for the fact that you're hurtling through space in a sensory deprivation chamber just waiting to be someplace else.


Get on a bike, or take a walk or a ride in the car, and you're on a journey.  It's not just about a destination, it's about all the little places you go through along the way.


Ours is a goal-oriented, product-driven, destination-loving culture.  And all that type A angst has found its way into our spirituality.  American Protestantism has become all about achieving salvation (through faith, of course... not works) and arriving safely at our eternal destination.


Jesus spoke seldom to people about going to Heaven.  I don't think the destination is what drove him.  After all, he'd already been there.


On one occasion, though, he did talk about going back.  He told his disciples "Where I go, there you shall be also..."


They must have exchanged meaningful glance before Thomas piped up with the obvious question.

"Uh.  Where exactly is it we're going again?  I need to put it in my GPS."


At least I think he said something like that.  I didn't actually take the time to look up the Bible verses, but I remember it being something like that.


Jesus passes up a perfect opportunity, here, to talk about the glories of the final destination and spell out the details of exactly how to get there.  Instead he says (again, I'm working from memory here):


"Way?  You want to know the way?  You want a road map?  What fun is that?  No, no, no."


Then he grinned a lopsided grin and said  "Me.  I'm the way.  I'm all you need to know."


And then he prayed a prayer and started walking.


If there's a one way, non-stop flight to Heaven, please feel free to stand in line and buy your ticket. 

For my part. I'd rather find a few good-natured traveling companions and go on foot.  Who knows what we'll see and discover along the Way.

Mobile Home

Last week, the Lectionary pointed us toward 2 Samuel 7:1-14. This passage tells us of King David's desire to build a Temple for his God. David shares this desire with the prophet Nathan, who at first recognizes this as a noble sentiment. David, after all, is seeking to offer up his best for the Lord. He finds himself uncomfortable living in luxury while the Ark (and the presence of God) are relegated to a tent at the edge of town.

Nathan is thrilled that David's conscience has been pricked in this particular way, and announces that God's hand is on the king. Nathan, like many of us, has probably seen way to much of the attitude that assigns God as the recipient of our leftovers and cast-offs. He sees in David a man who would give God a worthy gift.

He is surprised, then, when God visits him in a dream and announces that he doesn't want a Temple. God instructs Nathan to stop David, to tell David that no Temple is necessary:

⁵ "Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? ⁶ I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling.
⁷ Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" '
God asserts that he never asked for a Temple. Further, he reminds David that his Temple is wherever his people go:

⁸ "Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. ⁹ I have been with you wherever you have gone...


God is perfectly comfortable in a "mobile" home. He never sought to tie himself to a place, but to a people. He seems touched, however, by the sincerity of David's offer, and responds with a promise:

" 'The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: ¹² When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴ I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. ¹⁵ But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. ¹⁶ Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me ^b]">[b] ; your throne will be established forever.' "

Ensuing generations of Jews take verse 13 to apply to Solomon, who does indeed build the first Temple in Jerusalem. Solomon's Temple, however, like his throne, turns out to be temporary in nature. It falls into disrepair and must be extensively repaired, first by Josiah, and later by Hezekiah. Finally, it is destroyed by an invading force. The Prophets insist this invasion is the consequence of Israel's sin.

After the Babylonian Exile, Ezra rebuilds the Temple and calls upon the people to renew their covenant with God. A few generations later, though, this Temple is desecrated by the Persians under Antiochus Epiphanes. The stones of the altar are scattered and the sacrifices once again come to a halt. The Maccabees rebel against the Persians and rebuild the Temple altar and resume the sacrifices, but many of their contemporaries find the new Temple order to be polluted by a corrupt and unqualified priesthood.

The Temple itself receives a major overhaul under King Herod. As an edifice, Herod's Temple was noted by many in its day to be the most spectacular place of worship in existence. Herod radically expanded the Temple Mount to include a vastly larger courtyard for the Gentiles. His building project involved fillinf in a valley between to adjacent mountaintops, and extending the southern hilltop some distance into the city by building a massive retaining wall some fifty feet high. Be built massive public entrances, including a large ceremonial stoa to the south (The Southern Stairs) a broad, winding staircase connecting to the Roman Cardo (Robinson's Arch) and an elevated causeway that connected the wealthy palace district to the Temple so that the Priests and other powerful patrons could enter the Temple without mingling with the rabble.

For all of its grandeur, however, Herod's Temple was still governed by an illegitimate priesthood. Herod himself, in fact, was not even Jewish, much less a descendant of David. Priest and King alike were all puppets of Rome who carefully oversaw all that happened in the Temple district. The Romans actually occupied a fortress adjacent to and overlooking the Temple courts. They also held the priestly vestments under lock and key, guaranteeing that no worship could take place without their say so. Many Jews in the days of Herod found all of this objectionable and refused to recognize the authority of the Temple as it now stood.

Among these was a travelling rabbi from Galilee by the name of Jesus who entered the Temple gounds just before Passover and declared them "desolate." he symbolically overturned the tables of the moneychangers and drove out the sacrificial animals. He spoke of his own body as the true Temple and indicated that if it were destroyed, it could be raised back up in three days.

This was an understandably dangerous statement. Jesus' words and actions in the Temple undercut the entire political power structure of Jerusalem and Israel in his day. Eventually, it is for his words against the Temple that Jesus is found guilty of sedition and he is crucified.

One of his early followers, a man named Stephen, is also accused of speaking against the temple. He is stoned to death for this impertinence, but not before he preaches a lengthy sermon, including a reference to David's aborted desire to build a Temple:

^7:45Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, ⁴⁶who enjoyed God's favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.^k]">[k] ⁴⁷But it was Solomon who built the house for him.

⁴⁸"However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:
⁴⁹" 'Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord.
Or where will my resting place be?
⁵⁰Has not my hand made all these things?'^l]">[l]

⁵¹"You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!

Stephen's point seems to be that Solomon's Temple was a mistake from the word go. God's intention had never been to live in a Temple, but for his Spirit to dwell in the lives of his people. God preffered a mobile home. This sort of talk got him killed.

Among those who attended on Stephen's stoning was a man named Pauls, who would later write to his own followers in Corinth:

^{1 Corinthians 3:16}Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? ¹⁷If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

Another of Jesus' followers, Peter, noted that much of what Paul wrote was "difficult to understand." However, on the notion of what constituted the true Temple, he evidently agreed:

^{1 Peter 2:4}As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— ⁵you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For all of these would be followers of Jesus, then, we find a common notion. The Temple in Jerusalem was a human institution. God's promise to David in 2 Samuel referred to something else: a coming king who would establish a Temple and reign forever. Hmm... let think about it...

A visit to the Temple Ruins in Jerusalem is bittersweet at so many levels. On the one hand, one is able to walk in a place where we can be certain that Jesus walked, and these places are rare, even in the Holy Land. On the other hand, no site has been the center of more interfaith conflict. The Temple Mount itself is now virtually off limits to Jews and Christians alike, a Moslem Holy Site.

And then there is a visit to the Western Wall, where devout Jews may be witnessed offering up prayers and weeping bitter tears for a bygone age. They continue to pray (as do many of their Christian counterparts) for the reconstruction of the Temple, unaware that the true Temple was destroyed by our own sinfulness two thousand years ago.

And then raised up.

That the dwelling place of God, the resurrected body of Christ, is now (has always been?) his people.

A mobile home.

All In the Same Boat

Almost everybody on our recent trip to Israel will tell you that the Sea of Galilee was one of their highlights. This is pretty predictable, of course. As Christians, many of our most treasured stories took place on or around this inland sea.

The sea itself is really a modestly sized lake, measuring about six by thirteen miles. One can stand on the shore and see across in both directions. Most of the time, the water is amazingly calm. So, also, are the holy sites that dot its shores. The churches here are of modest scale, usually surrounded by serene countryside and pastoral beauty.

All of this peace and quiet can be deceptive. At the Northwest corner of the lake stands Mt. Arbel. The mountain is not named in the gospel narrative, but it is actually a major player in one of our most beloved stories of Jesus, told here in the words of Mark, Chapter 4:


That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

Mount Arbel figures into this story in two important ways.

First, this mountain stands as a gatepost to the valley which cuts from the Sea of Galilee to the Western Seaboard of Israel. As such, it defines the line for the major trading routes cutting from the North and East (Syria, Persia, and the Orient) to the South and West (Jerusalem, Egypt, and Rome.) The northern shore of the Sea of Galilee in Jesus' day was a hopping place. Excavations at Capernaum have begun to uncover the truth that Capernaum was no sleepy little fishing village, but a way-station on a major commercial thoroughfare. This accounts for the "crowds" mentioned in the story.

"Crowd" may have been a bit of an understatement here. There are indications, in fact, that "mob" might have been a better word. In Chapter 2 of Mark, the crowd has ripped the roof off of a house to get at Jesus. In Chapter 3, Mark comments that Jesus and his disciples "could not even eat" as they tried to take cover indoors. Chapter 3 also tells us that Jesus begins to preach from a boat to avoid being "crowded" (translate "mobbed".)

This, of course, is what Jesus came for. Nevertheless, the insistence of the mob appears to take its toll. I don't think I'm just projecting my own introversion onto Jesus when I suggest that he needed to get away. He asked his disciples to set sail under cover of darkness, perhaps with the intent of slipping away fro the crowds on shore and the "other boats" which have now begun to school around his preaching.

The text says the disciples took Jesus "as he was" in the boat and made for the "other side."

Perhaps we shouldn't read too much into that phrase "just as he was," but in modern usage it has certain connotations. We we invite people to an event and suggest that they "come as you are," we usually don't expect that we've caught them in tuxedo and evening gown. When we sing "Just As I Am" at the end of a worship service, it is usually not with a sense of pride, but with a sense of humility. For Jesus, in this moment, "just as he was" meant dog tired and jowls-a-draggin'.

No surprise that he immediately falls asleep as his disciples row.

Here, Mount Arabel re-enters the story. The same valley that carries the Roman Highway into the region also carries the weather. The valley can funnel violent storms into the northern end of the Sea of Galilee in an instant. The ordinarily glassy surface can develop a chop easily capable of capsizing the small fishing boats that traveled the lake in Jesus' day. Just such a storm arrives into our story, almost on cue.

The language that both Mark and Jesus use to talk about this storm is not just meteorological. It's a "monster" storm repleat with teeth and claws.

As we sailed this lake together, our devotional speaker reminded us that when life's storms hit, Jesus is in the boat with us. The author of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus, our High Priest, has suffered all of the indignities of being human, knows and understands what we are going through. We are never alone.

The story also reminds us that Jesus is sovereign over the storms in our life. One of the mysteries in the story revolves around why it took the disciples so long to call upon Jesus for help. We watch as they strain at the oars under their own power until they finally cry out in what seems like anger. "Don't you care that we're drowinging, here?"

All along, they are aware that Jesus is with them. They've even awarded him a place of honor in their lives. Consider this: who sits in the stern of a boat? If there had been a bumperstcker on this boat, it wouldn't have said "Jesus Is My Copilot." It would have said "Jesus Is the Pilot of This Craft."

In spite of this, though, they refrain from calling out until it is almost too late.

How often do we fail to call on God at the beginning, middle, and end of life's undertakings? We fail to call on him for help, then we have the audacity to be angry, even cast blame on him when the waves threaten to overwhelm us.

I am most puzzled, though, by Jesus' response. He calms the sea, of course. That's the famous part of the story. But then he rebukes them as being of little faith. Why?

Put it another way: What would have been Jesus' "preferred outcome" in this story? Would he have wished the storm never came? Would he have wished his disciples had awakened him sooner, so that they had never been in danger?

Last Summer, my family visited an amusement park in the Smokies called Dollywood. Dollywood has this new roller coaster called the Mystery Mine that they advertise on all their posters. I was in the park near the entrance to the Mystery Mine when I heard this converstaion between two teenagers:

"I can't believe we waited two hours to ride that thing."

"Yeah. Especially in this heat."

"When it turned up on its side I almost wet my britches."

"When it went straight down through the flames I almost threw up."

"I thought I was going to die."

"Me too."

"Wanna go again?"

"I'll race you!"

And I followed them.

These kids had a faith in the Dollywood ride designers that the disciples could not find that night in the boat with Jesus. These kids probably didn't write a letter to Dollywood complaining that the ride was too scary and demanding that the roller coaster be closed down, or even toned down. despite the lurches in their stomachs and the screams, they had an undergirding faith that the car was still on the tracks, that the designer knew what he was doing and had done it all with them in mind.

I wonder.

How would Jesus have felt if he had been awakend by a different cry? What if instead of "Don't you care if we drown?" he'd awakened to a different shout?

"Master! Wake up and grab an oar!"

His eyes open, and Jesus sees twelve rain-drenched, wind-whipped disciples grinning to beat the band.

"You're missing the ride!" they shout.

And with a whoop, they bend their backs again to the oars


.

To Pray or Not to Pray

Near the base of the Mount of Olives stands the Church of the Nations. This church embraces a stand of olive trees which almost certainly date back to the time of Jesus, and beneath the altar of the church lies a rock claiming to be the place where Jesus fell to his face and called out to God in anguish to "let this cup pass from me."

The Garden of Gethsemane plays a crucial role in the unfolding of the gospel of Jesus. His public ministry is at its end. Friends have conspired to betray him. Even as the story opens, a crowd including a few members of the Temple Guard is on its way to arrest Jesus and initiate that grueling last day of his life that we have come to call the Passion.

Visitors to the garden today find a carefully manicured landscape and a starkly beautiful chapel commemorating the events of this place. Central to the memory, of course, are the olive trees.

Olive trees, properly cared for can live virtually forever. As I toured the gift shops of the Holy Land, I came to wonder how there could be any olive trees left. Olive wood is sold as a souvenier of the place in every shop, restaurant, hotel lobby and (often) out of the trunks of cars along the side of the road. What I learned is that trees are not felled to harvest the lumber. Instead, the carvings are produced from branches that have been pruned away to foster newer, more vital growth. The dozen or so trees in the garden seem to absorbed the spirit of the place. Their trunks are twisted and gnarled, as if they, too, kneel in anguish.

This anguish is recalled by the architecture, as well. And by the art. A stone carving tucked inauspiciously in one corner of the garden shows Jesus draped across a stone, praying.

The central mosaic over the altar in the nave shows us a similar scene, this time with angels in attendance (as suggested by the gospel of Luke. To the right of the altar, another mosaic shows the ill-fated kiss of betrayal (as suggested by Matthew and Mark.)

To the left of the altar, though, we find a different scene taken from the gospel of John. In this scene, the arresting officers have arrived, and Jesus has offered himself for arrest. The artist has given Jesus a transcendent glow in this panel, and the soldiers are shown stricken with awe, driven to their knees.

In fact, the four gospel writers each present their own particular version of what happened in Gethsemane that night. Luke's version is perhaps the most familiar and most detailed:

^22:39Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. ⁴⁰On reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation." ⁴¹He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ⁴²"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." ⁴³An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. ⁴⁴And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.^c]">[c]

⁴⁵When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. ⁴⁶"Why are you sleeping?" he asked them. "Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."

⁴⁷While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, ⁴⁸but Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?"

⁴⁹When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?" ⁵⁰And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

⁵¹But Jesus answered, "No more of this!" And he touched the man's ear and healed him.

⁵²Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? ⁵³Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns."

Here we have the anguished prayer of surrender. Jesus lays aside his own will in order to accept the will of the Father. He arises from this prayer empowered to "resist temptation," just as he has advised his disciples to do the same.

Luke's telling of the story is a little more compassionate towards the disciples than Matthew or Mark. Luke suggests that their sleepiness is born of grief, rather than the complete cluelessness that seems to be implied in Matthew and Mark. Luke alone reports that Jesus heals the ear lopped off in the ensuing fray. No harm, no foul. He even goes so far as to suggest that Jesus stops Judas shy of the diabolical kiss.

A careful comparison of the words prayed by Jesus in each of these three gospels shows some subtle differences. This is to expected of course. The disciples were left behind at some distance and were not at their sharpest. It's absolutely normal that they would remember the event with some confusion.

Matthew remembers Jesus saying "If it is possible... let this cup pass from me." It is a call of anguish which nevertheless recognizes that for God's plan to unfold, what comes next may be utterly unavaoidable. Luke doesn't speak of what's possible, but of what's desirable. In his mind, this story is all about seeking God's will at any cost.

Mark's version of the prayer is the most heart-wrenching. He begins by noting "All things are possible for you..." In other words, "I know you could find another way. Leave me out of this!"

What each holds in common, of course, is a very human Jesus wishing there were another way, but ultimately yielding to the greater purposes of God.

When we turn to John's account (John 18:1-11), though, we find a surprise. John reports no prayer whatsoever. Completely missing are the agonized moments of struggle with his conscience and his humanness. The closest thing John gives us is actually back in chapter 12:23-33, while Jesus and the disciples are still in the upper room. There, he confesses to his disciples that he is deeply troubled by what is coming next. Even her, though, Jesus pointedly refuses to pray for God to spare him the coming hour. John's Jesus marches to Gethsemane not to wrestle with his personal demons, but to confront his destiny head on.

Both pictures are preserved at the Church of Nations, just as both are preserved in our own holy scriptures. We have the human Jesus, emotionally spent, sweating drops of blood, crushed under the weight of the demands placed on him by our salvation. And we have the divine, glow-in-the-dark Jesus who never for a moment contemplates the possibility of turning aside from the cross. Which is it?

Will the real Jesus of Nazareth please stand up?

Like the Mosaics and our fourfold gospels, orthodox Christianity has consistently told us that we need both pictures. We proclaim Jesus both fully human and fully divine. Good theology leaves us somewhere in the mystery between, grasping one Jesus with each hand. Our human mind seems incapable of holding the two pictures together, but the gospel writers insist we cannot have one without the other.