The Biblical Mount of Olives in the Middle East is 2,676 feet tall and rises East of Jerusalem. About the same height as my Olive Mountain. It was named for the groves of Olive trees that were there. I saw a picture of the modern day Mount of Olives and there is not much green to see. Lots of rock, dirt, a big hotel, cemetery, an ancient convent and a few olive trees and tourist attractions. In the Bible it was mentioned as a favorite place for Jesus to visit. Reminds me of how we often take something beautiful and cover it up with a “memorial”. Where you once used to go seek a peaceful place to pray becomes a “tourist attraction” so we can visit the spot where that “peaceful place to pray’ used to be. I can just hear some parent saying to their kid, “Look Son, that’s what a peaceful place to pray looks like!”
After Jesus had supper with his disciples they left Jerusalem and went out to the Mount of Olives to a garden called “Olive Press” (Gethsemane) This was one of his favorite spots. He went there to pray and prepare himself for the ordeal he was about to endure. Someone must have heard him praying because they recorded his prayer request. He asked God if what was about to occur could be avoided in any way. In any case, he told God he was willing to accept it, nonetheless, if it that is what God wanted.
I grew up in church hearing about the details of how Jesus died. All the grueling details which included the preacher pounding on the pulpit to simulate the sound of the hammer driving the nails into his hands and feet. You could almost hear the flesh tear and the bones crack. Roman Crucifixion was a horrible way to die. And Jesus was innocent of any crime deserving that kind of death sentence. I was encouraged to repent of my sins because Jesus had gone through all this and died for me! But as I was meditating on this passage I came to realize that this horrible death is not what Jesus was asking to be delivered from. There were a lot of other people who were tortured to death by crucifixion besides Jesus. His death was the same as theirs. Nobody pounded the pulpit to simulate his or her horrible end. They died in obscurity. Jesus was not asking God if he could avoid dying.
Why don’t we talk about what cannot be fathomed about Jesus’ death? Why don’t we speak about what that cup was that Jesus asked about avoiding? In Isaiah 53:12 is a hint into what I think Jesus was concerned about.. “…for he bore the sin of many…” I have tried to imagine what this might mean. I cannot illustrate this sin bearing in any way that is significant compared to what it must have meant to Jesus, to God. I do not get it. I get what it means to me but not what it meant to them. Maybe that is why we can’t get past the gruesome details of the crucifixion because we cannot illustrate the more gruesome details of becoming a sin bearer. It is much easier to faint at the sight of blood than at the sight of sin. It is easier to wretch at the smell of physical death than its spiritual counterpart.
I am going to be reminded of this inability of mine to comprehend what really happened when Jesus died for me every time I work in the field and look South West to my own Olive Mountain. It will be a “memorial” that I did not build anywhere except in my mind.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Isaiah 53:12
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