He didn't walk away

The road to Jericho is right there. Right there. He could have slipped away. He could have packed up and avoided it all, but He didn’t. Of all the places we went to today the Garden of Gethsemane was the only one that brought me to my knees. The Garden of Gethsemane in my mind’s eye has always been a forest-type place Jesus went to pray one night. It, like many other stories in the Gospel did not connect very well as I read. But today, I saw two things.

One, the Garden of Gethsemane is not a luxurious forest or garden with flowers that sing the praises of God as the sunlight filters through to show Jesus praying. It was an olive grove. It was amidst trees that were used by farmers to produce olives to eat and sell. It was on the Mount of Olives and as Luke 22:39 remarks, was a place Jesus visited often to pray at. It overlooks the city and reminds me of where I sit when I pray while here in Jerusalem. I can see the city and the sunrise and I am extremely humbled. I’ve been reading in First Corinthians and Paul keeps harping on this idea about the Gospel freeing you and, at the same time, calling you to give up your rights for others. Jesus gave up His rights once again, like He had been doing day by day, in the Garden of Gethsemane that night.

The second thing I saw was that the Garden of Gethsemane is surprisingly close to Jerusalem. It is also along a road known as the Ascent of Adumim which leads to the city of Jericho. Jericho is not just a city in the Old Testament that Joshua played music around and the city walls fainted from the amazing Jazz skills of the priests of Israel. Jesus went to Jericho multiple times. He healed a blind man named Bartimaeus there and also hung out with the short guy Zaccheus. Jericho is also mentioned in the parable of the Good Samaritan and the road that Jesus refers to in that story is the Ascent of Adumim. And just outside of Jerusalem, on the road to Jericho, was the Garden of Gethsemane. The agony of His death was upon Him and the way out was right there. If He left now He could slip away. He could have passed on drinking the cup of God’s wrath. But He didn’t. Jesus prayed, “not as I will, but as You will…may Your will be done (Matthew 26:39, 42).” The agony of the cross was not just that it was looming, but that it was looming and He could walk away.

Honestly, the Garden of Gethsemane caught my attention the most today. We saw the Herodium (or Herodion) south of Jerusalem in the West Bank and it was absolutely incredible. Herod the Great defeats the Parthians and then decides to erect this monstrous building upon the site of his victory. But that isn’t enough. Herod decides to cut one hill in half and place it upon the next hill to make it bigger. Water is not readily available so at great expense to himself he brings water to the fortress and stores it in huge cisterns. The banquet-hall-turned-synagogue room was also incredibly preserved. The fortress boasts an amphitheater and excavations have revealed what many believe to be Herod’s tomb. Though there is no definitive evidence because it has been smashed to pieces (not many particularly liked Herod), it is in the fortress and most of the evidence strongly supports that it is his tomb. All of that, along with the barbaric stories of Herod killing his own children and gathering all of the prominent Jewish leaders to have them executed when he died so that people would appear to be mourning his death, was great. It was remarkable. But after walking through it I didn’t take much away except that Herod was off his rocker. And that Roman architecture (because Herod liked to copy it) was gorgeous. It really doesn’t do it for me. What takes my breath away is when we visit places that Jesus stepped foot in. My roommate sometimes laughs at me because I’m going off the spiritual deep end when I talk like this but it really leaves me without words. I walked into the church right next to the Garden of Gethsemane today and I sat down with tears in my eyes and my head in my hands. I was brought low before where my Savior agonized over the toughest decision of His life here on Earth.

I’ll leave you with this thought today: all of the places Jesus was and the stories He used to teach were not crazy holy places and things in which people walked two inches above the ground when they went to the market with golden light following them (ok I may have exaggerated that a bit). But really. Jesus used what He knew and what other people knew. Teach people with things they understand. Tie theological principles to where they are at. Explain to the New Yorker how the guy the Good Samaritan helped was like a stupid guy walking around a dark alleyway in Brooklyn at night. Explain to the Cuban how telling people about Jesus is just like telling stories around the domino table. Use what they know and teach them what you know.