"Reality Is Our Friend"
Nevertheless ... It must be so...
A Bishop under whose authority I served liked to say, “Reality is our friend.” I thought of him saying that as this week’s Morning Prayer lessons from Matthew dove deep into the reality of Jesus’ Passion.
Reading in Matthew 26:31-56, we encounter Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. We see and hear him as fully human, inhabiting the painful realities of our existence.
Like us, he knows sadness and anxiety, …he began to be sorrowful and troubled … he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death…”
Like us, duress drives him to beg for relief, …he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me…”
Like us, he is vulnerable to the malice of others, Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.” And he came up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him. Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him.
Jesus’ companions give in to the reality of human instinct, flitting from fight — one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear — to flight — Then all the disciples left him and fled.
But Jesus inhabits more than human reality. He inhabits the reality of God.
He meets the human reality of his sorrow and anxiety with the reality of God’s will, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
He meets the reality of his human vulnerability with the reality of God’s plan, Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?
Reality is our friend in the Garden of Gethsemane, because Jesus befriends us in our weak humanity
Reality is our friend in the Garden of Gethsemane, because Jesus is the reality of God’s will and plan to save us,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (Galatians 1:3-5)