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Gethsemane

When my father passed away about 10 years ago I wanted to do something special to honor his name and knowing that we were going to do some work on the church I saved some money. My mother died not long after that and I wanted to do something in the Church to honor them both but I still didn’t know what.

After we did all of the renovations on the building I saw the front window and I told my husband that I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to do a stained glass window in honor of my parents.

When I saw the picture of the window almost completed I was disappointed because I thought I had picked out Jesus being Baptized by John the Baptist not Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

But then as I started to think about it, I realized that this window represents what God is doing in this little church and in our own lives. This is a place of “Gethsemane” where we learn how to die to ourselves and give our will over to the Father for the greater good of “His Will”. Gethsemane is the place where Jesus cried out “My God, my God why have you forsaken me”? It is a place that some of us call “The dark Night of the Soul”; a place where we find out what we are really made of spiritually and a place where we can either curse God and die like Job’s wife told him to do or we can do what Jesus did and say: “Father if there is any other way take this cup from me but NOT MY WILL BUT YOUR WILL BE DONE”.

I believe that individually and as a church we need to understand the process of dying to our own will and how we think our life should go.  If you truly want do God’s will there is a price we have to pay to be part of “the fellowship of His suffering” and to help to bring His will here on earth just as there was a price that Jesus had to pay to give us this opportunity. The price is the crucifixion of our will.  As you die with Him you are also raised up with Him and seated in Heavenly places with Him. And The Bible tells us that “He who sits in the heavens laughs”. You are not laughing because everything is going well but because you know that He is in control and everything is going to be all right. So when you look at the window know that it is not just a pretty picture; it represents our Gethsemane.  This is a place where we die to ourselves so we can become Christ like and be part of His Kingdom coming and His will being done here on earth as a Church and individually.

“Keep alert and pray otherwise temptation will overpower you for though the spirit is willing enough the body is weak” Matthew 26:41