In this video, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke continue their study of the Gospel of Luke, specifically focusing on the events leading up to Easter weekend. They explore the scene where Jesus is in the Mount of Olives, facing the imminent betrayal and capture. Clint and Michael discuss the significance of Jesus’ prayer and his submission to God’s will. They also delve into the disciples’ struggle with grief and the trials they will face as followers of Jesus. Join them in this in-depth exploration of the text and gain insights into the profound teachings of Jesus. Don’t miss out on this thought-provoking study!
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Transcript
00:00:00:25 – 00:00:22:39
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for starting the week with us as we continue to move through the Gospel of Luke in the 22nd chapter. And again, if you’ve if you’ve done many Easter seasons, Holy Week seasons with the with the church, we are in a cycle of stories that you will recognize. Luke, of course, has his own spin on them.
00:00:22:44 – 00:00:51:26
Clint Loveall
But we are moving into kind of that territory of Easter weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and ultimately Sunday though, takes us a little time to get there as as Luke spins out the story. So today we find Jesus in the Mount of Olives, kind of when things really start in earnest, Jesus is betrayed and captured and those events then become set in motion.
00:00:51:27 – 00:01:07:52
Clint Loveall
So I’ll just read through it quick and then we’ll come back and see if we can unpack some of it for you. Jesus came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. When he reached the place, he said to them, Pray that you do not come in to the time of trial.
00:01:07:57 – 00:01:33:11
Clint Loveall
Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw. Knelt down and prayed. Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me yet not my will, but yours. Be done. Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish. He prayed more earnestly and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling from the ground.
00:01:33:16 – 00:02:10:30
Clint Loveall
When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief. And he said to them, Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial. I think we have I think we’ve said this before as we’ve journey through the Jesus stories together. But one of the things that every gospel notices about Jesus is this pattern he has of separating himself for time of prayer and not only is that in some way just a great lesson for the rest of us.
00:02:10:35 – 00:02:41:33
Clint Loveall
It also is an insight into what it takes to face the choices that Jesus faces, the temptations, the struggle to live as the Messiah, as the Son of God in a broken world, to know that the cross is at hand. And here, Michael, we we see evidence of that. We see Jesus deeply. Not just him, not just in prayer, but struggling.
00:02:41:33 – 00:03:13:52
Clint Loveall
Engaged in prayer. If you’re willing, take the cup. I don’t want to do this. Not my will, but yours. Be done in that phrase has become, I think, a an important expression of who we understand Jesus to be. Not my will, but they will. What does it mean to be faithful? It means in certain moments of our life to submit our will to God’s and.
00:03:13:57 – 00:03:30:52
Clint Loveall
And you don’t simply start there. You get there through this prayer and through this shaping of your will over and over again, to be second to what God calls you to do. And Luke gives us a beautiful picture of it.
00:03:30:57 – 00:04:01:55
Michael Gewecke
So Luke includes this language both at the front and the back. The bookends of this story that I just find really, really interesting. Jesus says in verse four, They pray that you may not come into the time of trial and then ends, of course, get up and pray that you’ll not come into the time of trial. This idea of the time of trial is an interesting language to to lean in, to hear in Luke’s account, because ultimately there are many kinds of trials that lie ahead.
00:04:01:57 – 00:04:28:30
Michael Gewecke
Of course, there’s a political trial. There’s an actual physical trial in which Jesus is going to find himself tried. But we know that Peter has a trial coming in front of him in multiple different senses, and all of the disciples, in fact, are going to experience a kind of moment of difficulty as Jesus gets closer and closer to the cross, their affiliation with Jesus.
00:04:28:30 – 00:04:55:16
Michael Gewecke
The fact that they are disciples of Jesus becomes more and more dangerous for themselves and for their own reality. And you might think that that’s not necessarily a germane sort of proportion to keep in mind in the Book of Luke, because you think, Well, ultimately this is the story of Jesus. And that’s true. This is this is the gospel account, the good news account of Jesus and what he has done for for all of those who believe in him.
00:04:55:17 – 00:05:19:44
Michael Gewecke
But you have to remember that Luke is also going to transition in part to two acts where the things that are happening at the end of Jesus’s life are also going to bring trial to Christians all throughout the known world that being a follower of Jesus is not just a moment of trial in one night, it remains a trial for those who seek to be faithful.
00:05:19:44 – 00:05:47:43
Michael Gewecke
And so it all of those, I think, are our intended parts of a telling of this story that that Jesus has actual trials coming. The disciples and their affiliation and their connection to Jesus, their trust in him is going to be tried and the disciples who will follow Jesus, their own faith will be tried. And what Jesus is going to do for us in this text is teach us what to do in those hours of difficulty.
00:05:47:43 – 00:06:03:18
Michael Gewecke
What? How do we respond? We pray. How do we pray? Thy will be done? This is a beautiful teaching kind of moment. It’s a it’s a retelling of what happened in Jesus life. But it has a purpose in teaching us something about our own lives.
00:06:03:23 – 00:06:29:38
Clint Loveall
There are there are two things that we should mention about the texts that I think are of interest. One sort of from a scholarship standpoint, the other just from an interpretation standpoint. The first is here verse 43 and 44. If you’re if you’re Bible notes those, it may then give you a footnote that says that these are left out of some other ancient versions.
00:06:29:38 – 00:07:09:06
Clint Loveall
And, you know, a lot of times people think that we have the original Gospel of Luke somewhere, and that’s not really accurate. We have parts of the book, we have copies. And when we see a situation like this, we what we essentially find is that some of the old copies that we have have the verses and some don’t, and we perhaps lack the evidence to know which is original, though scholarship generally airs on the side of shorter thinking that it makes more sense that people put verses in rather than took them out.
00:07:09:10 – 00:07:39:27
Clint Loveall
And so at some point somebody may have added this, this blurb about an angel appeared and he prayed until his sweat came like great drops of blood. And and if that’s the case and we do pick up that language in other gospels, the idea here is that this is a moment of struggle for Jesus. It is easy to think of Jesus as the person who could walk on water and heal people and get rid of demons and maybe had an easy time in life.
00:07:39:32 – 00:08:14:17
Clint Loveall
What what specifically either Luke or someone else who put these verses here added them, or maybe Luke did it later, whatever however they got here. The clear intent is for us to understand this is a deep, painful spiritual struggle as Jesus wrestles with His his fate as He wrestles with his choice, as He wrestles with what he’s destined to do, what he was put on Earth for, that is no simple moment.
00:08:14:22 – 00:08:40:09
Clint Loveall
It is a battle, and in many ways it is this battle. Winning this battle sets us on the path that comes from here. Had Jesus turn back here, none of the rest of this would happen. So, yes, Jesus is going to face a lot of trials in the next passages, but maybe specifically in this moment is the time that he sets his face toward it.
00:08:40:13 – 00:09:14:33
Michael Gewecke
You know, one of the really interesting things of studying a book like Luke, which is so well-written and includes so many different details in a story like this, you take into account these kinds of things, the things that were potentially added and the embellishments or the added detail that they may or may not offer. You also look at some of the ways that that Luke references things we’ve seen before, and I think we’ve got to admit we’ve seen another moment in Luke when the disciples were also tempted to sleep.
00:09:14:38 – 00:09:39:57
Michael Gewecke
And very, very interestingly, if you would turn in your Bible, you would go to Luke chapter nine, and you would find here, when Jesus is being transfigured, the disciples there too, are tempted to sleep. They keep falling asleep at the revelation of who Jesus is, which is surprising to us because I think most of us think if Jesus and the prophets of the Old Testament were appearing, we would we’d be awake for that.
00:09:39:57 – 00:10:05:27
Michael Gewecke
But what we have are these these moments where Jesus goes up on the mount and He reveals something about who He is. And we see this more often in the book of Matthew, the more explicitly where this happens. But here once again in Luke, Jesus is revealing to his disciples in the first place, He revealed that He’s the Son of God, the timeless power filled all powerful, all knowing Son of God.
00:10:05:38 – 00:10:38:42
Michael Gewecke
Here I think we’re learning something from this textual edition. If it is. In addition, we’re being reminded that when Jesus sweats blood, that he’s he’s fully human, that he is actually taking on flesh in the fullest sense of that word. You said he’s not having an easy time or this isn’t a style walk in the park. The honest truth is what we’re discovering in a text like this is that when Jesus confronts the reality of what he no is knows is going to come.
00:10:38:56 – 00:10:58:35
Michael Gewecke
And we know that he knows that because we hearken back to the last time the disciples were falling asleep, Jesus was being transfigured, is being revealed as the spiritual being that He is. But in this moment we see another side of Jesus that is, He truly doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to take the cup that he is has been given.
00:10:58:48 – 00:11:22:39
Michael Gewecke
We have that explicitly. But then that that statement, thy will be done. Your will be done. What you have planned, come to pass, Lord God. And that shows us, I think, the fullness of who Jesus Christ is. It’s He’s fully the God that we saw revealed on that mountaintop previous. He’s also fully human, the one who’s going to submit to the will of God and do as God calls Him to do.
00:11:22:39 – 00:11:41:31
Michael Gewecke
And we need both of those images to understand who Jesus is. And I think it’s interesting that both texts are connected by disciples who are or literally asleep to the moment that they they are tempted to miss what is actually happening. And I think that details like that in Luke should be notice.
00:11:41:38 – 00:12:09:13
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And, and Luke gives us another very interesting detail in that same sentence. Michael Jesus found them sleeping because of grief and that that is unique to Luke. I don’t, to my knowledge, to the best of my recollection, we, we don’t see that in any other gospel. And as you try to wrestle with what does it mean to sleep because of grief?
00:12:09:18 – 00:12:42:45
Clint Loveall
Grief normally keeps us awake. Sadness usually makes sleeping difficult. But it. What is Luke doing here? What is he trying to tell us? Is he. Is he trying to tell us? They’re cloudy. They don’t know what’s happening. But it it’s interesting here that they’re not simply he doesn’t just say because they’re tired, because they’ve already eaten, because it’s night, because they’re faithless, because they struggle, because of grief.
00:12:42:50 – 00:13:00:07
Clint Loveall
And I, I find that I find that very interesting. I don’t know exactly what to do with that. It’s not crystal clear to me what Luke sin tension would be in phrasing it that way. But it is a very interesting phrase.
00:13:00:12 – 00:13:31:01
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. Clint Because we grieve things that we’ve lost and in this case they, they haven’t lost Jesus yet. And, you know, one has to remember the shocking statement that Jesus just made at the Passover meal, what we call the Last Supper just a few short verses ago. And it led the disciples to a kind of frantic moment where they’re debating with one another, whose greatest huge, least of all these kinds of things.
00:13:31:06 – 00:14:06:21
Michael Gewecke
I think that that is followed with this short injunction that Jesus has here in verse 35, where he talks to them about what we admitted was a really strange verse about the idea of, you know, take your bag and go buy a sword, you know, and then it transitions to what we have here today. This idea that we have that the disciples are sleeping because of grief, is that grief of what they think they stand to lose in in the status that they were given.
00:14:06:21 – 00:14:24:28
Michael Gewecke
Is that grief that they are in some ways grieved that someone in their midst may be the one who betrays Luke doesn’t give us those details, and then it gives us as the disciples reading this text, a lot of imagineer imaginative room to try to step into what’s happened.
00:14:24:28 – 00:14:59:03
Clint Loveall
Yeah. Is it a disconnect from the world? You know, sometimes in the midst of grief, we just want to unplug from everything. We just want to sleep. We want the world to go away. Is that the sense that the disciples are facing? Is that the thing that they’re facing? I don’t know. I just think Luke is is so capable with language that even us, even a small, unexpected word like grief here gives the reader pause to really kind of wrestle with what what’s Luke trying to tell us?
00:14:59:07 – 00:15:09:13
Clint Loveall
And I don’t I don’t have a good answer, but I do think it’s I do think it’s an interesting choice. It’s a it’s a strange word to put there.
00:15:09:18 – 00:15:26:45
Michael Gewecke
This is going to be really brief and it’s really maybe in some ways a bridge to tomorrow. So certainly hope that you’ll join us for the study as we continue on tomorrow. But notice how this ends up. Jesus comes to the disciples. Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.
00:15:26:45 – 00:15:47:19
Michael Gewecke
And we read the scriptures with punctuation. We read it with commas and periods. And this stuff is put in by translators to help us read. But in the original, these sentences would keep on keeping on. And the way you know, that I thought would end would be the inclusion of the word and generally. And then the next thing happens.
00:15:47:24 – 00:16:07:49
Michael Gewecke
What we’re going to discover as we move to tomorrow is that that and is missing here, that it just moves directly into the next story. And so the force of that is meaningful. Jesus has these disciples who can’t keep their eyes open and he says, Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.
00:16:08:04 – 00:16:34:49
Michael Gewecke
And immediately thereafter, the next thing that Luke has to tell us is about the time of trial that has arrived. And it’s that kind of blunt just arrival of the next story, which I think helps us to understand that the gravity of this is getting greater and greater, that the the night is getting darker and darker, that what is to come is becoming a much higher amplitude situation.
00:16:34:49 – 00:16:55:32
Michael Gewecke
And so these disciples, for whatever reason, they are sleeping of grief. We know that this is simply going to become a much more frantic evening as the time goes on. And that’s built into the way that Luke is telling the story. Even if we might miss some of that in our English translations.
00:16:55:37 – 00:17:30:14
Clint Loveall
Yeah. Today we see Jesus stealing himself for what comes next. And tomorrow we look at what that is. And I think maybe just one last reflection, Michael. Not to take too much time here, but we we mentioned it and we can read over this idea. Not my will, but your will be done and I think we would we would be short sighted if we get through the Good Friday Easter stories without reflecting on the things that happened to Jesus.
00:17:30:14 – 00:18:15:03
Clint Loveall
Now are God’s will. It’s it it’s the intersection of the worst that humanity is capable of and the best that God wants to accomplish. And for one moment in history, those are the same thing. And we can we can sometimes, as those who know the story, not not consider that with the depth, I think that it is due, that it merits that these terrible things that are about to unfold are God’s will so that the people can be saved.
00:18:15:03 – 00:18:21:47
Clint Loveall
And that’s a lot. That’s a heavy that’s a much heavier sentence than we would often read it to be.
00:18:21:52 – 00:18:46:44
Michael Gewecke
The good news does not come to us without walking through the worst news territory, and God is willing to do that for us. We realize, friends, that these studies aren’t necessarily the quickest path through the Bible, but we are overjoyed to to slow down and hear what the Scriptures have to save for us. If you found that a helpful model, would you give this video like it helps others find it?
00:18:46:44 – 00:19:03:25
Michael Gewecke
If you would like to stick with us as we go through a process like this on this book and others in the Bible subscribe, that also really helps others to find it, and it enables you to stick with us as we study scripture together. Thank you for your time with us today. We’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow as we continue our study together.
00:19:03:25 – 00:19:04:10
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.