O Lord, all my longing is known to you; my sighing is not hidden from you. [Psalm 38:9, NRSV]
[L] Christ and the disciples going out into the garden of Gethsemane after the last supper, by Nikolai Ge. [R.] Christ in the Garden of Olives, Nicolai Ge (Gai).
What happens in Gethsemane is very disturbing. Followers of Christ reading this episode are invited to join our Lord as he prays and agonizes and, even more, according to Luke, as he sweats blood at Gethsemane, in the Garden of Olives [Matt 26:36-46; Mk 14:32-42; Lk 22:39-46].
Jesus’ struggle in Gethsemane is, for us, a struggle in the garden of love. Above all, it compels us to see what we must do in obedient, covenantal, kingdom-advancement kind of living, instead of simply what we want to do, whenever we experience a difficult patch in life. Do we just give in to pressure and sink in depression? Do we give up and walk away in despair? Or do we pray, agonise, and sweat out our baptismal promises, our marriage vow, our mission-commitment? What lessons on discipleship does the Lord teach us in Gethsemane?
The story of the famous Franciscan Friar, Michael Scanlon, who is a former president of the Franciscan University at Steubenville, USA offers an excellent case study.
Michael was a rising star, about to graduate from Harvard Law School, and enjoying the luxury of being able to choose to work with any one of a few top legal firms in the country lining up every year to recruit new blood from the top law schools in America. He had a beautiful fiancé whom he could marry any time now. On top of it all, he was invited to join a team of four persons who would take charge of the election campaign of John F. Kennedy. The future couldn’t be any brighter than that; the world was at his feet. What could possibly go wrong?
God, as usual, was the problem. He always comes calling at an inconvenient time, poking his nose into your life at the wrong season, asking you to do things which you would rather not do, go places you would rather not see, and meet people you would rather stay away from. So Michael Scanlon, right at the time when he was about to move into a position of power and prestige and serious money, he realized that he had also fallen in love with God and would like to become a priest.
Here was a perfect recipe for great distress – a love for the world and a love for God.
What should Michael’s love be guided by?
It was a torture, to put it mildly. He must resolve this conflict one way or the other before he moved any further. He needed to pray and agonise, perhaps to sweat blood in the garden. So in the midst of winter, Michael put on his jacket early one morning, drove many kilometers to the forest, and went into the woods promising himself one thing that morning: he would not come out from the woods until God has given him an answer. There, in the woods, he struggled with God and with his own demons.
When he finally came out from the woods late in the evening, exhausted, cold, and hungry, he had found his answer. His direction forward was now clear. He knew that his future lied in the religious life.
The struggle now over, he was greatly relieved. The only thing left to do now was to break the hearts of two women most dear to him, his divorced mother and his fiancé. That would be a tough assignment on any given day. But the truth of the matter is, once a man has truly struggled with God, he can face any woman! The story of two Buddhist monks, a senior monk and a young novice, makes for an interesting excursus.
- Walking on the road one day, they came across a lady stranded at a section of the road that was flooded. Without hesitation, the older monk picked up the lady and helped her cross the water on a piggyback-ride, dropped her at the other side of the water, and continued on their journey. For a considerable distance, the young novice walked in silence, until he could contain himself no more, and blurted out what was eating him up inside: “How could you possibly allow yourself to touch a woman? Are you not afraid of contamination? What about your vow of celibacy, your pure monkhood?” The older monk looked at the young novice in amazement, and said: “What are you talking about? I have left the woman back at the flood water. Are you still carrying her?” The young novice has yet to spend his time at his Gethsemane or his woods.
So, for the crazy love of God, Michael broke the hearts of two women dearest to his own heart, and took the path of a religious life.
Is that the end of the story? Hardly.
Having decided to embrace the religious life, one would have thought Michael could just walk into a religious house of his choice and live happily ever after. But life’s complications know no bounds.
For starters, which religious house should he pick?
First, he went along to see the Jesuits, the premiere religious congregation of scholars in the Catholic Church, and was met by none other than the famous theology professor, Avery Dulles, later a cardinal. After a conducted tour and a nice chat, Michael left the impressive Jesuit house with its huge library feeling very comfortable and thoroughly convinced that he would become a Jesuit. Then, he went to see the Dominicans, the Order of Preachers. Even though he was impressed by the Dominicans as well, he felt that the Jesuit order was where he belonged. Then, finally, for good measure, he went to see the Franciscans as well. His first impression of the place was not good. The Franciscan building looked too small, too simple and unimpressive. On arrival, he was met by the head of the house with whom he enjoyed a very warm and friendly chat, but nothing particularly intellectual. In fact, he wasn’t shown a library in the house, if they had one at all. As he left, he bade farewell politely to these Franciscans whom he thought were very nice people, but he had made up his mind that a Jesuit was what he was meant to be. Look, that was what his entire life had been preparing him for, hadn’t it? It was the most natural thing to do, to join the prestigious Society of Jesus.
And then, he stopped short in the middle of his track. “What are you doing, Michael?” he thought furiously to himself. “You have just decided to leave the values of the world to embrace the values of God and right now, even as you are deciding which house of formation to join, you are using the exact same worldly standards – impressiveness, intellectual standards, prestigious image, an elite company! Can’t you see you are still dogged by the same demons?” Once that insight dawned on him, Michael turned around and headed straight back to the Franciscan house and asked very humbly if they would accept him.
Here is a powerful illustration of how one struggles with the crucial question of authenticity in matters concerning discipleship: What is your love ultimately guided by?
Michael Scanlon’s story must surely be a mighty example for anyone seeking to say yes to Christ and hearing him say: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” [Mark 8:34].
So Christ in Gethsemane leaves us with many lessons which we cannot sidestep:
- That there often is an immense loneliness when we struggle to do what is right by God.
- That to do serious work for God, we need to pray and agonise.
- That to keep a tough commitment, we often have to be willing to sweat blood in the garden.
- That to stay true to what God is asking of us, we may have to make a decision for value which more often than not goes against every emotion in our heart.
And what other lessons resonate with you spiritually?
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, March 2015. All rights reserved.
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