The Garden
Luke 22:39-53
Genesis 3:19:
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.
This passage & the Lenten season invites us to consider 3 realities:
I. The Temptation of Sin (22:39-40, 45-46)
Genesis 4:7b: … sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.
II. The Power of Darkness (22:47-53)
Through the imposition of the ashes, Ash Wednesday reminds us that death and sin cannot be completely separated. This does not mean a particular form of death is punishment for specific sins, but sin and death are partners. But if the ashes of Ash Wednesday point toward the link between sin, death, and rebellion, they also contain something else… The ashes are in the shape of the cross. That cross carries within it an entire story and the foundation of human hope. It is the story of loss and gain, of the incarnation of the truly good one, his glorious life and triumphant defeat of death. The ashes are not just a reminder of our great failure; they remind us of God’s victory over sin and death through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son.
~ Esau McCaulley, Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal
III. The Conqueror of Death (22:41-44)
May we not conceive that as in a garden Adam’s self-indulgence ruined us, so in another garden the agonies of the second Adam should restore us. Gethsemane supplies the medicine for the ills which followed upon the forbidden fruit of Eden.
~ Charles Spurgeon, “The Agony in Gethsemane”
Hebrews 2:9-10, 14-15: But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering…Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery..
