Gethsemane.

There is a reason Gethsemane is never crowded.

None of us would willingly choose to go to the place where we are brought to our knees, pleading with the Father to take this cup from us.

We carefully craft our prayers to ensure they never hint to the Crucified One that we desire to go there, lest He sends us.

We all want Rehoboth, but none of us want the crushing. We want to see the bones in Ezekiel’s valley rattle at our command, but we never want to see our bones ground to dust.

We quickly flip through the book of Job because none of us wants to get to the end and not have answers as to why. We don’t want the only revelation we are left with to be, “my ears have heard of you but now my eyes have seen you…”

Why are we okay with Jesus coming here, but we spend our lives that are supposed to be offerings to Him, avoiding it?

To be fair, it’s not a beautiful place. But it is a bloody, glorious one.

Gethsemane is a place that forges the Bride on the olive press; allowing her to bleed through her prayers…preparing her for death.

But the part of the Gospel that we so quickly forget, when we are weeping in the gardens of betrayal, is that you cannot kill a child that finds their breath in the veins of Christ.

The world tells us that a successful life is spent acquiring things. But our Gospel demands we burn the plow, willingly climb Mount Moriah and lay down to be sacrificed. To be led by the Holy Spirit into desolate places, feasting not on heavenly manna, but on blood-soaked bread this world knows nothing about. Choosing of our own free-will to give it up, and take on the will of the Father. To have our hearts anointed by the oil that is only produced in a crushing death before our cups overflow with the blessing of the covenant made new.

This is the only true success there is…to stand naked among the groves of Jerusalem, bleeding and crushed…clothed only in a cross and choosing scriptural glorification over worldly gain.

Because to live is Christ, to die is gain.

And how can we stand in the day of the great storm, if we have never endured this place? The place where our flesh remembers being driven into the ground and yet it still has breath enough to cry out, “He is enough!”

But our hearts rejoice in this suffering, because of what it produces in us, through us. It burns His image into our face so when people look into our eyes, they see the passionate fire, the jealous, all-consuming love of Jesus Christ looking back at them. The Gospel carved into our bone marrow so when they pierce us, the Living Water gushes out, watering the seeds they thought they persecuted.

Because the truth is, the Lord loves all, but He trusts few.

Gethsemane creates a history with Christ that neither archangel nor demon prince can rewrite. Sharing in His suffering is the only way to receive true revelation of the Cross at Golgotha. It’s the only way our hearts can be cleansed into pure containers of His love. A love that we first pour out at His feet; then in His overwhelming generosity, He tells us to take the overflow to wash the feet of those the world has forgotten.

And like all seasons, Gethsemane will end. The skins of the olives that were pummeled, have now been transformed into golden oil. A golden oil that can both ignite flames and anoint kings.

And nothing in this life will compare to the sweetness of tasting the oil of this crushing. It cannot be bought, bartered, nor legislated. And while we do not yearn to pitch our tents in this grove of suffering again, you cannot deny the victory that came because you were willing to endure it.

We need not feel guilty for not wanting to go back to this place, even Jesus moved on. It’s not a place we are commanded to live and He forces no-one to enter these gates, only the willing. Only the brave. Only the meek. Only those courageous enough to be humbled by perfect love.

Yes, there is a reason Gethsemane is never crowded. But the fruit it produces, oh child, we will still smell its fragrance as we enter the gates of glory. It will drip from our hands as we grab the face of our Priest, kissing him for all of eternity!

And when it came time for me to slowly arise and leave this place, Jesus tenderly asked me, “Are you sad?”

I whispered back, “No Lord…not sad. Emptied.”

And I think it is only now that I can be trusted.