After three years of ministry, a three-part prayer to conclude it, three trials, and three denials by His closest disciple, Jesus died, three times. If this sounds unusual, it is.
If you go to Jerusalem today, you can visit a spot that has been excavated to reveal some old stones that form steps to a courtyard. It is believed this is the spot where the high priest presided over the first trial of Christ, the religious trial.
The Lord Jesus Christ was convicted in His first, religious trial by priests and Pharisees who valued their own religion and positions more than a right relationship with God.
Jesus’ case was passed on to a second trial, the political trial, which is the lynchpin that holds all three trials of Christ together, the religious and the political and the public.
At this point in John’s Gospel we have completed the public teaching and miracle ministry of Jesus and captured his final, private moments with His disciples.
God is sovereign, but one of the means of grace He uses to bring people to Christ, and keep people in Christ, is prayer. Great things happen when godly people pray. Just imagine how great it would be if God prayed for you Himself.
Sometime during the early hours of Good Friday morning, somewhere on the Mount of Olives, probably in a processing area called Gethsemane, Jesus uttered a full Lord’s prayer.
The true Lord’s prayer is a model prayer in its own right, one we should supremely admire and stridently follow.
When the world gets into the church there will be trouble. When the church goes into the world there will be trouble. Forty-five times the New Testament calls this theological conflict “tribulation,” including three occasions when it is referred to as “great tribulation.”
What is so sweet about sorrow? That’s the question Jesus disciples had in mind on their last night together. They had left the upper room and Jesus was about to leave them. The next stop would be the garden of Gethsemane. There was time for a few final words and a prayer before betrayal, denial, and death.
