There’s been a really healthy return to emphasising the centrality of Jesus in the whole of Christian experience and as the focus of all the scriptures. Preachers are often encouraged to (rightly) ask the Christological questions and then make the Christological connections in our preaching. Quite so. But is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Sometimes, yes.
Here’s what I mean: preparing to preach this weekend on Luke 22:39-65, the first scene (vv.39-46) is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. What more natural passage for a focus on the Messiah and his sufferings on our behalf? What clearer opportunity could there be to dig deep into his person and work? But look at what Luke does here: the incident begins and ends (call it an inclusio if you’re posh) with Jesus urging his disciples to pray that they would not fall into temptation (verses 40 & 46).
Luke’s account of the agonies of Jesus here is quite sparing, more so than the other gospel writers. Using the words of Jesus he foregrounds the disciples’ need to learn from what is happening here. This scene is deliberately written-up in such a way that our focus is drawn to the disciples’ (and our) propensity to fall into temptation and our need to pray earnestly in the light of that.
Now, of course, our help in such circumstances is only and ever found in Jesus - preaching on this passage without emphasising that would be hope-less. And to preach it without a proper reverence for the Suffering Saviour would be distinctly odd - and cold. But to preach it with Jesus as examplar would not be wrong-headed or misguided; it would, rather, be following the signposts in the passage itself.
It would be a real shame if, in our desire to honour Jesus, we failed to properly notice what he was so keen to underline.
