How You Can Know Jesus Loves You

David, King of Israel, had a problem. His son, Absalom, had deceptively swayed the fickle allegiance of the Northern tribes of Israel away from David to himself and was on his way toward Jerusalem to attempt a coup.

David, notified of the impending siege, flees Jerusalem via the well-established route out of the city, through the Kidron Valley, and up the Mt. of Olives “weeping as he went; his head was covered and he was barefoot. All the people with him covered their heads too and were weeping as they went up” (2 Samuel 15:30). David crested the summit and descended east toward the plains of Jericho and across the Jordan River.

One thousand and eleven years later, Jesus reversed this route and crested the same summit to a very different scene and for a very different purpose.

The Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke help us trace Jesus’ route on his final journey to Jerusalem. Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus left Galilee and went into the region of Judea on the other side of the Jordan River. From there, Jesus traveled south and crossed the Jordan again into Jericho where he healed blind Bartimaeus and stayed at the house of hated tax collector Zacchaeus. John records Jesus’ last stop in Bethany, a village on the eastern slope of the Mt. of Olives and the home of his friends Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. From Bethany, Jesus will traverse the Mt. of Olives, descend into the Kidron Valley and go up to the temple – marking the start of what Christians now call Holy Week.

All four gospels record Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem from Bethphage, a village just outside of Bethany, riding on a donkey, the route lined with adoring fans waving palm branches (Palm Sunday) and shouting

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”

“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”

“Blessed is the king who come in the name of the Lord!”

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

“Blessed is the King of Israel!”

“Hosanna in the highest!”

(Mt 21:1-9, Mk 11:1-10, Lk 19:29-38, Jn 12:12-15)

It was the Passover festival and the city was a beehive of activity. But tensions were high. Jesus had become a popular public figure. People flocked to hear him speak and teach and to be healed by him. Whatever their motivations, Jesus drew a crowd.

Increasingly threatened by Jesus’ popularity, the Jewish ruling class was conspiring to kill him. The disciples were unsettled, even fearful.

The gospel writers tell us Jesus spent his days teaching at the temple, ratcheting up the tension with the Pharisees and Sadducees, calling them hypocrites and pompous jerks. He did little to calm the disciples’ unease, with his predictions of denial, betrayal, pain, and suffering. They tell us that Jesus left the city each evening to spend the night on the Mt. of Olives – with his disciples. Even his betrayer.

On Thursday of that week, Jesus and his disciples, all 12 of them, gathered in the upper room of an unknown friend’s house for the Passover meal. He shocks them by washing their feet, a living lesson of servanthood. He upends their traditional sharing of the bread and cup with bewildering words about body, blood, and new covenant.

After the meal and after Judas took his leave, the writer John, in John 15 – 17, describes the last words Jesus spoke to his disciples before his death. With the intensity of someone who knows this is his last opportunity to pour into them what they would need to carry on, Jesus exhorts his faithful disciples not to let fear overcome them but trust in God and trust him. He tells them he is the way, the truth, and the life – things they will not yet understand. He speaks of the Holy Spirit, a Counselor, one who will come to them after he has gone to the Father. He teaches them about vines and cutting and pruning and abiding in him as their source of life. He calls them friends and implores them to love one another as he loved them.

Jesus ends his discourse with prayer. He prays for himself, he prays for the disciples, and he prays for us – for all future believers who would come to believe in him through their gospel message. Jesus prays that he would glorify God and that we would hear the message of the disciples and believe in him and be one with him as he was one with God. In that room, on that night, Jesus prayed for you and for me.

Then Luke tells us “Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him (Lk 22:39).

Jesus knew Judas betrayed him. He watched him leave the room right after he washed his feet. Yet, Jesus went, as usual, to the Mount of Olives and a place called the Garden of Gethsemane. A place he’d been every night that week and where Judas knew to bring the priests and soldiers.

The knowledge of his impending death was heavy, a sorrow beyond sorrows. Let’s not gloss over what Jesus was experiencing in this moment, in the garden. As the magnitude of God’s judgment on mankind is unleashed, the fullness of Jesus’ humanity is evident as he shares, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mk 14:34) with his inner circle. His anguish is so deep he sweats drops of blood as he prays, “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me” (Mk 14:36).

In the garden, on the Mt. of Olives, Jesus was mere feet from the route he traversed just days before, celebrated by adoring fans. Steps away from the ability to disappear over the summit and into the Jericho plains.

Don’t you know Satan was there whispering in Jesus’ ear? Go. The path to escape is right there. Slip away, just like David did.

But Jesus had prayed a powerful prayer.

He could have left, but he stayed so that God would be glorified. Jesus stayed for you and for me – that we could be one with him. In a supreme act of love, he altered eternity.

“Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mk 14:36).

Satan silencing words that ushered in salvation. Jesus knew animosity and conflict. He knew betrayal. He knew abandonment. He knew what awaited him. And yet. He stayed in the garden.

This is how much he loved you.

This Lent season, and particularly during Holy Week, don’t skip time in the garden with Jesus. It changes everything.  

This article first appeared in the March/April 2019 Vol 14 Issue 2 of The Christian Community News Magazine.