Fear

Mark 14:32-42

At the time of writing this article many Christians have been beheaded for their faith in Northern Iraq and there is a fear that it will continue. What do we say to people who are about to die for their faith? Do we tell them that God promises them long life? Or that ‘no weapon formed against them shall prosper’? We can’t! It’s not even what we see modelled in scripture; eleven of the twelve apostles died for their faith. Can we send them a book on how God wants believers to live a happy, fulfilled and prosperous life? Of course not, how shallow our teachings have become! What these people need is a mentor who has walked a martyr’s path, someone who has been through it and has come out the other side. And of course there is no one better than our Lord Jesus himself.
Today I would like to focus on how Jesus wrestled with the proposition of death in the Garden of Gethsemane, and how he found the strength to remain faithful to the Fathers call. I am fully aware that most people reading this will not be called on to die for their faith, but all of us get to face Gethsemane to some degree because all of us face trials and temptations to some degree. And Gethsemane teaches us what to do when temptation is so strong that you can’t even think straight. More