Welcome to Wednesday’s podcast. I’m Clarissa Finnemore, and I’m married to Tom. Todays passage is Matthew 26:36-56. I’m going to read verses 38-40, but I’d encourage you to read the whole passage.

‘Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping.’

REFLECTION:

I don’t know about you but I have found 2020 a challenge.  The constant unknowns, unable to plan, unable to see family and friends. It is challenged me physically with things like juggling home school, as a community nurse I’ve had to adapt to changing procedures like wearing PPE. We all this year have had to adapt in some way. I wonder if this year has revealed to you where your roots are? Or consider this; where do you get your strength when life is hard?

This year has also been a challenge emotionally for me, and so in an even more poignant way has revealed to me where I get my strength, what makes me strong and where my roots are. In December last year I had a miscarriage. Many of you may know Tom and I have journeyed for many years with infertility and now by the grace of God and the provision of medical science we have 3 beautiful children; even so this experience was still very painful. So as we came into 2020 I was already emotionally weary and then in March the pandemic hit. After a few weeks of home school, I realised that what made me look forward to the weekend – what kept me going – was the thought of that glass of wine or gin and tonic on a Thursday night. Now I don’t think alcohol is a bad thing! But I realised that I was watering my roots in the wrong place. So for a season I stopped drinking alcohol and I refocused on God’s truth in my life.

I wonder, when storms come in your life, what makes you strong? What do you rely on? Do you rely on others? Do you pour yourself another glass of wine? Do you stick your fingers in your ears and hope it will go away? Or do you reach for your Bible? If not, why not? Have you been hurt? Lost hope? Have you experienced loss or unanswered prayer and don’t feel God is there anymore? Have you become cynical? The thing about plant roots is they don’t grow overnight, they grow gradually; and they grow where they are watered the most.

Whatever reason we may not at times rely on God, todays passage I think reveals why we can trust him, and why its often in those times of unanswered prayers and pain and tiredness or whatever situation you are in today that we actually realise once we turn to him that we find he was there all along.

In this passage in Matthew today we see Jesus in Gethsemane. His friends are asleep, he is alone, betrayed, and his Father is asking him to give up his life and take on the sins of the world. What comes out? Faithfulness, trust in God and surrender.  We see that Jesus is so rooted and guided by scripture that this gives him the strength to deal with: emotional pain, betrayal and abandonment and ultimately say “not as I will, but as you will” (v39). He says “Your way Lord”.

The other night I was watching a documentary and learnt about a women called Marianne Cohn. Marianne was born in 1922 in Germany into a Jewish family. In 1942 she began to smuggle Jewish children into Switzerland across the heavily guarded French border. In 1944 after smuggling nearly 200 children safely into Switzerland her truck containing her and 28 children were stopped by the German Police near the Swiss Border and were all arrested. Due to the bravery of a local Mayor the younger children were released.  Marianne was interrogated, but never talked of what she had been doing. Her friends in the resistance movement wanted to plan a rescue attempt,