Christ’s Holy Passion: The Garden | Matthew 26:36-56
Brian Hedges | March 18, 2018
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Matthew, the 26th chapter. We are working through a short series leading up to Easter called Christ’s Holy Passion, and we’re looking at St. Matthew’s record of the Passion of the Lord Jesus Christ. We began last week by looking at the supper, the Last Supper that Jesus ate with his disciples on the night that he was betrayed, the night before his crucifixion, and tonight we look at the following scene in the garden, the garden of Gethsemane. It’s found in Matthew 26:36-56, and it’s a passage which gives us a window into the heart of Jesus. It shows us something of Jesus’ humanity. It shows us also the depth of Jesus’ love for his people and his commitment to finish the task that God had set before him.
So, Matthew 26:36-56. We’re going to read these verses together, and then I just want to show us three things from this passage. Let’s read the passage, Matthew 26 beginning in verse 36.
“Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here, while I go over there and pray.’ And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.’ And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’ And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.’ And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, ‘Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.’ While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.’ And he came up to Jesus at once and said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi!’ And he kissed him. Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you came to do.’ Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?’ At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, ‘Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.’ Then all the disciples left him and fled.”
This is God’s word.
So, three things to notice here in this passage:
I. The Sorrow of Our Lord
II. The Prayer of Our Lord
III. The Obedience of Our Lord
I. The Sorrow of Our Lord
First of all, the sorrow. The sorrow of Christ spreads like a blanket over this entire narrative. You can see it in all different kinds of ways, in his emotions, in his words, in his actions; but look especially at verses 37 and 38: “Taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, Jesus began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me.’”
First of all, just notice the language that’s used to describe Jesus’ emotions. It says that he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Sorrow we get. He’s grieving. He’s deeply, deeply sad, sorrowful. But he’s not only sorrowful, he’s sorrowful and troubled.
Sinclair Ferguson points out that this word “troubled” is the same word that Paul used to describe Epaphroditus in Philippians 2:26, where Epaphroditus was deeply distressed. And then Ferguson quotes the 19th-century commentator J.B. Lightfoot. And Lightfoot suggests that this word describes the “confused, restless, half-distracted state which is produced by physical derangement or mental distress, such as grief and shame and disappointment.”
It’s not saying too much to say that Jesus was beside himself, he was so distressed, he was so deeply troubled, he was so anxious, he was so sorrowful. And that’s reflected in his words, verse 38: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.”
And then you see it also in his posture in verse 39; he falls on his face. Again, Ferguson points out that this was a very un-Jewish thing to do. It wasn’t common for people to fall on their faces and pray in this way, but Jesus does. He falls prostrate on the ground, his face in the dirt as he’s pouring out his soul to God.
Now, the other gospel writers give us even more details. So Luke, the beloved physician, tells us in Luke 22:44 that “being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” The sweating of blood is a very rare medical condition called hematidrosis, and it sometimes occurs in individuals who are suffering from extreme forms of stress. The blood vessels around the sweat glands rupture, and then the sweat glands push the congealed blood to the surface, giving the appearance of sweating blood, so deep was the stress that Jesus was under.
And then this stress, this sorrow, is heightened by the failure of the disciples. It’s hard to suffer, it’s hard to grieve, even when you have people around you who are there for you. It’s especially isolating when the people you’re counting on most abandon you in your moment of greatest need, and that’s exactly what the disciples do. Three times Jesus tells them to watch and pray, he leaves them, comes back, and finds them sleeping. By the end of this part of the narrative we’ve read all of the disciples leave him and flee away into the night, and before this night finishes one of Jesus’ best friends, Peter, will deny him three times, the third time with a curse.
Frederick Knowles captured the utter solitude of Jesus’ suffering and distress in his poem called “Grief and Joy.” He said, “Joy is a partnership; grief weeps alone. / Many guests had Cana; Gethsemane had one."
There is Jesus, in his solitary suffering and sorrow, in the garden. I think his anguish teaches us two very important things.
(1) First of all, it just shows us Jesus’ true and complete humanity. It is the strongest possible evidence that Jesus had a human nature like ours. This is important. We have to understand that Jesus was not just God in a man’s suit. We don’t have a Docetic christology, where Jesus only appeared to take human nature, but the human nature was really just kind of a phantom nature, it wasn’t a real human nature. No, we believe, as the creed of Chalcedon says, “that he was complete in divinity and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a rational soul and body.” He had a true human nature, and that means not only a true flesh and blood body, but also a fully human soul with all of its faculties and emotions.
As the writer to the Hebrews says, “He was made like unto his brothers in every respect. In every respect he was tempted as we our, yet without sin.” His human nature was as truly human as yours is. His emotions were every bit as acute, his feelings just as real, his sorrows, his anxiety, his fear as painfully palpable as yours. Jesus was truly man, and is truly man. He is one of us, very man of very man.
(2) And then we also learn something from Jesus’ example, and that is the importance of honestly expressing emotion. Jesus is not a stoic. Jesus does not try to suppress the feelings that he had. Sometimes I think religious people can kind of get this idea that, you know, if you really have a strong faith in God you just kind of suppress all of the human emotions. You don’t really give full voice to the grief or to the sorrow or to the anxiety or to distress. We tend to stuff emotions, we mask them, or we pretend that they’re not there.
Jesus didn’t do that. He did not do that. He was a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” Isaiah tells us. Those sorrows and those griefs were not covered, they were not suppressed or repressed or denied, and Jesus is the perfect human being. Like the Hebrew poets of the Old Testament, who left us their tear-stained psalms of lament, Jesus knew what it was to face his feelings with honesty and to express them verbally and physically. You see it both in his words and in his posture.
So, the first application here for us is simply this: if you have suffered loss, you need to grieve. You need to grieve. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that being a Christian means pushing down the feelings of grief and sorrow and never giving them vent. Jesus, the man of sorrows, grieved, he cried, he lamented in prayer, he told his friends, he shared it with his Father, and you and I should do the same. The sorrows of Jesus.
II. The Prayer of Our Lord
But not only sorrow. We also see prayer. The sorrows of our Lord, but expressed in prayer. So look at verse 39, the prayer of our Lord: “And going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’”
There are two parts to his prayer: there’s a request, and then there’s submission.
(1) So the request is, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Now, don’t miss the “my Father” part of it. This is how Jesus characteristically addressed God. He addressed God as the Father, and he gives us that same privilege. Paul tells us in Galatians chapter 4, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’”
So right here we have the pattern for prayer: we come to God as our Father. Jesus came to God with all of the confidence of a son coming to his father, and he makes this request: “If it’s possible, let this cup pass from me,” or in Mark’s words, “Remove this cup from me.”
So we have to ask, what was this cup? It’s pretty clear, if you read this statement of Jesus in light of the Old Testament, it’s pretty clear what the cup is. The Old Testament prophets talked a lot about the cup. They used this picture, this metaphor of the cup.
So, for example, the prophet Isaiah talked about the “cup of God’s wrath,” and those who "have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering." That’s in Isaiah 57. Or, in Psalm 11:6 we read of the “cup of the wicked, which will be full of fire and sulphur and scorching wind.” Or in Ezekiel 23, the cup of horror and desolation. Even in the New Testament you see this; in the book of Revelation we read about the “cup of the wine of the fury of God’s wrath,” Revelation 16:19.
So when Jesus says, “Father, let this cup pass from me,” he is asking that he will be spared this experience of feeling and knowing the full, unrelenting fury of the wrath of God in judgment against sin. That’s why he’s so sorrowful. It wasn’t merely the prospect of death; it wasn’t only that. It was the prospect of hell on the cross. Jesus knew that was coming. He knew that was coming, and he says, “Lord, if there’s any other way; if there’s any other way, let this cup pass from me.”
There’s an old Scottish professor— he was a Hebrew professor, so he was known as Rabbi Duncan, because he was a professor and he taught Hebrew — his name was John Duncan, and I’ve enjoyed reading this guy for a couple of years now. He was passionate in his writing. This is what Duncan said about this. He said that “Jesus was to drink the cup of curse and condemnation.” Get this: “He did not leave one bitter drop for us, but drank it to the dregs, and instead he put into our hands the cup of salvation.” Praise God.
Now, nothing can really help us fully grasp this. We can’t grasp this, what Jesus experienced on the cross and what he experienced in the garden as the shadow of Calvary loomed over him.
But there’s another (I’m quoting Scottish guys a lot today — Sinclair Ferguson, Scottish; Rabbi Duncan, Scottish; and here’s another one!); there’s another guy named Hugh Martin. I’m not going to give you a direct quotation, but let me just tell you something that Hugh Martin said in his book called The Shadow of Calvary. He agrees, there’s no way for us to fully understand and fully imagine what Jesus experienced in the garden, but he says, think of it in reverse. Think of the contrasting joys of someone who deserves wrath and judgment, but receives forgiveness. They discover the Gospel, they place their faith in Christ, they have the assurance that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to them.
Think of that inexpressible, glorious joy that you have felt when you knew your sins were first forgiven, you knew that they were removed, your conscious was cleansed, you knew that your nakedness was covered in the robe of Christ’s obedience. Just drink that in for a minute, the gladness of a forgiven sinner, now adopted into the family of God and seated at this banqueting table.
Then reverse it.
What must be the sorrow of the one who, though he knew no sin, was made sin for us? I mean, here is the eternal Son of the Father, has always been in fellowship with the Father, has always known the unbroken, unbridled joy of eternal communion with God. He loved righteousness, he hated wickedness, the oil of gladness was poured upon him above his fellows. Here is Jesus, the best of all human beings, and he is to suffer as the worst. So we think of his dismay as he approaches this cup, and that’s why he makes this request, “Let it pass. If possible, let it pass.”
(2) But then, submission. It’s not just a request in the prayer, there’s also submission in the prayer, and Jesus says, “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” He says it again in verse 39, “Going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’” That’s the first time, but then again in verse 42, “For the second time, he went away and prayed, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.’”
Now, this is consistent with everything we know about Jesus. Jesus, throughout this life, lived for the will of the Father. He says, “My food is to do the will of my Father,” John chapter 4. In fact, Jesus’ earliest recorded words; remember when he’s just a boy, 12 years old, and he’s found by his parents in the temple, his first recorded words are, “Should I not be about my Father’s business?” This is what Jesus lived for! He lived for the will of God, and so that ambition, that desire, that commitment governs his prayers, his thoughts, his decisions and actions throughout this episode.
I think this shows us also a couple of things. It shows us, first of all, that this is the pattern for prayer, and don’t let any preacher tell you that it’s not. I heard somebody (I just watched one of these Facebook video clips awhile back), somebody who’s leading a service and talking about healing and these kinds of things. I believe that God can heal someone; I know an experience where God has healed in answer to prayer. But here’s this preacher who’s up on stage, and he’s saying, “Come forward to be healed, and we’re not going to pray, ‘Lord, if it’s your will,’ because we already know it’s God’s will!”
Tell that to Jesus.
This is the pattern for prayer. The pattern is let your request be made known to God and submit to the Father.
So it shows us that pattern, but even more importantly, it shows us the absolute necessity of the cross, because Jesus prayed, “If it could happen another way, if it’s possible to do this any other way, Lord, let it be another way, let the cup pass from me,” and the cup doesn’t pass, so it shows us that this is the only way. This is the only way that sins could be forgiven. This is the only way that Jesus could fulfill the will of the Father. This is the only way that he could save us; only by going to the cross and by drinking this cup, and therefore he obeys.
III. The Obedience of Our Lord
Alright, so we’ve seen the sorrow, we’ve seen the prayer, so now the obedience of our Lord. The obedience of our Lord, point number three. He has submitted to the Father, and in verse 45 he announces to his disciples, “Sleep, and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
It’s really interesting, as you read the narrative that follows, especially if you piece it together with the other gospel narratives, Jesus makes no attempt to escape. The redemptive plan, conceived in the eternal purpose of God and ratified a covenant between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that plan must be accomplished, and Jesus will see it through to the end. He has resolved to obey, and that obedience will bear fruit.
(1) Look at his resolution, the resolution of his obedience. You just see in in all of the actions, everything that transpires here in these next few moments. First of all, Judas comes to betray the Lord, bringing with him a violent mob bearing sharp swords and cruel clubs; we see that in verse 47. “While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the 12, and with him a great crowd, with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people.”
We get a little bit more detail in John’s gospel. In John chapter 18 we learn that before Judas even speaks, Jesus speaks, and he more or less just presents himself to them. He says, “Who are you seeking? Who do you seek?” So the mob answers, “Jesus of Nazareth,” and Jesus says, “I am he.” And such is the power of his words that the soldiers fall backwards.
He’s able to escape this, and he says that right here to his disciples when one of the disciples (Peter, we know from the other gospels) brandishes a sword and cuts off the ear of Malchus, the high priest. Jesus says, “Put away your sword. Could not I have these legions of angels from my Father, right now?” He is not helpless. He is not a helpless victim. He is the Son, resolute in his obedience, taking every necessary step to the cross.
Well, then Judas kisses Jesus, the ultimate betrayal, verses 48 through 51; and then you have Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples, verses 52 through 54; and then he addresses the mob, verses 55 and 56. “At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, ‘Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs, to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.’”
That’s the drumbeat, especially throughout Matthew’s gospel; the Scriptures must be fulfilled. Every step of the way Jesus is fulfilling the Scriptures of the Old Testament. And then the disciples left him and fled at the end of verse 56.
I think when you put all this together it just shows the divine purpose and the voluntary nature of Jesus’ obedience. He is submitting to the Father throughout, he is determined, resolute in his obedience throughout, and he’s voluntarily going to the cross, not a helpless victim. In fact, he said it, didn’t he, in John chapter 10: “I lay down my life. No man takes it from me. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”
(2) And then notice also this: the fruit of his obedience. What was the fruit of Jesus’ obedience? He’s resolute in his obedience, he’s going all the way to the cross; what’s the fruit of that? Why does he have to go through all this, and what’s going to be the outcome?
To answer I just want to read a passage from Hebrews chapter 5. This is Hebrews 5:7-10, and it connects, right here, to Gethsemane, leading on to Calvary. This is what it says: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” Don’t let anybody tell you that Jesus’ prayer was not heard; it was heard.
The text goes on, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and, being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest.” He goes on to say it’s a high priest after the order of Melchizedek; that’s another sermon.
But here, just notice the high priesthood of Christ. Jesus is a priest, as a Son who is a priest obeys, and the fruit of that obedience is our eternal salvation. We could put it this way: it was as a high priest that Jesus offered up prayers and then offered himself up to God in the power of the eternal Spirit, without blemish, once and for all, as a sacrifice for sins, to effect the salvation and sanctification of his people.
Every word in that is important. That paragraph is an attempt to summarize what the book of Hebrews has to say about this aspect of Jesus’ obedience. He was a high priest. He was a high priest, and he’s charged with the tasks of a high priest, to pray, offer up prayers, and he does that, praying with loud crying and tears; but also to offer a sacrifice.
Notice what the sacrifice is; he offers himself! He offers up himself to God. Jesus is the sacrifice.
And he offers up himself to God in the power of the eternal Spirit. This is a trinitarian work, right, Jesus the Son offering himself, doing it in the power of the Spirit, and offering himself to the Father.
More than that, he offers himself up without blemish. He is the perfect sacrifice, the one spotless, acceptable offering, and he does this once and for all. It’s not a repeated sacrifice; it is a single, solitary, satisfactory sacrifice, never to be repeated, and he does it as a sacrifice for sins, both removing our sins (that’s expiation) and appeasing the wrath and judgment of God against our sins (that’s propitiation).
And this is its fruit: he saves and sanctifies his people. He rescues us from wrath and he consecrates us; in and through his sacrifice he consecrates us to God. The obedience of our Lord.
Now, what should be our response to this?
How should we respond? This is how I want to end; I want to give you a couple of things here, two ways that we should respond. This should be true of us at all times, but especially as we’re moving towards Holy Week and Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we’re thinking very carefully about the cross of Christ, everything leading up to the cross, and its implications for us. So, how should we respond? Let me give you two ways.
(1) Here’s the first: look to the cross and mourn your sins. Look to the cross and mourn your sins.
Do you remember that old hymn of Isaac Watts?
“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.”
I think what’s important about that verse is when; it’s when we survey the cross that we’re able to really mourn our sins. It’s important that we keep the order right. It’s the sight of Christ crucified that produces true mourning and sorrow for sin. It’s not the other way around.
As I was working on this I came across a sermon from Spurgeon that I’d never read before. There’s a lot I haven’t read, because there are 63 volumes of these sermons; they’re just beautiful, they’re wonderful. So here’s a sermon that Spurgeon preached; it’s called “The Pierced One Pierces the Heart,” and it’s based on Zechariah 12:10, which says, “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him as one weeps over a firstborn.”
So Spurgeon’s talking about this, and in this sermon he draws a distinction, or an observation from this verse, that it’s looking to Christ that produces mourning for sin, not mourning for sin which precedes true faith in Christ. He’s saying, don’t get these two reversed.
So here’s the quote: “It is not mourning for sin which causes or prepares the way for our looking to Christ, but it is our looking to Jesus which makes us weep and mourn for him, and works in us the sweet bitterness of true repentance.”
And then in the course of the sermon he just holds out Christ crucified to show why seeing Christ on the cross, why that has this effect on our hearts, why it leads us to mourn for our sins. And then he talks about what true sorrow for sin is, what does that look like. Then he shows once again, the way to get it is very simple; you just look! You look!
Spurgeon essentially says you don’t have to be really educated to look, you don’t have to try really hard to look, you don’t have to be able to read to look. You don’t have to have really great vision to look; you could have eyes that are clouded with cataracts, and you can still look. He says you just look; you look to Jesus, and if you look to Jesus, the steadfast gaze on the crucified Son of Man, that’s what produces this sorrow for sin, that’s what leads to change and transformation in our hearts.
Too many times, we get the order reversed, and even as Christians we think we have to work up something in our hearts; we have to work up sorrow for sin, we have to work up repentance before we can come to Christ. You have it exactly reversed if you think that. You don’t work up repentance so you can come to Christ; you go to Christ, you go to him first, you look to Christ crucified, and in seeing him whom you have pierced, that’s what pierces your heart, that’s what produces mourning for sin. So if you’re struggling this morning with a hard heart, get your eyes off of yourself, get your eyes on Jesus, the crucified Son.
(2) Look to the cross and mourn your sins, and then here’s another way of saying it: abhor your sins and adore your Savior. Abhor your sins and adore your Savior. Nothing should move us to hate our sins more and love Jesus more than these meditations on his sorrow in Gethsemane leading up to Calvary, because the cross shows us those two things. It shows us the depth of our sin. That’s how bad it is. Your sin is so bad that is cost the sinless Son of God his death on the cross, his taking the full brunt of the judgment and wrath of God against your sins; it took that for you to be forgiven. So it should make you hate your sins. But it should make you love him, too, because he loves you so much he was willing to do that.
Let me just end with these words; this is from the hymn writer F.W. Faber. Faber said,
“Oh, come and mourn with me awhile;
Oh, come ye to the Savior’s side.
Oh, come together, let us mourn;
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.
“Seven times he spake seven words of love,
And all three hours his silence cried
For mercy on the souls of men;
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.
“Oh break, oh break, hard heart of mine.
Thy weak self love and guilty pride
His Pilate and his Judas were;
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.
“Oh, love of God, oh, sin of man,
In this dread act your strength is tried
And victory remains with love.
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.”
Let’s pray.
If you’re not a believer in Jesus Christ or if you’ve never placed all of your trust in him rather than in yourself, rather than in your works, I invite you to do that now. Look to Jesus, the crucified One, see his love on the cross, there for you, and place your faith in him.
Gracious Father, I just want to affirm personally, right now, how much I need this. I need the crucified Son of God for the forgiveness of my sins; no hope in time or eternity without Jesus. I thank you, Father, that you loved me that much, and I can’t fathom and I can’t imagine why, except that it brings glory to your glorious name. But I thank you for it, and we as a church thank you for it. We thank you that Jesus was crucified for us. We thank you that Jesus faced this cup in the garden and he was willing to take it all the way. When he drank this cup, he drank it down to the dregs. He didn’t leave a drop for us; there’s no judgment left, there’s no wrath left, there’s no punishment left for us, for our sins. Jesus took it all, and his blood cleanses us from all sins, and we thank you for it.
Father, I pray for anyone this morning who does not know Christ. I pray that you’d give them faith right now, Lord; that you would save sinners this morning, that you would bring redemption, that you would bring forgiveness, that you would bring hope, that you would pull people out of the bog of sin, people who feel trapped at this very moment. Show them that there is freedom to be found in Christ; freedom from guilt, freedom from the curse of the law, freedom from the entanglements of sin; eventually, freedom from sin itself. Lord, may they look to Jesus right now.
As we come to the table, I pray that in coming to the table we would come with eyes peeled for Jesus, that we would come looking to the crucified One. That’s what the table shows us, that’s what we celebrate when we give, so give us eyes, give us faith to see him. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Brian G. Hedges
