Gethsemane

Good morning, church.

Today's reading is from Mark 14, 32 to 42.

And they went to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, Sit here will I pray.

And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled.

And he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.

Remain here and watch.

And going a little further, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.

And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep?

Could you not watch one hour?

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.

And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy.

They did not know what to answer him.

And he came the third time and said to them, Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?

It is enough, the hour has come.

The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Rise, let us be going.

See, my brother, my betrayer is at hand.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

It's a little light this morning.

Is there something going on today, or is there something later this afternoon?

Oh I forget those sorts of things.

But you know, we'll all gather around later today.

We'll watch the Super Bowl.

Another day, another Psyop.

So let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your loving kindness, and we thank you for gathering us together to hear your word, to see who you are, to worship and praise you, to center our hearts on your truth and grow an understanding of your gospel and your sacrifice.

Lord, the glory that it demonstrates, the love that you poured forth.

Lord, I pray that you would work in our hearts as we hear your word this morning to see more clearly who you are, see more completely the depth of your sacrifice, to see the difference between you and us and the hope that we have in your victory.

Father, I pray that you would work that in our hearts in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I often get asked, um, especially by folks that are perhaps like filling in for a sermon, or I've I've uh um or or people who are who are uh about to preach elsewhere, like how do you preach something when uh you you know that you've uncovered in this text something that you in your own heart that this is not manifest in?

You know, like there's there's a holiness in the text that you're seeing that you know in your own heart is is not in you.

And what uh what I say is I've never had that experience.

Uh what I say is that the uh you know what what we preach is not ourselves, you know, it might be very hard.

Like imagine if like Tony Robbins has a bad day, it would destroy the whole brand.

You know, this this empire of uh giants would remain leashed.

That's one way to say it.

But for a pastor, my job is much simpler uh because uh what I get to preach is Jesus Christ and him as our Savior and the wonder of what he has accomplished.

And uh this text, as we look at it this morning, Jesus' time in Gethsemane, we see a Jesus who is who is beyond a model to us.

We see someone who is so so transcendent and so glorious and wonderful face something so incomprehensible that it is humiliating.

Humiliating in our own hearts of what what uh what does this mean about who I am?

Well, this movie came out a while back called Um A Hidden Life.

It was directed by Terence Malik, who is the best Christian filmmaker.

Maybe the best filmmaker, especially if you like loud whispering.

These movies are full of loud whispers, which is a, as it turns out, I do like.

And this movie is about a man, I think I've brought it up in sermons before, who he's an Austrian, and the Nazis are coming, and they're recruiting Austrians to come and fight for them, and he is a conscientious objector.

He doesn't want to fight for the Nazis for reasons you could imagine.

And uh it follows his story of uh getting put in prison, uh, and every great argument you could possibly imagine for why what he's doing is foolish is presented to him.

The reality of what this means for his family, the practicality, he's offered positions.

He's like, you wouldn't even have to kill anyone, come and be a medic and just be a medic on our behalf.

And you think, man, that seems rational and it seems like that's a helpful way out.

Uh he's met with a a priest who comes in and explains to him this argument from uh Romans 13 where he explains, look, the authorities that you're under, these governing authority authorities that you're under have come and they have told they have told you to operate in this way.

Are you not standing against the very authority that God has placed in your life?

And you think, wow, this scriptural argument seems and he's he's faced with everything, and then the wonder of the movie.

I'm gonna give away the ending, but it's been out for a couple of years.

You know, sometimes that sometimes you come to church and there's a spoiler.

That's just the way it is.

You gotta, it's one of the sacrifices that we all make together.

Uh he uh he remains faithful to Jesus and to this call in his life.

And I watched that movie and it ruined my life for like six months.

So it's like this man, the the commitment that he demonstrated, though the wonder of all that he was willing to sacrifice for the name of Jesus, I felt in my heart this humiliation.

Now, the Garden of Gethsemane is something like that turned up to the the it is the it is the maximum version of that story.

There is uh no more critical moment in all of stories.

There is no more high-pressure event.

Proverbs 24, 10 says, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

The day of adversity is when you discover what your strength is.

Those moments of temptation are when you realize the condition of your heart.

And this is the greatest day of adversity.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, we encounter a deep mystery.

We look at a level of suffering that is beyond our imagination, and what it is exactly that Jesus is staring down is incomprehensible to us.

We can't know the fullness of the horror that he faced.

And in it, in this story, we see the anguish of Jesus in his humanity.

We see the glory of his prayer and the commitment that he finds in his prayer, and we see the full divinity of Christ as he rises to go face his betrayer.

So today we're just walking through the text.

This is a scene, you know.

I love to preach things and say, look at these connections.

I love to show connections throughout all of Scripture.

You guys know that.

If been here for a while.

I like to do that.

Today we're just staying right here.

We're just going to look at Jesus in the garden.

Mark 14, 32 through 34.

And they went to a place called Gethsemane.

And he said to his disciples, Sit here while I pray.

And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled.

And he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.

Remain here and watch.

So he goes to a place called Gethsemane.

We're told that this is a place that Jesus frequented to go pray in solitude.

This is his prayer closet, or this is the uh place where he goes and uh engages with the Lord, has an has an intimate fellowship with his father.

Gethsemane means oil press.

So you would consider at the base of the Mount of Olives that uh after they harvest all those olives, they would go and they would press them.

And in pressing the olives under pressure, they of course make olive oil, which is used for food and for light and for medicine.

And it is in this place where Jesus himself, in it at the oil press, that Jesus will be pressed.

He will be under the most intense pressure that anyone has ever come under.

And from him, from his bearing of this pressure, will be produced an oil of gladness, which will be poured on his church.

At the place of the press, he will be squeezed to such an extent that Luke tells us that the stress was so intense that he began sweating blood.

This is an intense pressure.

And he goes in there to pray, because he knows what he is heading towards.

He brings all of his disciples and he tells them to sit while he prays, but then going a little further in, he brings his three closest friends, Peter, James, and John.

Peter, James, and John have been brought together several other times throughout the scriptures, one of which that seems almost like the opposite of this one is the mountain of transfiguration.

On the mountain of transfiguration, of course, they see Jesus revealed in all his glory, the splendor of who he truly is.

They get a glimpse of who they're actually living and walking and abiding with.

And at the Garden of Gethsemane, down in the valley, they see Jesus in the fullness of his humanity that will be raised to a glorious height.

It says that as he enters, he began to be greatly distressed and troubled.

Now, these words have this connotation.

What you should hear is he begins to experience this intense anxiety and horror.

I think horror is the right word for what Jesus is facing.

Now, horror is, you know, when we think of a horror movie, we think of like a jump scare.

I hate jump scares in movies because of they scare me.

But that's that's different from what this is.

This isn't like, huh, Judas, type of thing.

Horror, a real horror, and many of you have experienced this in your life, is when something is revealed that exposes you don't know where you are anymore.

For some of you, you could think you were you were young and your parents were divorced.

And all of a sudden you you didn't know the lay of the land that you thought you held for.

Some of you thought you were excelling at a particular career, and then one day you found out you were fired.

And you thought, well, what did all that I thought was working, what did any of that mean?

Horror is when there's a sudden loss of of a loved one, and and now you you have this, you realize the danger that you'd been living in this whole time, and that sense of safety you had had before that loss, you you feel you cannot return there anymore.

A horror is is a complete loss of the lay of the land, of what how you thought you knew you could work in the world, and then suddenly you're faced with this new evidence that says this results in the opposite of anything that I had known or anything that I considered.

And Jesus is facing that type of a horror, an absoluteness of horror.

But the question is that we we might think Jesus also says, I should explain this part of the verse as well, he says he is sorrowful to the point of death.

My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.

At that, he requests Peter, James, John, remain and watch.

You know, you can you can sense that Jesus desires his closest friends to remain with him and to have some sense of proximity and togetherness with him.

Isn't this one of the most brutal aspects of our humanity?

Is that when we are in most desperate need of fellowship with others, that's often when we are most repulsive to others?

Is that not one of the one of the cruelest tricks of the fall?

His soul is sorrowful even to the point of death.

It's as though this is like the maximal anxiety.

If anxiety is to be torn apart, to be torn in two, this is what Jesus is like.

He's like, it is as though my soul and my body are going to be separated because of the depth of horror that I am facing down.

But it raises the question, doesn't it?

Remember when William Wallace faces his execution?

Now, I haven't seen the movie, but I've read a lot about the history.

I'm just kidding.

Everything I know about Scotland, I know from Braveheart.

Full stop.

I know uh and I know nothing else.

Well, when at the end of that movie, when William Wallace is being executed, i what does he scream?

Let's all do it together.

I'm just kidding.

But what does he scream?

Freedom.

So cool.

So cool.

Where's that?

You know, this was just, what was that for?

Scotland.

Which is fi I'm sure it's great.

Stephen, he'll be martyred after Jesus.

He's the first martyr.

You know, he's preaching courageously before the people who killed Jesus.

And there's a little phrase, you know, he he tells the story of the history of God's chosen people, and there's ways to tell that story.

You could tell that story of just uh a story of the Lord's salvation over and over again, and that could be your emphasis.

But the way Stephen tells the story is he's emphasizing over and over again, you killed the prophets that were sent to you.

You're the ones who repeatedly killed the prophets.

Now that's one way to tell the story, but is that the way to tell the story when you end it with Jesus was the true prophet and more than the true prophet, you killed him.

If he had left that out, he might not have been martyred.

But he makes sure to include it and makes it the emphasis while he's staring down death.

Isn't that poise?

Isn't that just this plain courage?

Is it when he died, his face shined like an angel?

So was Jesus less courageous than Stephen?

Less courageous than William Wallace?

Polycarp is 86 years old.

That's long life, well lived.

He's the bishop of Smyrna in the second century.

And he has one of the most famous martyr stories in scripture, and he's led to the beasts in the Colosseum and Rome.

He's to be destroyed, and all he has to do is recant Jesus and honor Caesar as God.

It's a small thing.

He could play all sorts of games with himself.

He could imagine, well, perhaps I just say it with my mouth, but I don't mean it with my heart.

Aren't I an important figure that holds the church together?

And yet he says this with this incredible poise and courage for eighty and six years I have been his servant, referring to Jesus, and he has done me no wrong.

And how can I now blaspheme my king who saved me?

It's beautiful.

Eighty and six years I have served Jesus.

He's done me no wrong.

How can I now blaspheme my king and savior?

And to the fire he goes.

Death as the separation of the soul from the body, perhaps very painful, very physically painful death.

Jesus had no fear of death.

He knew that death could not hold him.

What is the horror that Jesus is facing that causes him to be sorrowful even to death, to be filled with an anxiety and a horror, to need to draw his friends close to him so that he might experience some comfort of their presence in his prayer?

John Calvin says it well.

I'm going to usher in a lot of other people to explain these things because we are in deep waters.

John Calvin said he had no horror at death, therefore, simply as a passage out of the world.

But because he had before his eyes the dreadful tribunal of God and the judge himself, that is God, armed with inconceivable vengeance.

And because our sins, the load of which was laid upon him, pressed him down with their enormous weight.

There is no reason to wonder, therefore, if the dreadful abyss of destruction tormented him grievously with fear and anguish.

Jesus did not fear death.

You know, this is that second time in the garden where Jesus passes this ultimate test.

Remember the first time is something like the wilderness time with Jesus, where he is tempted by Satan.

Do you remember the fear that Jesus experiences that's relayed to us when he is tempted by Satan?

The reason that you don't is because it's not there.

Jesus has no fear of this, our great accuser.

He's not facing down something so mild.

Jesus stands in horror in the garden of Gethsemane because he faces the inconceivable vengeance of God against sin.

That is what he is staring down.

The bottomless abyss of the just punishment for sin against the one true, eternal, and good being.

What is that abyss like?

Well, we know that ordinarily, that abyss, even for the sins of us mortals, because of the greatness of the one that we have sinned against, is doled out in eternal.

Portions.

Unending conscious torment.

And Jesus faces down this just punishment for sin.

All the hell that sin deserves is what Jesus stands facing to receive in himself.

All we like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

That's what Jesus stands to face.

So there is no reason to wonder, therefore, if the dreadful abyss of destruction tormented him grievously with fear and anguish.

We consider why is it horror?

Well, I think that horror is the right term, as I've described it as that complete loss of understanding of the way that things work.

Because in all other instances of Scripture, perfect obedience to God means the reception of his eternal and glorious blessing.

At this moment, the horror that he faces is that perfect obedience to God results in the experience of eternal damnation, the inconceivable vengeance of God against sin is what rests on the other side of his perfect obedience.

What is the lay of the land?

So Jesus prays.

Mark 14, 35 to 36.

And going a little farther, so he goes, we're telling elsewhere, he goes about a stone's throw from Peter, James, and John.

He fell on the ground, laid prostrate straight before the Lord, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.

And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

He will pray the same prayer three times.

You can see as he falls to the ground the pressure of Gethsemane squeezing him.

And then this most famous prayer.

And the prayer has been a source of such controversy and confusion for us as we've read it.

He cries out, Abba Father.

There's this closeness and this proximity to the Father that Jesus has experienced that is beyond our imagination.

He is the eternal second person of the Trinity.

He has enjoyed the presence of the Father for all eternity, and he cries out to the Father, who he's always cried out to and who has never let him down.

And he prays, All things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me.

Yet not what I will, but what you will.

Now we almost, when we hear this, we have this desire to excuse Jesus, as though there is something in this, this moment of weakness, where he falters a little bit, but we glance over it and say, well, the pressure was pretty intense.

It's okay to see a little faltering, but it to read it as faltering is a misreading of what's taking place here.

What we see in Jesus at this moment is the fullness of his humanity.

Jesus is fully God and fully man.

One person with two distinct natures.

You know what the difference between a person and a nature is?

Don't worry about it.

We just needed two different words.

That was a little Trinity joke.

A little hypostatic union joke for get us all going this morning.

When Peter had said that Jesus shouldn't be killed, Jesus says to Peter, get behind me, Satan.

And yet doesn't it seem as though Jesus here is saying, Let this doesn't seem as though he's saying, let this pass from me.

Let this pass.

Does he need an excuse here?

Ambrose of Milan says this.

I not only do not think that there is any need of excuse, but there is no instance in which I admire more his kindness and his majesty.

For he would not have done so much for me if he had not taken upon him my feelings.

He grieved for me, who had no cause of grief for himself.

Do you hear that?

Jesus grieved in the way that we ought to have grieved before the eternal punishment of hell that we deserved.

And he had no reason to grieve for himself, because he knew no sin.

Why would he face such a punishment?

In laying aside the delights of the eternal Godhead, he experiences the afflictions of my weakness.

I boldly call it sorrow, because I preach the cross, for he took upon him not the appearance, but the reality of incarnation.

Jesus was not the mere appearance of a man.

He was a man.

If he had not taken it on in the incarnation, then it would not be redeemed on our behalf.

And so Jesus takes on the fullness of what it means to be a man.

All humanity, including the weakness and the frailty of our humanity.

It was therefore necessary that he should experience grief, that he might overcome sorrow and not shut it out.

For the praise of fortitude is not bestowed on those who are rather stupefied than pained by wounds.

The praise of fortitude, what he's saying, is not bestowed on those who are anesthetized to the grief that they are experiencing, but to the ones who bear it and go through it, to them the praise of fortitude is given.

Jesus experienced the greatest of suffering, unimaginable depths of suffering.

So the prayer is no sin.

The prayer is evidence that he is the one who is able to accomplish our salvation.

Because he took on the fullness of our humanity.

And how do we pray?

How does a human pray?

Calvin says that we pray like a ship that is caught in a storm on its way to the harbor.

And when the ship is caught in a storm on its way to the harbor, it's not able to sail straight to the harbor.

It has to go back and forth and get tossed about all the while making its way there.

And that's what our prayers are like.

So we pray from the depths of our soul.

We pour out these longings and desires and we offer them up before the Lord as we zigzag our way in grief towards this hope that the Lord is the one who's worthy of trusting, and his ways are the ways with which we ought to go.

And so there, and we consider there is no sin in those prayers.

There is no sin, even when we pray in things that we would consider rightly are outside of the decrees of God, plainly what he will do.

Would it be wrong to pray?

Lord, would you remove all of the suffering from the world?

And Lord, would you take it away now?

Yet not my will, but you, but your will.

There's no sin in that prayer.

Jesus inhabits the fullness of our frailty.

And so he prays like we pray.

We pray in this human way, which is we do not say all things at the same time.

We say things like, Lord, would you vindicate me and would you take vengeance on this person who is working against me?

And Lord, I pray that you would show mercy as you have shown mercy to me.

If you think you can't pray like that, then the Psalms are wrong.

They pray like that all the time.

This is the way that Jesus prays.

In the fullness of his humanity, he comes before the Father, he trusts him as the Father, he asks for this deep desire, knowing that it will not be fulfilled and it being taken away, yet he pours it out because Jesus prays with this deep trust, knowing most completely that God understands our frame.

He knows our weakness.

That is the way we can pray.

And Jesus shows the fullness of his frailty in this prayer, in the fullness of his humanity, and Jesus shows the fullness and the most glorious aspects of this frailty being raised to divine proportions.

Calvin says that very thing.

He says, You see how human nature, even in Christ Himself, has the sufferings and fears which belong to it.

But that the word, Jesus, who is united to it, raises it to a fortitude which is worthy of God.

That's what's on display here.

So Jesus continues, or the story continues in Mark 14, 37 to 39, it says, And he came and found them sleeping.

So Jesus prays this prayer before the Lord, and then he comes and he finds them sleeping.

He said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep?

Could you not watch one hour?

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.

Now what we have in the story is these witnesses of Jesus, these eleven disciples, and the three who we should consider would be the best of them, so that's a sample size enough to know that the others were sleeping too.

And Jesus comes back to them in this time of his greatest need, in this unthinkable affliction of what it is that he's staring down, and he finds that he has been abandoned by his closest friends, and that they are not able to hold fast to Christ.

They are not even able to stay awake and pray.

And he explains to them in this way that's all that's there's this mercy in it where he says, the spirit is willing.

I know that there is this aspect of you that would be willing to stay next to me, but you are dominated by your flesh.

You are enslaved to your fleshly desires.

And they win the day.

And he submits himself to the Father.

And then he comes back again in verses forty and forty-two, and again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him.

And he came the third time and said to them, Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?

It is enough.

The rest that you've received now, that will need to be sufficient.

The hour has come.

The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Rise, let us be going.

See, my betrayer is at hand.

You see, what's demonstrated in the disciples in their witness of Jesus in the garden is that he shows a fortitude and an obedience that goes beyond anything any man has ever demonstrated.

Because here's the terror of what he faces.

Jesus in his obedience receives the eternal punishment of sin that will be doled out to him.

He is the one who can bear that, the eternal second person of the Trinity can bear this punishment compressed down upon him, the woes and terrors of sin pressed down upon him by the wrath of God.

But the disciples are not even able to stay awake with him in the garden.

What we see in Jesus is this utter humiliation.

The humiliation of Jesus is in his leaving the throne room of God, becoming a man like us, taking on the fullness of our humanity, clothed in it.

And then he is born a man, and he is born into a stable.

He takes on all the pains and sufferings of what it means to be a human.

All the misery of sin is given to him, even unto death, and not just death, but death on a cross.

Facing the very wrath of God, he is a propitiation for our sins.

The word propitiation I once heard described as the wrath-absorbing sponge.

He is the one whom the wrath of God has poured out on.

And the disciples, what they would face for their obedience would be the rewards of glory.

Both offers of obedience.

What Gethsemane shows us in the humiliation of Jesus is our utter humiliation as sinners.

Because we realize we are not like him.

But what we see in Jesus, especially in this last line, he comes to his disciples and he says, Rise, let us be going.

See, my betrayer is at hand.

He is not saying that so that he can get out of the way.

He is saying that so he can walk towards him and meet the betrayer and walk with full willingness into the wrath to come.

Now, why does Jesus do that?

Why is he going in the first place?

Why is this sinless Jesus going to bear the wrath of God?

It's so that he might atone for our sins.

What is it that he bore?

It is the punishment for our sins, so that we, the ones who fell asleep in the garden, might be saved by him in the work that he fully accomplished on our behalf.

There is a humiliation in looking at Gethsemane and seeing the wonder of the glory that humanity was raised to in him, and seeing that's I that's not me, that's unique to him.

But then when we recognize that humiliation, there is this greater wonder that when we see that humiliation of the revelation of our own sin and what the heights of our humanity could have been raised to had we have not been sinners such as we are and chosen to disobey God.

When we see that humiliation, then we come in to his exaltation as we see the good news is he saved us.

I could not have saved myself, but he saved me.

Because in the garden he went through with it.

Why would he do such a thing?

It must have been the depth of his love.

The depth of his love towards even those who betrayed them.

What an unthinkable, incomprehensible depth of love.

Do you see that the horror that he faced in the proportion of the horror, the unfathomable abyss which he stared down of the wrath of God against sin is the same depth, the unfathomable abyss of the wonder of his love towards us, which is demonstrated in his willingness to go through with it.

Such was the love of the Father and the Son as they committed to this plan for the rescue of sinners.

Remember, God so loved the world that he gave his son, and the son goes willingly, because he shares the love of the Father.

Do you see the wonder of what Jesus has accomplished for you?

That horror that he faced, he faced on your behalf.

So that you won't face that horror.

So I think our response to Gethsemane is simple.

Behold the man who went into the wrath of God so that he might save us.

Worship and praise him.

Trust that his pressing produced the oil of our healing and our gladness.

That the wrath which we stood under, he took on our behalf because of the depth of his love towards us.

And so we can come to him and be saved.

Because he did it.

He did it.

At Gethsemane, we see the weakness and the frailty that he raised to the most glorious heights.

We know that he can meet us in our weakness and frailty and take us with him.

Are there any questions today?

Let me pull up our text for communion.

Paul writes, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Now as we take this bread, which he says is his body, and we take this cup, which is the cup of the new covenant in his blood, we remember the death of our Lord.

But we remember that his death was not the mere separation of body and soul.

We remember that his death was facing the wrath of God, bearing it on our behalf.

The true justice against sin has been realized on our behalf.

And so we come to the feast that he welcomes us into, trusting he has done it.

He saved us.

And what do we celebrate and worship at this feast?

Our champion has gone before us.

He accomplished our victory.

He is worthy of all honor and praise and remembrance.

So we sing to worship him, because he's gone forward on our behalf.

Oh, how deep the Father's love for us! How vast beyond all measure.

Why was Jesus so anxious and horrified in the garden?

Because he knew the punishment of sin that he was headed towards.

Why did he do it anyway?

For the obedience to the Father, because of their love for sinners, that we might be saved and he might be glorified.

He is mighty to save.

Let us give him the glory that he deserves, that he has earned for the accomplishment of our salvation.

Let's render him that glory this morning.

Holy Father, I pray that you would bless this meal.

Lord, that as we come forward to it, that we would remember the gift that you have given to us, the freeness of you laying it down, the depths of the cost, and the heights of the glory.

Lord, let us be the ones who look for your salvation, understanding that you are the one who saves.

Let us come to you in hope of eternal life, because you bore the death that we deserved, conquering death and sin.

You who knew no sin were made sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

Lord, how could we receive such a thing?

How could we be made worthy to receive such a thing only by the work of Christ?

Lord, we praise you.

You are worthy of honor and praise.

In Jesus' name, Amen.