milk & honey mamas

Story contributed by Kristen

Click here for the theological background of Luke 22; John 18.

Remember, repetition helps children internalize and make connections. It might be a good idea to read the same story every day for a week. You can add different activities every day.

I have prayed for you … that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your [friends].

Luke 22:31

Have you ever prayed for someone you love? How did it feel?

Do you remember any times when I have prayed for you? What do you remember? How did it feel?

Today’s story is about a time Jesus prayed a very special prayer, a prayer for his friends and also for you, and for me, and for all of us.

It was a quiet evening. Crickets were just beginning to start singing their love songs, and the sun was dipping her golden waves into the sea. The moon was rising, and the air was cool and crisp. Jesus was very quiet that evening. His disciples could see that he was deep, deep in thought. They walked quietly together through the dusty streets of the city, watching the world get ready for bed. They knew, without words, that the people who were afraid of Jesus would be coming for him soon.

Without saying more than a few words to each other, they made their way to the garden of Gethsemane. The trees welcomed them, quiet and tall and gentle with branches hanging low to the ground. Jesus walked slowly. Then he said, “my dear ones, stay here. Wait up with me. I am going into the garden to pray.” He did not tell them what he was praying for, or how long he would be gone, or what they should do while he was away. He just said that, and then walked slowly into the garden. The disciples sat down, their backs against the comfortable bark of the tall trees, and waited.

Jesus walked further and further into the garden. Finally, he came to a tree that looked as though it had lived a thousand years. Its branches were twisted and gnarled, and its leaves hung in streaming waves to the earth. Its trunk was thick enough to wrap your arms around three times over, and it reached tall into the sky. It was a wise, kind old tree. When Jesus approached, the tree dropped her branches just a little to make a space for him. Jesus knelt in front of the tree and looked up into her branches stretched out like arms. Between the tree’s branches, stars dotted the darkening sky. Jesus gazed up into the night, watching the stars twinkling within the shadowy leaves of the wise old tree, for a long time. Then, he began to speak.

He prayed for the world. For the tree, and the stars, and the moon, and the sun, and the sky, and the good green earth. He prayed for his friends, the ones waiting for him out in the garden. He thought about their lives, the things that were hard and good and wonderful and painful. And as he prayed, the Spirit of all that is alive and continuing flowed through him. He began to see his friends even more deeply than he ever had before. He began to understand them from their heads down to their toes.

And he started to pray for even more people. For the people he met on his travels. The people whose sicknesses he healed, the people whose loved ones he raised from the dead, and the people whose sicknesses remained, and whose loved ones stayed buried. He prayed for people who would come to the earth thousands of years later, like you and me and grandma and grandpa and new babies who haven’t been born yet, too.

As he looked into the starry night, he understood more and more deeply how hard it is to be a person. He understood what makes being a person hard for each one of us who has ever lived. And his heart filled, filled, filled to the brim and over the top with love, and compassion, and grief, and hope for all of us. The love and compassion and grief and hope flowed right out of him, like water from a river, and the wise old tree soaked it up, and quietly witnessed Jesus’ prayer, and sent the love and compassion and grief and hope up through her branches and deep into her roots and into the whole world wide web of connection. 

Jesus prayed for a long time. Filled with love, and compassion, and grief, and hope, he prayed one more thing: he prayed that he could be a witness to the things that make life hard for all of the people and plants and animals and living things on the earth. He asked that no one would have to be alone, even if hard things couldn’t change or go away. He asked that there would always be love, and compassion, and grief, and hope flowing through the earth, and that the Spirit could bring it to our hearts when we need it, so that we know we are connected through the whole world wide web, and that we are not alone, and that Jesus sees us where we are, like that wise old tree in the garden of Gethsemane. 

The night was very dark when Jesus stood up from his prayer. He walked back to his friends and saw that they had fallen asleep. He looked into their faces and his heart filled with compassion. How tired they looked. Gently, he woke them. “It is time to go,” he said softly. “They are looking for me.”

Jesus’ disciples did not know he had prayed for them in the garden. They did not know what he had said, or felt, or asked. Peter spoke up, his voice full of fear. “Master, I will follow you anywhere. We cannot let them take you away!”

Jesus looked at him kindly, and he put an arm around him. “Little one,” he said, “I know it. But it is alright to be afraid. I have prayed for you, that you will find deep roots to hold you upright.” That is all he said. Peter had not heard Jesus’ prayer, but he felt Jesus’ deep love, and he was comforted. He squared his shoulders and, hand in hand with Jesus, he faced the night. 

Ideas for Play

Contributed by Kristen

• Watch our Milk & Honey video for the atonement! 

• Draw a picture of the Gethsemane scene.

• Pray for each other. I personally love writing down prayers and then saying them aloud. Write a prayer for your child and give it to them. Keep a copy to remember what you wanted them to know.

• Help your child write or say a prayer for someone they love, maybe someone in need.

• Find a special place in the natural world for a quiet moment. Is there somewhere near you that feels extra special? Have a picnic, say a prayer, draw a picture, or speak to the living things in your area.

• Look at images of what the garden of Gethsemane may have looked like.
  

Art

Compiled by Caroline

What/who do you think Jesus is praying for in this picture? Why did Jesus pray alone?

What/who do you think Jesus is praying for in this picture? What would you say to Jesus if you were the angel? 

What do you think it means to “meditate”? What do you think Jesus is meditating on in this picture? 

What/who do you think Jesus is praying for in this picture? What would you say to Jesus if you were the angel?

Poetry

Compiled by Caroline

This poem is one of Gerard Manley Hopkins most celebrated poems, and for good reason. It is infused with the breath of hope that comes from God’s presence and gives us a glimpse into the freshness that the Spirit brings to the earth. Yet this presence is not cheaply bought. 

As the poet, Malcolm Guite, says, 

“‘Crushed’ is the key word in this poem, and it is the link with Gethsemane. Gethsemane, you remember, means ‘oil press’. It is in the press and pressure of Gethsemane that God’s grandeur ‘gathers to a greatness’. There, where we least expect it, the deepest charge of glory is to be found…Christ has come to be crushed, crushed with us, so that in him, through him, and for us, the glory might be revealed and the oil pressed.” 

Malcolm Guite

As you read this poem with your child, you could ask them which words of the poem stick out to them and how they have seen/experienced the grandeur of God in their world. 

Here is a recording of the poem you can listen to: https://youtu.be/_AgsjBanEBE

God’s Grandeur
by G.M. Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs ‒

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Music

Compiled by Caroline

We Bring You All Our Sorrows, by Paul Zach

Gethsemane, Reese Oliveira 

Gethsemane, The Lamb of God