This week of Creighton University's online Spiritual Exercises retreat, week 28, has a lot going on: it begins with Jesus and the disciples leaving the Last Supper and going to the Garden where Jesus prays and is arrested, the trials, and the walk to the crucifixion. I thought I'd just post a bit every couple of days instead of doing it all at once ... first, the Garden.
We're asked to put ourselves in the scene with the disciples and Jesus. This year I'm going to allow myself to imagine what things would have been like if the atonement theory of Jesus' death was shelved for an incarnation theory instead (Ken Overberg SJ). In such a case, Jesus probably wouldn't feel that God wanted him to die, though of course he may still have believed death was his only ethical option.
The movie Jesus has an interesting scene of Jesus in the garden. Like The Passion of the Christ, it has the devil appear to tempt Jesus to ask God to intervene and save him from death. The devil takes Jesus on a time-travel trip to the future to show him that despite his crucifixion, people keep on making the same bad choices, some of them even in his name (like fighting the crusades and burning people at the stake). The devil tells him that his death will have been in vain. I liked Jesus' replay ..... "Not in vain ... those who want to will find in me the strength to love until the end." The video clip below begins with Jesus and the disciples in the garden at night, and with Judas telling the temple guards where to find Jesus .....
