Overcoming Fear

We hear messages throughout the New Testament about not holding on to fear, of trusting whole heartedly in God. In John's Gospel Jesus tells us “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” John 14:27. Then in the Garden of Gethsemane we see Jesus showing just a slight amount of fear as He pleads with the Father that this cup please pass from Him. Does this show us that Jesus didn’t mean what He taught about fear? Not at all! In fact, I believe that in this moment we are given hope and everything that Jesus taught was being cemented.

Let’s look at the whole statement that Jesus made “My Father,' he said, 'if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it.” We know and understand the Hypostatic union of Jesus Christ and in this moment we are open to more of His humanity. He understood the painful death He was about to endure but also how He was going to take upon Himself our sins. He says “if it is possible”, He wasn’t questioning God or doubting that God would protect Him, but rather asking if there was any other way to accomplish what had to be done.  This is then verified, if you will, by Him stating “let it be as you, not I, would have it”.

It is in this simple yet profound statement that everything we’ve learned from Jesus Christ is brought home, so to speak. He was fearful about what was to come, any human would be, but He rose above that fear to gain salvation for us. We are far from deserving God’s Grace, let alone Jesus’ Sacrifice but He does it any way out of love for us and that is the answer there. The love He has for us is what propelled Jesus to rise above the fear. Love for His Father, His mission to save us and the whole population of human beings. We’re talking about all people from all generations gaining redemption because of the selfless sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Jesus says to His disciples, “my soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Wait here and stay awake with me”. That doesn’t seem like a very demanding request, in fact it appears that He seems to be going through a trying time. With this in mind you would think that it would be easy for His Disciples to stay awake out of concern for the well-being of their Messiah. Jesus returned from the Garden only to find that His disciples were asleep. He just poured His heart out to His Father, admitting that He was afraid and had asked only one thing of His disciples, to stay awake. When He returned He found that they were fast asleep, forgetting the simple thing He asked.

We see that in our own lives we are often times passionate about things but when the time comes for action we sit idly by. We participate in our Faith on Sunday by going to Mass, but does it end there? Jesus asked His disciples to stay awake and they told Him they would but they struggled to keep their eyes open. When we attend Mass and receive the Eucharist it can’t just end there unless we are willing to be asleep when Jesus tells us to stay awake. We have to be faithful to Him to ensure that we are always awake and on watch.

The Garden of Gethsemane serves a huge purpose in helping to guide our Christian lives. It presents an inspiration for how we can deal with fear in our life as well as how to become stronger Catholics. Jesus accepted all that was going to happen to Him despite His fear, will we do the same?