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Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

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A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

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Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

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Theology - Liturgical: Baptismal meditation

Matthew 26:36: Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane.

The word “Gethsemane” means “wine-press of oil.”  It’s built from the same Hebrew root as Gath-Hepher, “the wine-press of the well,” a city in the tribal area of Zebulun, the birthplace of Jonah, and Gath-Rimmon, the “wine-press of the pomegranate,” a town in Dan.  One of the five cities of Philistia, the hometown of Goliath and later the home of David in exile, was “Gath,” which means simply “wine-press.”

Located among the olive groves of the Mount of Olives, Gethsemane was an enclosed area, a garden that contained an olive press.  Olives harvested from the mountain would be brought to Gethsemane at the foot of the mountain, where the olives were beaten or trampled underfoot to produce oil, oil for anointings, for cooking, for light, for medicine.

This is where Jesus goes after finishing the Passover meal with His disciples.  He goes to the place called “Olive Press,” and there He grieves to the point of death, falls on His face, begs His Father to take the cup away.  There He is betrayed by Judas and abandoned by His disciples.  There Jesus is arrested and given over into the hands of sinners.  In Gethsemane, in the garden of the olive press, Jesus is pressed out, beaten, trampled.  In Gethsemane, the garden of the olive press, Jesus begins the sufferings that will culminate in the cross.

Jesus is the olive tree.  He is the true Israel, He is the land and source of Israel’s fruitfulness, the guarding cherub of the Most Holy Place, carved from “oil wood.”  He is the fruitful source of Israel’s oil, which brightens the face as wine gladdens the heart.  He comes with the oil of gladness, and comes as the Good Samaritan for the healing of nations.  He provides the oil that lights the lamps, that keeps Israel illuminated with the fire of the Spirit.

But all that depends on the process that begins in Gethsemane.  Without Gethsemane, without passing through the garden of the olive press, Jesus can do none of this.  He goes to Gethsemane so that oil can be wrung from Him, so that it can be poured out for and in us.  In Scripture, oil is a frequent image of the Spirit.  Jesus comes to us full of the Spirit, and that Spirit is going to be ours, but that Spirit becomes ours only when Jesus is pressed and pierced so that the oil of the Spirit that is in Him can be trodden out, so that we can enjoy the “beaten oil” of the Spirit.  Jesus is the fleece of Gideon, full of the Spirit, but then wrung out so that the entire land can filled with dew.  Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One, but the Christ makes Christians, other anointed ones, only if He is pressed and trodden underfoot.

This has always been the way of anointed ones.  David the anointed king followed this same path.  Betrayed by his son Absalom and his close friend Ahitophel, David had to flee Jerusalem, and he fled to the east, across the Kidron Valley, up the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went.  David too was pressed out, cut down, so that the kingdom could be renewed.

Today is Timothy’s anointing.  In baptism, Timothy is becoming a priest and a king in training, an anointed one, a Christian.  Timothy shares in the oil of the Spirit because it was pressed out of Jesus.  Timothy is anointed because the olive tree was harvested and trampled.  Because Jesus was pressed and wrung, He can pour out the oil of gladness on Timothy today.

But that is not all.  In his baptism, too, Timothy is being conformed to Jesus, the Christ, the anointed one.  Jesus’ story becomes his story; Jesus’ crooked way becomes his way, because Jesus is the Way.  Timothy is being engrafted into the olive tree, so that he can produce fruit.  But he will flow with the fresh oil of joy, the oil of healing, the oil of light only if He watches and prays with Jesus in the garden of the olive-press, only if he denies himself and follows Jesus to Gethsemane.