Tuesday, March 8, 2011

What were the words Satan used to tempt Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane?

I don't think that there was much written about the devil
tempting Jesus in the garden at Gethsemane.  I think that most of the accounts of this
moment involve Jesus, the apostles, and prophets of old who comes to him in his time of
need.  This "agony in the garden" is when Jesus offers prayers indicating that "the
spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."  There is no temptation offered here.  Jesus
prays to God that he wishes to have this cup "pass him by."  However, he does state that
if he must drink from "this cup," he will abide and do so.  It is at this moment where
temptation is not seen, where the battle between good and evil is not as evident. 
However, there is a battle between desire and duty.  The poignancy of Jesus praying to
his father to avoid the fate that is in front of him in terms of the cross is brought
forth with ideas from the Gospel of Luke, who says that the prayers that Jesus offered
were so authentic, that "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down upon
the ground."  There is not much in way of temptation here, but rather the searching for
the summoning of will to do what in one's heart know what needs to be done.  I would
think that if one were searching for temptation, I would focus on the time that Jesus
spends out in the desert in order to test his own faith and devotion to God.  In this,
one sees a great deal of offerings from the devil in order to tempt
Jesus.

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