Go to Dark Gethsemane

Right in the middle of Holy Week, we dive into a beautiful hymn about looking to the example of Jesus every day of our lives. The disciples weren’t perfect men, but they were teachable. Thickheaded many times, but with a humility to be taught through the example of the Savior. And that teachable spirit is what our hymn for this week is all about. Join us as we explore “Go to Dark Gethsemane” by James Montgomery. 

"Go to Dark Gethsemane" from TheHymnalProject.com with other resources
Arrangement by Peter Prochnow
Setting by Benje Daneman

"Go to Dark Gethsemane" performed by Sandra McCracken from Wake Thy Slumbering Children: Indelible Grace V

Chord charts and other Indelible Grace hymn resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

He remembers our frame and knows that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this he does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect and promising son who is coming every day to look more and more Like the one whose child he is. A.W. Tozer. This is The Bright Forever.

UNKNOWN 0:51

The Bright Forever

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Hello and welcome to The Bright Forever, where each week we rediscover the power and richness of some of the greatest hymns of the faith. My name is Andy Peavyhouse, and I am your host on this amazing journey through hymnody. I have to start this week with a bit of a laugh. You all know that I am terrible at social media. I have had a very hard time remembering conversations to post anything. And when I do, it seems to be at the wrong time for the wrong group of people and no one sees it or responds to it. But the most viewed... commented, liked, hearted, ha-ha'd post has been the pictures of me dressed up as Salty the Singing Songbook. Of all the things to post with which I garner a huge response, of course, it would have to be a 30-year-old picture of me dressed as a blue singing songbook. But thank you to everyone who responded on Facebook to those comments. amazing pictures of me and some of my friends who I'm still friends with today. I thought you'd get a kick out of seeing them, and obviously you did. This week is a special week. On Sunday, we began Holy Week as we celebrate the agony and the majesty of the cross. Beginning on Palm Sunday and culminating in the celebration of of the resurrection on Easter Sunday. The finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross is the foundation of our Christian faith. Christ is our cornerstone. And though as Christians, we celebrate the resurrection every day of our lives, during this season, with our hearts and with our minds, we place a particular focus on what our Savior has done for us through his death, Now, last week, we talked about the beautiful hymn, Through the Love of God, Our Savior, and how it weaves its lines around the phrases, all will be well, all is well, and all must be well. And I began to imagine what it must have been like as one of the disciples. They're enjoying a meal together with Jesus and he starts talking about his broken body and his blood. And they go to the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus sweats drops of blood. Our savior is captured and shackled, beaten and scourged and hung on a cross in a most humiliating death. all must be well was not a phrase that I believe would have sprung to mind. I'm really not sure what I would have done, but the older I get, the more I see, or maybe the more God reveals to me that I would have run and hid and The most beautiful thing about the disbelief, the denial, the cowardice, and the fear of the disciples is that if God can still use these men and build his church and his kingdom upon them, then maybe there's hope for me after all. I'm not perfect. Neither are you. Sorry to burst your bubbles out there. But one thing I've learned over the years is that God isn't looking for perfection. And thank God he's not, or we'd all be out. The disciples weren't perfect men, but they were teachable disciples. thick-headed many times, but with a humility to be taught through the example of their Messiah. And that teachable spirit is what our hymn for this week is all about. This week, we are exploring Go to Dark Gethsemane. by James Montgomery. First published in Thomas Cotrill's Selections of Psalms and Hymns in London, 1820. Montgomery was born in 1771 in Ayrshire, Scotland. His parents passed away on the mission field while he was away at boarding school. He had excitement for missions just like his parents. He was said to be a free thinker. and had some extreme ideas and causes. He was once imprisoned when he published a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille. He also protested against slavery, the careless treatment of boy chimney sweeps, and the lottery. He published 11 volumes of poetry, mostly of his own writing. and over 400 hymns. The quality and writing of many of his hymns have been ranked equal to those of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley. Some of his hymns were written when he was younger, like Angels from the Realms of Glory, Hail to the Lord's Anointed, and today's hymn, Go to Dark Gethsemane.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Go to dark Gethsemane All who feel the tempter's power Your Redeemer's conflict see Watch with Him one bitter hour Turn not from His griefs away Learn from Jesus Christ to pray Follow to the judgment hall, view the Lord of life arraigned. Oh, the wormwood and the gall, oh, the pains his soul sustained. Shun not suffering, shame or loss, learn from him to Every mournful mountain climb, there adoring at his feet, mark that miracle of time, God's own sacrifice complete. It is finished, hear him cry, learn from Jesus Christ to die. into the tomb where they laid his breathless clay all this solitude and gloom who has taken him away christ is risen he meets our eyes savior teach us so to

SPEAKER_01 10:01

That was Go to Dark Gethsemane from thehymnalproject.com, arranged by Peter Prochnow and setting by Benji Damon. As we continue, let's look at what this hymn has to say and teach us this week. One of the things I love about this hymn is how it, like many hymns, is laid out in a story. Each stanza telling a piece of the story and ending with something. we can learn by following the example of Christ. In its four stanzas, this hymn draws our attention to Christ's agony in the garden, our Savior being put on trial, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. And from each of these, Montgomery draws something for us to learn as Christians. Go to dark Gethsemane, you who feel the tempter's power. Your Redeemer's conflict see. Watch with him one bitter hour. Turn not from his griefs away. Learn of Jesus Christ to pray. In this first verse, we learn to pray, to cling to God in times of distress and need. and to submit ourselves to his will. When we feel we are at our weakest, our most desperate, when we feel the tempter's power, go to the garden. Watch and see what your Savior does. In Mark 14, Jesus tells his disciples, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Even the most well-intentioned believers can fail to fulfill their calling by simply giving in to physical needs and desires. Could Jesus have just given in to the desperation, to the exhaustion? His flesh was weak, just like ours. Yet even through sweat like drops of blood, He prayed, not my will, but yours be done. It wasn't about him. It was about God's glory. And he wasn't going to let exhaustion or the desperation for that cup to be taken from him Stop him from bringing his father glory. Follow to the judgment hall. View the Lord of life arraigned. Oh, the wormwood and the gall. Oh, the pangs his soul sustained. Shun not suffering, shame, or loss. Learn of him to bear the cross. Now, as we follow Christ, as he's wrongfully accused, mocked, beaten, spat on, we learn to bear the cross, to identify with Christ and follow him at any cost. Matthew 16, 24 and 25 says, then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. We have to learn to deny ourselves. to find our identity in Christ and what he has done for us and to bear our cross and shun not the suffering and the shame and the loss. This world is not going to love you. This world is not going to agree with you. This world is going to shun you and shame you and make you feel like an idiot for following Christ. But he is our cornerstone, the stone that the builders rejected. He's a stone of offense to those who do not know him. They don't understand. And we have to take up our cross, deny ourselves, deny that feeling of everybody's going to, everyone has to love me. Everyone has to agree with me. I don't want there to be any, any, anger or I don't want people to think bad of me. No, we have to deny that. We have to deny that wanting everybody to like us thing. We've got to deny finding our identity in how other people view us. To bear your cross means finding your identity in who Christ is and what he's done for you. And that's it. Nothing else. Calvary's mournful mountain climb, their adorning at his feet, mark the miracle of time, God's own sacrifice complete. It is finished. Hear the cry. Learn of Jesus Christ to die. Luke 23, 46 reads, Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. In this third stanza, we learn to die. As one writer put it, here, perhaps Montgomery means that we gain a sense of peace in death. Confident that even then we're in the hands of a loving God. However, I think we learn how to be crucified with Christ. That we are to climb that mournful mountain. Just like in the verse from Matthew, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross. Paul says it in Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And then he says again in chapter 6, but far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. We must look to Jesus to learn how to die. To die to ourselves, to our wants and desires, and start living to the wants and desires of our Heavenly Father. And to die to the cares and concerns of this world. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul? We must put to death the things of this world that hold us back from being who God has called us and gifted us to be. It's more than just dying well at the end of life. It's learning to die well every day so we can live for Christ. Early hastened to the tomb where they laid his breathless clay. I love that line, breathless clay. All this solitude and gloom, who hath taken him away? Christ is risen. He meets our eyes. Savior, teach us so to rise. Finally, we learn to rise. we learn that the resurrection gives us what Fanny Crosby called the blessed assurance. That blessed assurance that those in Christ will one day be raised to dwell with him. 1 Corinthians 15, 21 and 22 says, For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. And in Romans 6, 3 through 11, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried in Therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin. and alive to God in Christ Jesus. We must learn to be raised with Christ. In this hymn, we remind ourselves to look to Jesus for how to pray, to bear our cross, to die to our flesh and the pull of this world, and to rise to the newness of life in Christ. We must learn to humbly submit to God, remain teachable, fix our eyes on Jesus, and in so be made more like Him each and every day. It all comes back to that quote from Tozer at the beginning of the podcast. God remembers our frame and knows that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us. It is true. But even this he does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day. to look more and more like the one whose child he is. Go to dark Gethsemane and begin every day to look a little more like your father.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

He that feel the tempter's power Your Redeemer's conflict see Watch with Him one bitter hour Turn not from His griefs away Learn of Jesus Christ to pray Learn of Jesus See Him at the Judgment Hall That

SPEAKER_01 27:52

was Go to Dark Gethsemane, performed by Sandra McCracken from Wake Thy Slumbering Children, Indelible Grace, number five. Thank you as always for listening to this podcast. Please take a minute to subscribe or to follow this podcast either through Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon. Grab our RSS feed, plug it into whatever podcast app you have. You can also always find us at www.thebrightforever.com. and we want to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the show. Give us hymn suggestions, especially hymn suggestions for next season, comments, your stories, prayer requests, whatever you want. Please, we would love to hear from you. Tell us about you and about your story. You can send those comments to podcast at thebrightforever.com. Again, that's podcast.com. at thebrightforever.com. We only have one episode left and it's an exciting one for me. We're going to be talking about Easter, of course, and we're going to close with probably, I won't say it's one of my favorites because I always say that, but it is probably a favorite hymn of mine, especially favorite Easter hymn of mine. And so stay tuned for next week. It's going to be really awesome. I'm going to be talking to my mother about it, Janet Peavyhouse. And so it's a hymn that I have loved my entire life, and that is The Old Rugged Cross. So please tune in next week. It'll be great. And again, thank you for listening. I hope you have a great week. Let me close us out in prayer. Lord, thank you for who you are. Thank you, Father, for your son, Jesus, for what he has done for us on the cross. God, as we move into this week and Good Friday and our Easter celebrations, God, remind us that our perfect example is your son. It's how we can learn to pray. It's how we can learn to bear our cross, to die to this world and to be raised a new creation where the old is gone and the new has come. Thank you for hymns like this that remind us to fix our eyes on Jesus. And it's in his name we pray. Amen. God bless you all. Have a great week. And we'll see you back here next week. We're out.

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