Tuesday: Jesus & Prayer in Holy Week
“My House will be called a house of prayer for all nations” Mark 11:17
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” Mark 14:38
From the crowded, bustling Temple to the lonely garden of the olive-press, symbolic of agony-fuelled private prayer, Jesus proclaims the centrality of prayer. The ‘Court of the Gentiles’ should have been a place of prayer, not a market place. A place where the non-Jews could see the importance of worshipping the One True God. Instead it was a place of commerce not communion.
The Garden was where Jesus chose to spend his last night before betrayal, beatings and the cross – communing with Abba, Father and praying for us (see John 17).
Prayer: Lord may we put aside anything that impedes prayer and worship in our churches and in the solitary moments of our lives.
David Buchan
Lennox Evangelical Church