“The hour has come.

” (Matthew 26:45)

Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29). The Word comes. Light
comes. And where there was nothing, all of creation came into being. The morning stars sing, and all the
Sons of God shout for joy because time has begun. And a most extraordinary story breathes its first
words, “Let there be (Genesis 1:3)…” Life.

The Life who is the Light of men performed many miracles. His first was at the Wedding of Cana where
He turned water into wine. When the wedding feast was over, He set His face towards Jerusalem and
started out for the hour that had not yet come, but was to come soon enough. The hour; when He was to
embrace the whole earth, and water it with more than His tears—His blood.

Scripture draws us in with images to envision it by: His sweat became like great drops of blood falling to
the ground (Luke 22:44). But in the garden called Gethsemane, it is the haunting words, which speak
directly to the deepest privacy and weariness of each of us. Centuries are blown away like a mist, and
we stand with no shelter of time between ourselves and the One who speaks—Watch, and pray with Me.

The words break through the silence of Peter, James and John, still sleeping; their eyes so heavy laden
they did not know how to respond. “Wake up! Wake up! Watch, and pray with Him!” you suddenly catch
yourself whispering. And your heart skips a beat when you glimpse a truth about yourself; awakened to
your own slumbering within. Get close to where they are—to Jesus—if you dare. Christ’s exhausted
flesh, His face clenched like a fist, but what you really see, through a blur of tears, is His bare feet. You
dare not look up, for fear of what you will see. If we are not afraid, then we do not know what
Gethsemane holds. Word becomes flesh. And flesh takes on sin. Behold! The Lamb of God who takes on
the sin of the world! The battle is never so easily won. Being in agony, He prayed more earnestly—
resisted temptation to the point of shedding blood—and was heard because of His godly fear (Hebrews
5:7): His soul is troubled, what shall He say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose, to
this hour He has come—‘Father, glorify Your Name’ (John 12:27–28). God could not be seen or heard,
but not even the Cross, death, or life could destroy Christ’s love for Him.

In reverence, He drank the fullness of God’s wrath that His will be done—His Name will not be hallowed
in Christ alone but in all the children of God, whom by His Spirit, will call Him Abba Father—called to love
Him with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. He who commands us to love, will empower us to love
Him with everything, for the love with which He loved Christ, is the same Love in us (John 17:26). More
than a command, it is a promise.

As children of God, we will love Him at last, as from the time when He first loved us. So knowing the
time, that now it is high time to awake from sleep, for salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Let
us cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light. Walk properly, not in revelry and
drunkenness, lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on Jesus Christ, and make no provision
for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts (Romans 13:11-14). Not by power, nor by might, but by His Spirit.
(Zechariah 4:6)