These days it seems that more and more things we consume or use are filtered or need to be. From our water to our coffee, our air to our oil, and beyond and more, we use filters of every size, shape, and design. When I order coffee beans to take home at one of our local roasters, I am always asked what kind of filter I have so the beans are ground to match that filter. This was certainly not the case when my husband and I were first married and used an electric percolator to make our coffee.

We have filters for our digital cameras (if we use them much). There are filters for sound on nearly any device where it is needed as well. We seem to be on a quest for purity and yet most of us find our culture to be moving away from purity on every level of society.

Why use filters? Because we believe we need a porous device for removing impurities or solid particles from nearly any liquid or gas passed through it. But do we wonder if those impurities are just increasing in recent years or if we never noticed them in the past and they were just as numerous as they are now? Maybe there are some we notice the need of more than others such as having good gas, air, and oil filters means our cars run more smoothly and for longer periods of time.

Are there other filters that you can think of?

Do we filter our speech?

The answer to that last one about our speech might be “yes” or “no” depending on who we are, where we live, our personality, and more. Sometimes it seems our speech hurls through the air or onto a page without much thought about who is hit by it or how it impacts them. Days of being careful with our words seem to be out of fashion except on subjects that are currently taboo or too controversial to voice without fear of reprisal or censorship. The days where we considered the impact of our words on others has somehow slipped away in recent decades as we have fallen in love with the idea that freedom means we can say or do anything we please no matter the consequences to others.

We seem to have forgotten this axiom written some time ago by someone with more wisdom than we sometimes use. But have we turned this whole idea around in another context and used a filter where we perhaps should not have tried to make everything sound polished and more perfected?

Do we have the habit of filtering our words in religious or spiritual contexts to present a picture that we may be better than we are? Are we open and honest when we should be about our struggles?

Moving from Palm Sunday to Good Friday or celebrating Passover to Easter is a time we are encouraged to reflect on our own sins and confess them to God as the only One who can redeem us and help us to be better than we are.

Are our prayers filtered?

Most of us are familiar with many of the Psalms and recognize the ones written by David, that earthy man who faltered and failed and yet became a king and was called “a man after God’s own heart.” What were his prayers like?

“Most of us in suffering stop praying or put up a brief petition for help. Here the psalmist nearly shouts his pain, frustration and even anger to God, but the significance is that he does so before God, processing his grief in sustained prayer. God understands us so well that he permits, even encourages, us to speak to him with uncensored hearts.”

Tim Keller

Do our prayers sound like the psalmist who lays out his whole heart and mind over and over again in psalm after psalm or have we fallen into more ritualistic patterns and language that fail to acknowledge the condition of our own hearts, thoughts, and struggles praying with filtered words?

What might be different about us and the condition of our hearts if we prayed unfiltered prayers?

Do we forget that what is going on within us is something God already knows but He wants us to see it and acknowledge it to Him so He can work in us what only He can do?

Our lives are a story unfolding day by day. Stories are made up of more than one theme (especially the good ones we enjoy.)

“But we’re in a story in which everything eventually comes together, a narrative in which all the puzzling parts finally fit, about which years later we exclaim, ‘Oh, so that’s what that meant!’ But being in a story means we mustn’t attempt to get ahead of the plot – skip the hard parts, erase the painful parts, detour the disappointment.”

Eugene Peterson

And guess what? David wasn’t the only model for unfiltered prayers.

This Holy Week just ended reminds us of how Jesus knew He was in the midst of his story not only on Palm Sunday but each day before that and each day after that as He approached the cross and the agonizing death, He knew was waiting for Him. And the night before He was to be crucified, scripture shows us He is kneeling in agonizing prayer, unfiltered prayer before Father God.

“Then Jesus went with them to a garden called Gethsemane and told his disciples, “Stay here while I go over there and pray.” Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he plunged into an agonizing sorrow. Then he said, “This sorrow is crushing my life out. Stay here and keep vigil with me.”

Going a little ahead, he fell on his face, praying, “My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?”

Matthew 26:36-39 (MSG)

“He then left them a second time. Again he prayed, “My Father, if there is no other way than this, drinking this cup to the dregs, I’m ready. Do it your way.”

Matthew 26:42 (MSG)

As the sun began to set, those who had followed the Lord could not let go of the events of the day. He had clearly told them, but what they had witnessed was beyond their imagination despite His words.

What would it have been like to be one of His disciples on that long, wrenching day at the end of such an incredible week?

I wonder.

Would I have steeled myself against the horror unfolding and clung to His words while still standing at the foot of the cross or would I have been one of those who were not present?

Would I have been overcome by grief and fear of what would happen next or would I have fallen prey to doubt?

So much had happened during this week…

The triumph of Palm Sunday had filled so many with hope and celebration! Then on Monday Jesus had entered the temple courts zealously overturning the tables of the moneychangers who were buying and selling. He was reminding them this place was to be a place of prayer and not one of robbers. A noisy melee broke out in the chaos of doves and money flying everywhere, people scrambling, and reeling at the scene. They had never seen Jesus this way.

Then on Tuesday as the disciples were walking along with Him, He had cursed the fig tree that was not producing fruit. How puzzled they seemed to be at how quickly the tree had withered before their very eyes! Once more He exhorted them if they had faith and believed as they prayed, what they prayed would be done.

How astonishing were those things the disciples witnessed, but now to think He was saying they could do such things was more than they could take in.

From there they went on to the temple courts that He had just cleared the day before and He was confronted by the chief priests and elders about where He had received authority to do what He had done. It was a trap they were setting for Him and He knew it. His wise answer rebuffed them and left them stymied as Jesus then refused to answer them and expose their unbelief.

Then came the Olivet Discourse where He warned the disciples through another story. This time He spoke of the foolish and wise virgins charging them to keep watch. To think this admonition came prior to that long night in the Garden of Gethsemane and yet they had not taken in the meaning for either the future or the present.

How Jesus loved them and longed for His disciples to hear and understand!

I think He does for us as well. How can I possibly judge their behavior when I am not always listening and hesitating to follow if I don’t understand what He has asked of me?

It was on Wednesday that Judas slipped away from the others and made his bargain with the chief priests to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Did his fellow disciples have any clue he might be tempted to do such a thing?

It reminds me that in the “now” those I share the journey of faith with are also tempted even as I can be. How deeply and openly I share my doubts, fears, and temptations may well determine my ability or their ability to withstand it and make all the difference in this walk with Him. That means that I need to be purposeful in my times with those closest to me to help guard their hearts and allow them to guard mine as well.

Thursday was a feast day, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Jesus directed His disciples where to go in the city and whom to speak with about preparing a place at his house for Jesus and His disciples to celebrate the feast.

When they were gathered there, Jesus broke bread and served wine giving thanks and once more giving them information few could likely grasp. He plainly told them they would not share this meal with Him again until they were together again in His Father’s kingdom.

They sang a hymn and then left for the Mount of Olives to the garden in Gethsemane. As they walked along in the moonlight, what was their conversation? Did they wonder at the interaction between Jesus and Judas? Did they question Judas abruptly leaving them?

Jesus wanted them to be with Him, to watch with Him, and to pray.

He knew and understood what lay before Him and despite His willingness to be obedient to His Father, His heart was in anguish and He asked His Father if there was any other way while still being willing to endure what lay ahead.

As the disciples looked back on that last sweet time with Jesus in the upper room and then their failure to watch with Him as he asked, were their own hearts burdened with guilt and shame for their failure?

The ugly scene of Judas arriving with soldiers to arrest Him angered them. How could he have done such a thing? Yet their own fear caused them to flee the scene. Peter’s curiosity brought him to the courtyard where early in the morning the prophecy Jesus had spoken about his betrayal would come to pass.

It was 6 AM on that Friday that Jesus would stand before Pilate. It had been a long night. He had already suffered much, but within an hour He was sent on to Herod for a decision on what to do with Him. Pilate must have hoped Herod would handle things, but instead he was returned to Pilate where Pilate looked for a way out and offered to release one of the prisoners. The priests had spurred on the crowd and elders who had arranged the betrayal by Judas to choose Barabbas rather than Jesus.

So in the end, as Old Testament prophets had foretold, Jesus was sentenced to death and by 8AM had been led away to Calvary. An hour later the grisly crucifixion had begun with only a handful of those He loved standing nearby to testify to the events. They were the ones who watched the soldiers casting lots for his clothing and heard the insults and mocking railed at Him.

These few would bear witness to the exchange Jesus had with the criminal crucified to one side of Him who was promised paradise. They also heard His words to His mother and the admonition to John to care for her as a son.

By noon that day, darkness covered the scene and at 1PM Jesus cried out to His Father and spoke of His thirst. By 2PM they would hear His final words “It is finished”. At the end of the ninth hour, the soldiers would thrust a spear in His side to assure He was dead. An earthquake would occur and then as sunset approached He was taken from the cross and Joseph of Arimathea offered his own tomb as a burial place.

The sun sank further and further and I might think the disciples’ hearts weighed heavy as it dipped below the horizon.

Was it all over?

What would become of them?

It was God’s darkest hour as He set aside His Son’s life for me, for you, for any who believe in Him.

Good Friday?

Perhaps we for whom He died can say it was good because He gave us the best gift we could have ever received.

He gave us life with Him.

The Garden of Gethsemane at the base of the Mt. of Olives gives us poignant images of Jesus as He seeks his Father in anguish and travail as what we know of Holy Week nears the climax at the cross on Good Friday.

The place itself carries so much symbolism. The name of the garden represents an olive mill or olive press. Here, surrounded by olive trees harvested and pressed into oil, the passion of Jesus would begin.

He too would be crushed.

On this night, He would feel the crushing agony He was about to face and would plead with His Father to consider if there was no other way that His will might be accomplished. It was a deep crushing of his heart and spirit that would precede the crushing of his body as He would be beaten and then crucified.

Jesus and his disciples would have walked here after the Passover meal they have shared together. Passover was always at the time of the full moon so the moonlight would have illuminated the path they took. He had already spoken of what was to happen to Him when He had broken bread and poured out the wine, but what did the disciples really understand?

He had invited them to share this night with Him, this elite group who had walked with Him during His three years of ministry. They had heard His teaching, seen His miracles, and enjoyed the intimacy of His company that was theirs alone.

And of course there were the three closest to Him (Peter, James, and John) who even on this night were singled out to go farther with Him into the garden where He would fall on his knees. These three had been chosen to be with Him and observed his transfiguration. They were perhaps his closest companions and now they had been invited into another very sacred moment.

As I read the passage and how the disciples responded to his need and how Peter, James, and John fell asleep, I can feel anguish for Jesus in his loneliness. I confess to feeling very judgmental of the disciples for their failure to watch with Him, pray with Him, be truly with Him.

Jesus had told them He would lay down his life and be taken from them and asked them to watch and pray. We have a similar image when Elijah tells Elisha he will be taken, but Elisha does not depart nor take his eyes from Elijah.

Peter, James, and John, however, have fallen asleep despite the Lord’s attempt to awaken them more than once. Even though He has shared with them that his soul was exceedingly sorrowful even to the point of death, their concern for Him does not keep them alert to minister to Him.

What about this troubles me so much?

I think there is something inside of me that wonders if I too fail to be concerned about his heart, his desire for my companionship. How often do I think about or even consider it?

Perhaps we are more like those disciples than we would desire to admit.

They were tired. They had been with Him ministering day after day doing the business of ministry and caring for the people. Now they fail to care for Him, for his heart, in this dark hour.

Have they been so busy doing the work of ministry they were insensitive to his desire for a relationship with them above all else?

Am I? Are you?

Can we be caught up in doing so many good things for Him that we have little energy to simply be with Him?

Ultimately, He offered them grace even as He does us, but I am drawn back to the reality that He left off praying and had gone to them. What was He seeking from them, hoping for?

We will never know.

What I am reminded of as I read the passage out of Matthew 26 is this:

I don’t want to be too tired, too weary, too involved with the busyness of life or ministry that when He comes and simply wants to spend time with me that I fall asleep and miss that time He has carved out for me.

This passage isn’t the only passage in scripture that speaks to being available and ready for being with Him. We see it when Mary chooses the best part. We see it in the parable of the foolish virgins when they have no oil and miss the Lord’s appearing.

Lord, help me, help us, to be available to you, to be alert, and to be ready and make time to be with you the priority. You gave us all you had, sparing nothing. Awaken my heart, our hearts, to what you most desire of me, of us.

Are we asleep?