Pressed

Gethsemane, the name of the place where Jesus prayed before his betrayal, is an Aramaic word for “olive press.” During Bible times, olives were pressed three times to remove all the valuable oil. Before being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus felt the full pressing weight of our sins on his shoulders. Surrounded by olive trees, praying fervently while sweating drops of blood, the perfect Son of God asked his heavenly Father three times to remove the cup of suffering.

Instead of removing that trial, God used it to redeem and save humankind. Likewise, God uses our hardships to refine and strengthen our faith.

In The Rock, the Road and the Rabbi, TV host Kathie Lee Gifford and Messianic Rabbi Jason Sobel speculate that if Peter, along with James and John, hadn’t fallen asleep in Gethsemane, he may have had the strength to not deny Jesus later that night.

“All of us must be vigilant to watch and pray so that we don’t succumb to the temptation to deny the Lord when we go through the olive presses of life and feel like we are being crushed by our situation and circumstances,” the authors write. “We must remember that it is the crushing that brings out the true inner value and worth of the olive.”