While we can learn many things about our need to commit to a life of prayer from His example, there was something distinct about Jesus’ prayers—as is observed in the Garden of Gethsemane where He began His sufferings for our redemption.
No one has ever modelled what a praying life ought to look like so much as our Lord Jesus Christ. He was constantly pulling away from the crowds and from His disciples to have His soul strengthened in communion with His Father. Though He is the eternal Son—equal with the Father in divine power and glory—yet He is fully man and subject to all the needs of a human soul. Jesus needed to pray throughout His earthly ministry. And, while we can learn many things about our need to commit to a life of prayer from His example, there was something distinct about Jesus’ prayers—as is observed in the Garden of Gethsemane where He began His sufferings for our redemption.
No sooner had Jesus entered this familiar place of solitude with his disciples that “he told his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ There is a progress in Jesus pulling himself away from the disciples in the Garden. He separates from them, returns to them, and then goes back to prayer further away from them. Though He expressed His need for their prayers for Him, He was left to pray alone while they fell asleep. This was a physical parable of sorts. Eric Alexander explains that as Jesus pulled away from the disciples to pray,
“He moved out into the no-man’s land of human sin and shame, and the agony of bearing the burden of it, the spiritual distance was infinite.”
