the Valley II

Night has fallen in the quiet valley and memories of the warm sunlight have long since faded. The traveler, alone, sits amongst a grove of trees that are all too still looking up towards the black, cloud-covered darkness. The cold has seeped through his clothes and with the long night before him, despair begins knocking at his heart. Despite the night air, lines of sweat make trails down his worn skin as he rocks back and forth, his beard brushing against his knees; perhaps to keep warm or perhaps to fight off the fear that seems to be closing in. His lips move quickly forming words but only whispers would be heard if one were kneeling beside him.

He is alone. This dark night has closed around his soul and he is left to the powers that be as they batter him back and forth. His mind a battleground and his body awaits expectantly. His response will be according to the decision cast down from on high. He can taste the fear in his mouth as he senses that perhaps his time has come. He wonders if he is capable. He wonders if he will have the strength to finish what he started. He reaches up to wipe the sweat off his face and in the half-light his hand looks as if it was smeared with blood. There is no one else. No one to help shoulder what he has to bare, no one’s touch to comfort him. He is truly and utterly alone.

He knows not when it will begin, whether in the dark of the night or the first light of dawn. Whether in silence or shouting they will come. The revelation runs through his body- what was started is about to be finished. Trembling he pronounces the words that have been brewing from deep inside him ever since the full revelation had descended. Words that mean the end since the answer will be final.

The man falls forward, losing awareness of the cold and the darkness, conscious only of what is forming on his lips. His heart bursts with the enormity and weight of what seems the world on his back. He is one man. What will it be like to experience for the first and only time complete and utter separation from the creator of all things? Humans are not meant to bear the revelation of such things, let alone the sheer hell of the experience itself. Suddenly the words fall from his lips, now formed and birthed into existence. Like all spoken words they are breathed into eternity and cannot be taken back. The words reach up into the heavens and down into the depths. The Father hears them and words do not express what he feels.

“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Followed immediately with “nevertheless not as I will, but as you will.”
And then again, “if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, let your will be done.”
And finally a third time.
It is a final resignation to the path that leads out of the valley. It is the only way. The only way anyone will ever be able to the leave the valley and enter into rest.

The wind picks up and the stillness seems to disappear in anticipation and sudden expectation and the leaves on the trees begin to make noise. The man feels release wash over him as the words are spoken and make their journey infinitely outwards. The answer is already there before the sound of the request has died out. He has known his Father’s will since before the beginning of time. His will is the Father’s will. Now he is ready. He has spoken out of being human. He has voiced the innermost, deepest and most human request to ever be formed. Never before has he been so frailly human. Never again will anyone be so human again.

In the distance voices are distinguished. Glimpses of torchlight can be seen through the now swaying trees. The hour has come. His hour has come. He pulls himself to his feet and the weight of the world shifts from his back to his shoulders. Soon that weight will be two literal beams in the form of a cross. The group approaches and the lonely traveler is greeted with a kiss from an old friend.




The trees in the valley have stopped swaying. The first light of day rushes across the sky and all is still again. Sensing the importance of this day, the trees pause to consider what had been witnessed the previous night. Alone and weak the traveler had come and knelt beneath them. He had faced the night, but in a moment shortly before the others came something changed. It was as if he had entered the valley with the human vision of all that awaited him on the other side of dawn, for he was human. However for the first time in human history, the Father refused to take the cup from a human hand, and instead would pour it out fully over the Son, and the world would be changed forever. It was that vision that tormented the traveler, the vision of what it was to be separated utterly and completely from the Father, making all other valleys pale in comparison.

In the darkest hour of the night, in the moment when the sun, moon, and stars shone the least, revelation descended and the vision of the Father for himself and every other frail human being was revealed, and the traveler was led away into the night. He had faced the end and poured out everything, and when human strength and understanding failed him, he bled the only words that are left at that point, “not my will but yours” and thus found his way out of Gethsemane.