“Passover and Suffering in the Garden,” Easter Study Plan (2024)
Thursday, March 28
Passover and Suffering in the Garden
“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39).
Jesus observed the sacred holiday of Passover with His Apostles. He instituted the sacred ordinance of the sacrament, in which His disciples were invited to eat and drink in remembrance of Him. He taught them of the comforting power of the Holy Ghost. And knowing that His time with them would soon end, He commanded them to “love one another” as He had loved them (John 13:34–35). That love, He said, would be a sign to others that they were His disciples. His Apostles had come such a long way since they first encountered Jesus, and yet His words showed He knew their transformation into true disciples was just beginning.
After what is often referred to as the Last Supper, Jesus asked His Apostles to follow Him through the night to a quiet garden named Gethsemane. Despite their Master asking them to stay awake with Him, the exhausted disciples fell asleep. Alone, Jesus began to pray and was soon overcome with incomprehensible agony. There in the garden, He began the process of taking upon Himself the sins and pains of the world. It was the beginning of an act of sacrifice that would reach its conclusion the next day on the cross at Golgotha.
Later that night, Judas Iscariot betrayed the Savior to local authorities, who arrested Jesus and brought Him to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest. There, Jesus would await His trial until the next morning.
President Russell M. Nelson has repeatedly invited us to come closer to Christ through the process of repentance, made possible through Jesus’s suffering and Atonement:
Nothing is more liberating, more ennobling, or more crucial to our individual progression than is a regular, daily focus on repentance. Repentance is not an event; it is a process. It is the key to happiness and peace of mind. When coupled with faith, repentance opens our access to the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. (“We Can Do Better and Be Better,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2019, 67)
Read and Ponder
How can daily repentance help you honor and remember Jesus Christ?
Watch
“The Last Supper”
“The Savior Suffers in Gethsemane”
Sing
“Love One Another,” Hymns, no. 308