Gethsemane & the Incarnation

Matthew 26:36-46 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch [7] with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. 45 Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. [8] See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

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Jesus shows his divinity and his humanity in such profound ways in this passage. He is both strong enough to submit to his call as messiah and yet weak enough to feel all of the weight of the burden pressing down. His conversation with God the Father is strangely human and his imperative for the disciples to pray with him demonstrates supernatural standards of living. He is in the radical middle between God and man, or more accurately, He is fully God and fully man.
He is the prototype for what we aspire to become - not that we would become fully God, but we are certainly intended to be friends with God. Of all the celebrities who might ever call me on the phone and ask to be my friend, God has got to be the coolest one.

Intermarriage

Ezra 10:10 The land that you are entering, to take possession of it, is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. 12 Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’ ...18 Now there were found some of the sons of the priests who had married foreign women...19 They pledged themselves to put away their wives
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On one hand I understand that God is giving the Jews practical instuction on how to avoid mixing with a bad crowd. On the other hand, it seems uncharacteristic of Him to condone the abandonment of the foreign wives and children once they have been grafted into the family. I struggle with this passage both in implication and application. Should I read it symbolically for my own life, looking for parallels for pure living, or would the equivelant be marrying a non-Christian? On one hand, the laws of the Old Testament were much more lenient on divorce than Jesus. At the same time, the New Testament teachings seem to be much for graceful to those outside the family DNA, so to speak. Wouldn't God want these foreign wives and children to be loved? Perhaps it would have been better, rather than putting their wives and children out, to lay themselves before the Lord and repent, asking for a way to sacrifice themselves on behalf of their families. It seems to me that this is what Jesus did and therefore what they could have done.