The Easter season has just passed. It's easy for us to move on to focus on things like the end of school for our kids, summer vacations, fun plans for the summer. It's great to clear our minds of all the winter blues and concentrate on the warm days, days of sun and fun! We can just let Easter pass and put it out of our minds. But before we do, I'd like to circle back and remind us just once more of things Jesus experienced for us.

Jesus' resurrection is truly the capstone moment of all history passed and history future. Life, humanity, this world, the universe as we know it and everything in between all hinge on, is supported by and means something because of his resurrection. Had Jesus died and stayed in the tomb, he would've been a great teacher, prophet, holy man with good philosophical ideas helping us live a more peaceful life — but he would have been no more than that. He would not have been God, he would not have been our Savior, he would not have been able to give us eternal life or any real life for that matter! He would have come and gone, collected some adherents to his teachings, and the claims he made about himself would have been unsupported.

But he did rise from the dead. Everything he said, everything he's done, everything he is…is 100% true! He can grant us eternal life, he can transform us into his children, he can give us a better life here and a glorious life in heaven. Jesus is God — he proved it the second he took his first breath in that tomb. The quote by Yale Professor Jaroslav Pelikan is absolutely true: "If Christ is risen, nothing else matters and if Christ is not risen, nothing else matters."

Jesus is certainly risen — there is investigative proof. If you doubt there's empirical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, before you simply criticize it as a ridiculous fantasy or myth, read Lee Strobel's book The Case for Christ. Once you've read his book, come back to me and let's discuss it. Is Jesus alive? Did Jesus rise from the dead? If he did, what does that say about all the claims he has made of himself?

During Easter season in the Christian world, we remember and discuss his crucifixion and resurrection. We cover the Passion Week in detail. But I think so often we read right past a moment that so poignantly reveals what Jesus has truly done for humanity. It displays the depth of trauma he endured on our behalf. The night before Jesus was crucified, he went to a garden called Gethsemane to pray. The scene is recorded in Matthew 26:36–46 and Luke 22:39–46.

After celebrating his last meal with his disciples, Jesus led his guys to a garden just across the way from the Temple area in Jerusalem — the Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane wasn't the name of the garden, it was a description. Gethsemane is an Aramaic word that means "Oil Press." It wasn't a peaceful grove of butterflies and daisies where Jesus would collect his thoughts. Historically, it was a site dedicated to olive oil production. In Jesus' day, extracting oil was a rigorous, multi-stage process. The site is located just across the Kidron Valley from the Temple Mount area. This location suggests it may have been a primary supplier of ritually pure oil for the Temple's light and purification rituals.

Olives were typically crushed three times to extract all the qualities of oil from the fruit. A large millstone would be pulled by a donkey, rolling in a basin, crushing the olives into a pulp. The pulp was then placed in wicker baskets and stacked under a heavy wooden beam. Large stone weights were added to the beam to squeeze out the oil. Traditionally, olives were pressed three times — each stage produced a different quality of oil. The first stage was for anointing oil, used for religious purposes, the spiritual ritual signifying authority and connecting humanity to God. A second pressing would crush the olives further, squeezing out oil to be used for medicinal purposes in healing. A third crushing produced oil satisfactory for lighting the candle stand lamps.

Jesus didn't go to a peaceful garden the night before his crucifixion — he went to a place literally called the crushing place.

In ancient Israel, every Jewish king, priest, and prophet was anointed with oil pressed from olives. The word Messiah means "anointed one," signifying one who is ceremonially anointed. On the night before Jesus would fulfill every single one of those offices, he went to an olive press. The symbolism isn't accidental — Jesus could have gone anywhere, but that night he chose to specifically go to the Olive Press.

Luke, a physician, wrote that as Jesus prayed, he sweat great drops of blood. Hematidrosis is a condition in which capillary blood vessels that feed the sweat glands rupture, causing them to exude blood. This can occur under conditions of extreme physical or emotional stress. Jesus was clearly under great pressure. Jesus wasn't nervous or scared of dying — he was in physical and spiritual agony. Before anyone laid a hand on him, the pressure he experienced literally caused him to sweat blood.

The cup he begged his Father to take from him wasn't the nails, it wasn't the scourging or the physical abuse — it was something more severe, more crushing than anything physical pain could account for. The extreme terror he faced was the weight of the full wrath of God poured out for every sin ever committed by every human being to have ever or will have ever existed. This in its entirety was placed on one person — just like those heavy beams would be placed on those olives, crushing out all the oil. All the weight of all the sin of all the world was placed on Jesus. He was facing separation from the Father, something he'd never experienced in eternity past. He wasn't afraid of dying — he faced all the crushing pressure of this moment in a place named for crushing.

Every word Jesus prayed in the garden was heavy with the full weight of the olive press bearing down upon his soul. God purposed to crush him for our sake. We hear him say "not my will but yours be done" — we take that to be a quiet act of surrender to God's bigger plan. But when we realize what the cup actually was. When we realize he was sweating drops of blood from pure anguish. When we realize his friends who were with him had fallen asleep, abandoning him to face the pressure alone. When we realize he was in the place of crushing and went there on purpose. We realize his prayer wasn't a peaceful, quiet surrender.

Just as olives were crushed to produce oil, Jesus endured immense pressure while taking upon him the weight of human sin. It was in Gethsemane that Jesus fully submitted his will to God the Father. He prayed three times, akin to the crushing process used on olives — producing three types of oil. Jesus is the pure oil used to connect humanity to God. He's the medicinal oil used to heal our sin-sick souls. And he's the oil that burns in the candle stand, shining brightly, revealing our path to God.

As we run off to play in the sun this summer, let's not forget what Jesus went through for us. When you truly consider what Jesus experienced and what that did for you — how could you ever forget him?