3 Nephi 19

3 Nephi 19

It is hard not to contrast the Savior’s experience in this chapter with His experience in the Garden of Gethsemane.  In both occasions He removed himself apart from His followers to pray alone, apart from them, but in their sight.  And in both instances He returned to His followers to again ask them to pray and to watch.  In Gethsemane, He found them asleep each of the three times He came back to them.  But not in Bountiful.  Each of the three times He came to them, they were still praying.  The disciples in Jerusalem were very tired.  It was after a meal and late at night.  No doubt that some of the disciples in Bountiful were also very tired, as surely some of them had been among the large group of people that had spent the night going from house to house to tell their neighbors of the Savior’s visit and invite them to the next day’s meeting with Him.  How lonely the Lord must have felt in Gethsemane, and what joy He must have felt in Bountiful!  The prayer He prayed in Gethsemane was to prepare Him for the ordeal to come as He completed His atoning sacrifice for the world.  But the prayer He prayed in Bountiful was more like the great Intercessory Prayer found in John 17 where He asked the Father’s greatest blessings upon His followers.  Both 3 Nephi 19 and John 17 are beautiful chapters.