Origins of the Praying Jesus Statues



The praying Jesus is one of the best known garden statues besides the image of the Virgin Mary in the garden. This statue shows Jesus knelt down in prayer with his folded praying hands on a rock, beseeching God for mercy against the trials that he was doomed to face. This has become the iconic image of prayer the world over, especially for those in the Christian faiths and a symbol of the humility that the Son of God was known to have during his life on Earth. Despite this being such a common symbol for people to have in their gardens, there are many who do not understand how this image came to be and why it has such a religious importance.



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The image of a praying Jesus first appeared in written context is the Gospel of John. In this gospel, it was the night of his arrest. He had told his apostles that one of them would betray them and took them to the garden in order to pray that they were not the one to betray him. While his apostles prayed, Jesus went further into the garden and knelt before an alter, resting his hands in front of him in a folded position and beseeched to God that the pains of the crucifixion should pass over him. This is also the origins of the Our Father, as this was the beginning of his prayer to God.

The image of Jesus praying was then captured by many artists in many different mediums as the church used images to teach a mass of people who could not read the stories of the bible. The images began as paintings and mosaics. As stained glass grew in complexities and was able to be used to display coherent images, the windows became the images for the stories. This was one of the causes for the splitting of the orthodox and non-orthodox faiths, as the orthodox faiths believe that it is against the commandments to make images of God for the people to worship.