In the verses we study today Jesus spends His final moments as a free man in prayer with the Father. Soon there will be heard the pounding of approaching footsteps, the rattle of swords, and the voice of the betrayer. Soon there will be an illegal trial held in the middle of the night. Soon there will be a hearing before a Roman governor who will find Jesus innocent but who will be too politically motivated to stand up to those crying out, "Crucify Him!" Soon there will be the lashes of whips across His back, a cross to carry, a crown of thorns to wear, and nails in His hands and feet. Jesus knows all these things are ahead of Him and He is willing to face them if it's the Father's will, but He needs the strength of the Father to face the shame and agony of this night and the following day. He goes out to the Garden of Gethsemane for the comfort and courage to complete His mission on earth.
"They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to His disciples, 'Sit here while I pray.'" (Mark 14:32) The word "gethsemane" (in Aramaic gath shmanim, in Hebrew gethsemanel) means "olive press". It was a place of olive groves and a large community olive press where heavy weights would be applied to the olives in order to squeeze out every drop of precious oil. Gethsemane has become synonymous with a place of heavy burdens and with a season of time in which a person endures agony of mind and soul. When Jesus goes to the garden He is already feeling the heavy burden of the things that are to come. His mind and soul are in agony. He will say to the disciples that His soul is so overwhelmed He could almost die from the heaviness of it. Like olives in a press, Jesus is going to be crushed underneath the weight of scorn and shame and rejection. He's going to be crushed by having the Father forsake Him while He literally becomes sin in our place. (2 Corinthians 5:21) He's going to be crushed, not for His own wrongdoing, but for ours. (Isaiah 53:5) It's somewhat bearable for a man to face punishment he knows he deserves, but a human being naturally wants to avoid enduring punishment he has not earned. Jesus is going to need supernatural strength to go forward.
He leaves eight of the disciples near the entrance to Gethsemane and takes His three closest friends farther into the garden with Him. "He took Peter, James and John along with Him, and He began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,' He said to them. 'Stay here and keep watch.'" (Mark 14:33-34) It is my opinion that many Bible scholars, teachers, and preachers have spiritualized Jesus' mental agony so much that they have removed His humanity from Him. They feel it isn't "godly" to say Jesus dreaded the physical pain ahead of Him. They want to claim that the only dread Jesus felt was at the horrifying thought of having all our sins placed on Him. But we cannot separate His humanity from His deity. When we do that we make Him into something less than He is. As He walked the earth, Jesus was all man and all God at the same time. If we downplay His humanity we downplay His sacrifice. We downplay the unimaginable amount of strength it took to lay aside the power and glory that were rightfully His and to submit to torture. He could have called down twelve thousand legions of angels to fight for Him (Matthew 26:53) and I believe it took every ounce of willpower He possessed to keep from doing so.
Crucifixion was not only a method of execution; it was a method of torture. We get our English word "excruciating" from the Latin word "cruciare" which means "to crucify". This method of execution was so deliberately painful and so unbearably agonizing that a word had to be invented to describe it. Jesus, along with everyone else who visited Jerusalem in those days, had seen crucifixion victims hanging on crosses. The Romans carried out crucifixions along main thoroughfares as a warning to the populace not to run afoul of the Roman government. As He struggles with a deeper depression than you and I could ever imagine, Jesus has a very graphic picture in His mind of what crucifixion entails. His human mind and human body naturally recoil from such horror, and I believe if He had not spent some time with the Father in the garden on this night He would not have been able to go on. It doesn't take anything away from the deity of Christ to ascribe to Him the human emotions and fear of pain that He had. Instead it magnifies His deity. It magnifies the indescribable love He felt for us all that He was willing to endure torture to save our souls.
"Going a little farther, He fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from Him. 'Abba, Father,' He said, 'everything is possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will.'" (Mark 14:35-36) In a time of such anguish as this, the formal "Father" will not suffice. Jesus needs the comforting reminder of His relationship to the Maker of all things, crying out, "Daddy!" He says, "Daddy, You are able to do anything. Is this the only way to save these souls we so dearly love? If anyone can find another way to obtain redemption for mankind, I know You can. But if this is the method You choose, I'm willing. If this is what You want, I will do it."
"Then He returned to His disciples and found them sleeping. 'Simon,' He said to Peter, 'are you asleep? Couldn't you watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.'" (Mark 14:37-38) Jesus could rightfully expect that at least His closest three friends would be unable to take their eyes off Him in His sorrow. He thought these three would surely stand and pray as they witness His grief. But they let Him down. Peter previously declared that even if everyone else deserted Jesus, he wouldn't. Peter meant it. He truly believed nothing on earth could persuade him to turn and run. Jesus knows that His disciples genuinely love Him and really do believe they would do anything to defend Him, but He knows the weakness of the human mind and body. He knows that when the silence of the garden is interrupted by the tramp of feet and the rattle of swords and the voices of His enemies, everything will be crowded out of their minds except the desire to save their own lives. The fear will be so overwhelming that, because they have not prayed as He instructed them, they won't be able to think of anything to do but run.
"Once more He went away and prayed the same thing. When He came back, He again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to Him. Returning the third time, He said to them, 'Are you still sleeping and resting. Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes My betrayer!'" (Mark 14:39-42) Just as the Apostle Paul pleaded three times with the Lord to take away his thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:8), Jesus pleads three times with the Lord to remove from Him the cup He is about to drink. This cup is the cup of God's wrath, the cup we deserved to drink but which Jesus drank in our place. As we close on the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus has accepted that God the Father has chosen the way of the cross. Jesus has accepted that in His worst moments, even His closest friends have let Him down. Jesus has accepted that one of His own disciples has betrayed Him to the death. So now He squares the shoulders that are about to bear the heavy weight of our sins, sets His face like flint (Isaiah 50:7) and fulfills the following Messianic prophecy, "The Sovereign Lord has opened My ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away. I offered My back to those who beat Me, My cheeks to those who pulled out My beard; I did not hide My face from mocking and spitting." (Isaiah 50:5-6)
Maybe you are going through your own Gethsemane right now. Like Jesus, you can find comfort in the Father. God won't always keep us from drinking an unpleasant cup, but He will comfort and strengthen us as we drink it. He will see us through our Gethsemane times, just as He saw Jesus through His. Below is a link to a song that I hope will comfort you in your difficult circumstances. It reminds us that, no matter what is going on in our lives, our Daddy (our Abba) is holding us.
Held
No comments:
Post a Comment