I looked yesterday at the emotional and spiritual agony of Jesus in the Garden, as described in Mark's Gospel. Matthew uses the exact words that Mark uses, and John records the High Priestly prayer of Jesus, not his struggle in the Garden. But Luke does, and while there is similarity to the description in Matthew and Mark, Luke sheds more light on our Lord's intense struggle.
"And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." Luke 22:44 ("He prayed more fervently and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood." NLT)
It is evident that Luke is describing a very unusual mental, emotional and spiritual struggle. Jesus is in great agony and sweating profusely. His sweat was so heavy that in the dark it looked like he was bleeding. Or he experienced what is called hematidrosis, a very rare occurrence of capillaries around the sweat glands actually bursting and bleeding. In either case, the picture is of an extremely intense struggle as Jesus prays. Jesus is so terrified that three times He asks the Father to please let Him avoid what lies ahead.
I note this to emphasize that if Jesus were facing simply, or primarily the agony of crucifixion, He would not have prayed in the same way with the same amazing intensity. As I noted in yesterday's blog, thousands of others "went to the cross" during the Roman period, including numerous followers of Christ in the years following his death. Surely the perfect God-man faced the physical torture as courageously as any other person.
However our Lord was facing a unique qualitatively terrible spiritual pain: He was about to take the sin and evil of the world onto his spiritually perfect being. As He did this, His Father with whom He had perfect eternal fellowship, and in His perfection hates sin, would in some mysterious manner abandon Christ on the Cross. Here was where the true agonizing pain existed.
After all the scholarship devoted to the theology of the cross, we still face mystery beyond our human understanding. What did Jesus experience in the Garden and on the Cross? What exactly did it involve and how really painful was it to our Lord, in spiritual terms? Only God fully understands. With our limited understanding we simply stand in awe of the price Jesus paid to take our place, our punishment, our sin. The cost is glimpsed as we see Him in the Garden. And we cry "Hallelujan, what a Saviour!"
"And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." Luke 22:44 ("He prayed more fervently and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood." NLT)
It is evident that Luke is describing a very unusual mental, emotional and spiritual struggle. Jesus is in great agony and sweating profusely. His sweat was so heavy that in the dark it looked like he was bleeding. Or he experienced what is called hematidrosis, a very rare occurrence of capillaries around the sweat glands actually bursting and bleeding. In either case, the picture is of an extremely intense struggle as Jesus prays. Jesus is so terrified that three times He asks the Father to please let Him avoid what lies ahead.
I note this to emphasize that if Jesus were facing simply, or primarily the agony of crucifixion, He would not have prayed in the same way with the same amazing intensity. As I noted in yesterday's blog, thousands of others "went to the cross" during the Roman period, including numerous followers of Christ in the years following his death. Surely the perfect God-man faced the physical torture as courageously as any other person.
However our Lord was facing a unique qualitatively terrible spiritual pain: He was about to take the sin and evil of the world onto his spiritually perfect being. As He did this, His Father with whom He had perfect eternal fellowship, and in His perfection hates sin, would in some mysterious manner abandon Christ on the Cross. Here was where the true agonizing pain existed.
After all the scholarship devoted to the theology of the cross, we still face mystery beyond our human understanding. What did Jesus experience in the Garden and on the Cross? What exactly did it involve and how really painful was it to our Lord, in spiritual terms? Only God fully understands. With our limited understanding we simply stand in awe of the price Jesus paid to take our place, our punishment, our sin. The cost is glimpsed as we see Him in the Garden. And we cry "Hallelujan, what a Saviour!"
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