Matthew 26:36 - 46
36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled.38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
Question:
ReplyDeleteWhy was Jesus so sad? Was He afraid? Was He sad about what was about to happen? What was about to happen?
https://bible.org/book/export/html/20770 says:
ReplyDeleteNone of us can really know the depth of Jesus’ sadness at this time. The word used (perilypos) is the strongest possible word for sadness. The event that was about to take place was the very reason Jesus had come, but it was a terrible task! He was about to be arrested, though He was innocent. He would be lied about, though He was the Truth. He would be beaten, though He came to bring peace. He would be hung on a cross and left to die - the punishment of a murderer, though He was the Life. But, worse than anything men could do to Him, God would turn away from Him when He took on the sins of the world (Matthew 27:46, Isaiah 59:1-2). This was almost more than Jesus could bear. His heart ached at the thought of being without His Father for even a moment.
The “cup” of which Jesus spoke, is the cup of God’s wrath, or judgment, on the wicked.
Jesus agonized over His situation. The weight of the sin of the entire world was about to come crashing down on the only sinless Person who has ever walked the Earth. Jesus was fully God, yet He was fully human (1 Timothy 3:16). In His human body, He did not want to suffer. He did not want to feel the shame of sin flood into His perfect body (Hebrews 12:2).
It’s very clear that Jesus’ sadness was affecting His physical body (Luke 22:44). Did you know that you could be so sad that it can make your body weak or sick? People have even died from being really, really sad. As Jesus was praying, God sent an angel to strengthen His body
Jesus ABIDED with His Father. He rested in Him and remained with Him so God’s perfect will would be Jesus’ all-consuming thought. Jesus bowed before His Father to gain the strength He would need to accomplish God’s amazing plan.
file:///home/bruce/Downloads/ManofSorrowsPart1.pdf says:
ReplyDeleteIn fact that great 53rdchapter of Isaiah describes the suffering of Jesus Christ. It uses words like this,
despised, rejected, esteemed not, stricken, smitten, afflicted, wounded, bruised, scourged,
oppressed, slaughtered, imprisoned, judged, and cut off or killed. In fact I
suppose if there was anything that dominated his entire life it was suffering. Grief had been his
constant companion all through his life. Sin, disease, unbelief, doubt, disobedience, ignorance,
rejection were all around him all through his life and ministry. They all gave our Lord sorrow upon
sorrow, but no sorrow previously felt can match the pain of this last week, and as we enter into an
understanding of the sufferings of Christ we have to begin in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Before Jesus came to the cross, he came to the garden, and we get a better understanding of his
suffering on the cross by understanding his suffering in the garden. We get a great
insight into how greatly he loved the father, how devoted he was to the father's will, how greatly he
and the father loved sinners. And we also learn from him how to face the profoundest temptation
ourselves and triumph as he did.
In this passage we will, as much as is possible, come to understand something of the suffering of
Christ. We will also understand the path of victory over temptation, a path which we ourselves so
desperately need to know.
file:///home/bruce/Downloads/ManofSorrowsPart1.pdf (continued):
ReplyDeleteJesus had said to them, "You will all fall away
because of me this night. You are all going to defect. You are all going to succumb to fear. You are
all going to fall to temptation. Having heard
that warning they would have been well to spend this time praying, wouldn't they? Praying that they
not fail, praying that God would give them strength to triumph in temptation, but they were smug and
self-confident. So self-confident that Peter in verse 33 responds to that prediction by saying, "Even
though all may fall away because of you, I will never fall away." He thought more highly of himself
than he ought to have thought.
They meant well,
they had good intentions. They loved their Lord, but they were not capable in their own strength to
stand the temptation they were about to face. They would have done well to have been prostrate in
prayer for strength.
The lesson was to be a very direct lesson. They were going to see how he faced temptation, how he
dealt with it, and so he took them into this his darkest hour.
All through his life things
caused him sorrow, but now it is all mounting to culminate and his soul is totally repulsed by the
thought of going to the cross and it isn't because he hates the thought of physical pain, it is because
he hates the thought of the wrath of God being poured on him. The horror of that, of alienation and
separation from one to whom he is eternally linked as God of very God. He hates the thought of
having his absolute sinlessness scarred as it were by the wrath of God as he bears the weight of
punishment for all who will ever believe.
The cross looms large and
with it the full blast of judgment for sin and death. He began to be grieved and distressed. Actually
depressed. Depressed. It means a restless shrinking back from some trouble that can't be escaped
or avoided. It's a deep sadness here. There's a desolate loneliness that comes over him. Severe
loneliness.
And then there is the depression of the loneliness and the agony of suffering. Here is the eternal
companion of God, the father, and the Holy Spirit. Here is the fellow of the holy hosts of heaven, the
beloved, the redeemer, the one who is the eternally painless one who will now feel the profound and
accumulated pain of the wrath of God from all the sins of all time pushed upon him. And think of that
depressing reality of bearing sin, the spotless, blameless, pure and holy son of God so deeply
pressed with the wrath of God as to literally pay the full penalty for sin.
The eternal deathless one must die. The unfallen man must pay the price for fallen
man. He who had no experience of death, of dying, would taste death for every man. No wonder he
was depressed. No wonder he went to the cross with agony.
The struggle now is a struggle over whether he is willing to go the cross. It is
so frightening, it is so fearful, it is so threatening, it is so terrifying that he wants to ask if there's any
way it can be avoided.
Now on the cross he didn't die from the nails. He didn't die from the crown of
thorns on his head. He didn't die from the lashing on his back. He didn't die from the spear in his
side, he was already dead. What did he die from? He didn't die from long hours and days of
asphyxiation although that's the way crucified victims eventually died. He died very fast for a crucified
victim, very fast. Surely he died of an exploded heart because of the stress, of the agony of the
cross. The anguish even here before he gets there is severe enough to threaten his life.
file:///home/bruce/Downloads/ManofSorrowsPart1.pdf (continued):
ReplyDeleteIs there any other way? Any other way? If there is let this cup pass from me.
This cup is very important. It's symbolic of suffering. The cup seems always to be tied to divine wrath. It is the cup of wrath and it represents the fury of God over sin.
"Yet not as I will, but as
thou wilt." There's the commitment. He came to do the father's will and if this was it, he would do it.
"There appeared an angel unto him from heaven to strengthen." God had to intervene
at that moment to keep him alive. The agony was so profound.
"He left them again, went away and prayed a third time saying the same thing
once more." Sometimes people will say to me well how many times do you need to pray? I mean
doesn't God hear you the first time? That's not the issue, of course he does. The issue here is not
whether God hears you. The issue here is the passion of the heart. The passion of the heart. He
cannot restrain himself from pleading the war; the battle of temptation is going on. He does not want
to be separated from God. He does not want to feel the full fury of the wrath of God poured out upon
him. The thought of it almost kills him.
But there is a lesson for us here that is basic and
profound. We want to learn how he dealt with temptation so we can deal with it and because of that
the heart of this thing is verse 41.
Verse 41 is the principal, he said it to the disciples, he says it to us, "Keep watching and praying that
you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
We must be armed with the word and here he teaches us the
other necessary ingredient to battle temptation. One, you need the word, two, you need the power of
God and that calls to prayer.
Secondly, even though you have good intentions, your flesh may, your spirit may be willing, but your
flesh is miserably weak. You cannot stand on good intentions. You cannot stand on your own self of
confidence. Confidence, you throw yourself prostrate before God and cry out for deliverance from the
strength of temptation. Intentions aren't enough. The flesh is too weak.