In Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42, Luke 22:39-46 and John 18:1-11 we see Jesus in what is referred to as the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives, a place we are told He came frequently to pray. He has just spent the evening celebrating the Jewish Passover with His eleven closest friends on earth, at which time He presents to them a new covenant, a new means by which men and women can enter into present and ultimately eternal communion with God as His beloved children (Matthew 26:26-28). A twelfth person at the celebration, Judas, would prove to be an enemy, joining with Jesus’s greatest enemy, the devil, to betray Him into the murderous hands of the Jewish authorities (John 13:2). And before the evening is over, the other eleven will abandon Him also, fearing for their own lives (Matthew 26:56).
Jesus was well aware of what was about to occur (Matthew 16:21) (Matthew 26:1-2). He would have read and understood better than anyone Isaiah 53 as a prophesy of His atoning work. And thus, in anticipation of the unspeakable horrors of the upcoming hours, He comes to this garden sanctuary with three of His closest Apostles, Peter, James and John, to pray with Him.
Jesus will again, as a man, enter into intimate communion with His Heavenly Father, who had twice spoken audibly from Heaven to express His pleasure in and love for His eternal Son (Matthew 3:17) (Matthew 17:5). Out of the agony of His exceedingly sorrowful soul, Jesus falls on His face, terrified by what He is about to experience on behalf of sinful mankind, and cries out to the Father with what on the surface appears to be a very disturbing petition, praying “O My Father, if it is possible, (if there be any other way for me to save my people from their sins) let this cup pass from Me”.
He prays this three times, though each time expressing His willing submission to the Father’s will.
Yet this still begs the question, was Jesus a whimpering coward, a girly-man who once realizing what the eternal plan of salvation would cost Him wants to renege on His part in that plan?
Admittedly, crucifixion is probably the most cruel and unusual punishment designed by our wicked, evil race, with the shame and pain suffered by those sentenced to it beyond horrific.
However, if all Jesus had to bear in our place for our sin was the physical pain and social shame of the cross, He did nothing more than what thousands before and after Him would do, many of whom faced crucifixion with a calm resignation or defiant stoicism. It is likely also that there were some, like Jesus, innocent of the crimes they were charged with. I am fairly certain though that none of them ever sweated drops of blood in anticipation of its horror (Luke 22:44).
This is not to minimize the physical and emotional suffering Jesus went through. That in itself was horrendous. He was publicly scorned, rejected, abandoned, shamed, despised, hated, humiliated, and ridiculed by people who should have loved Him. The degradation, filth and torture of the cross was a horrible, bloody and fatal reality.
However, let us not make the mistake of many who would cheapen our Lord’s atoning work to mean just the physical suffering of the merciless, tortuous scourging, and the excruciating pain experienced in crucifixion. That suffering was in one sense a result of the wrath of man – of man’s hatred and hostility toward God, (Psalm 2:1-3) which is ultimately what motivated the Jews and Romans to tortuously scourge and then placard Jesus on the cross.
Christ’s fear, His apparent hesitancy in going through with the plan, a plan He devised with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit in eternity past, was related to the very thing we as sinful human beings fail to fear, namely the cup of God’s wrath, the outpouring of His white hot anger and just vengeance toward sin, which is ultimately consummated in our consignment to Hell (Psalm 75:8) (Isaiah 51:17) (Revelation 14:9-11).
This is why our Lord’s soul was so heavy, so sorrowful, His cries so anguished as He was anticipating His suffering of our eternal punishment for sin against a Holy and righteous God. Theologian John Calvin says that the Intensity of Jesus’ prayer was not to escape what was in the cup but for the courage to drink it.
However, the shadow of the darkness of this hellish experience was burdening Him tremendously. Jesus knew what was coming. He knew He would be descending into the darkest depths a man can experience in his soul – to be abandoned, forsaken by God – in His case by the God who loved Him eternally. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sensed the awfulness of our sin. The terrors of Hell our sin deserved were gripping His soul such that He prayed in His agony: “Father, if there is some other way, let this cup of your wrath pass from me”. We cannot imagine the anguish of the soul of Jesus, the God-Man, who in a few hours would bravely, heroically take the full weight of the punishment of our sin upon Himself.
Upon being strengthened by an Angel sent by His Father in response to His prayer, Jesus goes forth in the strength of His Father’s love (John 10:17) and in the joy (Hebrews 12:2) of what He will accomplish for His people, to fulfill His mission (1 Timothy 1:15).
Over the next hours, the last few hours of His life, all that terrified Jesus in His soul, all that prompted His prayer in the Garden, will become a reality. And we will look at that reality in my next post.
Grace and Peace ×