Meditations on Jesus' Passion: "He began to be sorrowful and troubled."

     In His Passion story, Matthew describes Jesus entering the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples on the eve of His death. Upon entering the Garden, he records, Jesus "began to be sorrowful and troubled" (Mt. 26:37).
     It was your sin and and mine--and the sins of the whole world (1 Jn. 2:2)--that were troubling Him and causing such sorrow. He was now beginning to take our place as the Divine-human Substitute for sins, the "Lamb of God that would die for the sins of the world" (Jn. 1:29).
     Sin separates us from a holy God (Isa. 59:1-2), but Jesus took our sins on Himself and endured our separation so we could be reconciled with our Father.
     In the Garden, we watch as our sins begin to separate Him from the life of His Father. He is in agony because the oneness with the God He had always loved from eternity is being broken up.
     Beginning here in Gethsemane he begins to die the just and agonizing death of our separation from the Father, the Second Death (Rev. 20:6, 14), culminating eventually on the cross when He cried, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!" (Mt. 27:46). 
     "God made Him Who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:17). God gifted Him our sin, so He could gift us His perfection (Rom. 4, 5) to stand justified in the sight of a loving, holy God (Rom. 5:1-10).
     "We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed" (Isa. 53:7, 6).
     "See from His head, His hands, His feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown? Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." ("When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," Hymn 154 in SDA Church Hymnal).
     His strong love made the supreme Sacrifice for you. Will you give Him your love and obedience in return?