Lk. 22:44 - "His sweat was like. . .blood"

     Luke was a physician. Because of his trained skills in observation he often reports details about the life and death of Jesus the other gospel writers don't. As Jesus prayed in the Garden, Luke reports, "And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Lk. 22:44).
     Sweating blood has been documented scientifically. Wikipedia tells us: "Hematidrosis (also called hematohidrosis) is a very rare condition in which a human being sweats blood. It may occur when a person is suffering extreme levels of stress, for example, facing his or her own death. Several historical references have been described; notably by Leonardo da Vinci: describing a soldier who sweated blood before battle, men unexpectedly given a death sentence, as well as descriptions in the Bible, that Jesus experienced hematidrosis when he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hematidrosis (Accessed Mar. 24, 2012).
     Luke's point is that Jesus was experiencing extreme stress and great mental anguish as He struggled with the separation from God caused by the world's sin, wrestled with demonic forces, and agonized with His decision to die in our place. He was doing this out of love for us and for a world that did not love Him.
     Friend, sin in whatever form is our enemy. It caused His agony and killed Jesus. May God help us to embrace our Savior and stop undulging our sin.
     As He continually presents His sacrifice at the Mercy Seat in heaven, Jesus remembers His loving anguish for you and me. He loves to help the weakest. He never turns anyone away. Whatever sin we struggle with, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Heb. 4:16)

Mt. 26:39 - "If it is not possible. . ."

     We have begun our journey toward the cross with Jesus and are now in the Garden as He begins to suffer under our sins. Overwhelmed with "sorrow to the point of death" (Mt. 26:38) Jesus falls on His face and begins to plead with God to save Him from the horrendous experience of receiving the world's sins (1 Jn. 2:2)
     Notice the difference between his first and second prayers. There is something very important about a relationship with God and obedience here. 
     In Jesus first prayer, He has just begun to suffer as our Substitute. He feels Himself suffocating in our sins, and in desperation He cries out, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup (the cup of judgment for sin) be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." (v. 39)
     In the suddenness of his overwhelming suffering, He could think only about escape. He calls out for rescue and help. Yet throughout His life He had trained Himself to always do His Father's will.
     After this prayer (and Matthew only summarizes; it must have gone on a long time), I am sure Jesus waited breathlessly for an answer. But none came. The heavens were silent.
     Perhaps He mentally reviewed all He knew about the Suffering Messiah prophecies. Was there another way? Had He missed something? No, the Messiah was going to suffer and die (Isa. 53; Zech. 13:7; Ps. 22). He had already explained this to His disciples (Mt. 16:21, 17:22, 26:28).
     Like Abraham, when God asked him to sacrifice his promised son, Isaac, and then prayed and waited for a rescinding command, Jesus must have hoped, and listened, and waited. As in Abraham's story, would God provide a substitute? But the voice did not speak, because Jesus was the Substitute. He was the reality toward which that ram pointed.  No hand stopped the sword of Justice now. Only the truth of Scripture pointed out His path and duty.
     So we notice a difference in the second prayer. He had heard no celestial caveat, no divine loophole. So His prayer is a prayer of relinquishment, a plea of trusting commitment. "If it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done" (v. 42).  In the first prayer, Jesus struggles and cries for escape, yet commits to God's will. In the second He realizes there is no other way but His death, and He surrenders to His Father's will.
     It is the same battle we each face with temptation and obedience. And Jesus experienced it on our behalf to earn the right to help us. Listen! "During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him" (Heb. 5:7-9). (Italics mine)
     Praise God, Jesus can help us because He already went through what we do in this life. "For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God" (Heb. 2:17). He "was tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. . .so we can approach the throne of grace with confidence, "receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Heb. 5:15, 16).
     That is why we must look to Jesus for inspiration and help: "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: 'My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves. . .'" (Heb. 12:2-6).
     Deciding now to trust Jesus and do nothing but God's will, will save us from the consequences of sin, which is separation and death. As we see in Jesus' Passion, this is not easy, but it is the only path to peace. And Heaven will help us. An angel came to help Jesus (Luke 22:43), and God will help us too.

Mt. 26:39 - "My Father" - 2

     Jesus had a wonderfully close relationship with God. He called Him Father, which He was in a unique way. But He invites us to call Him Father too. He is our Father by creation and redemption.
     My dad refused to let his children call him “father.” He made the point over and over that we have only one Father in the ultimate sense. It seemed narrow and picky at the time, but I have never forgotten who my true Father is. Somehow it was easier to make the transition because of Dad’s lesson.
     Jesus was close with His Abba (daddy). He was the model of intimacy with God. His favorite times were when He could be alone with Him. I have seen dads who have cultivated closeness with their sons, without losing either their authority or respect. They share their thoughts and lives easily. I imagine Jesus’ relationship was like that.
     God loves to have us think of Him as a loving Father who only wants the best for His children (Ps. 103:8-14). And He loves it when we really believe we are dear to Him and enjoy being with Him. I understand that those who had distant, abusive, or authoritarian fathers have difficulty seeing God that way. It is nevertheless true. For them He can be the kind of Father they always wished they had.
     Jesus saw Himself as dear to God. His favorite times were being alone with Him. God’s heart must have been filled with grateful love as He saw His Son seeking Him in prayer and reading His words day by day, night after night. God loves it when we do too.
     I love to talk to my young grandson on the phone. The other day, after a conversation, he apparently wanted more time with Grandpa. He hadn’t had enough of hearing Grandpa’s voice. My daughter found him in his room listening to me on a recordable book I had made for him at Christmastime.
     When I heard this, it really warmed my heart—and gave me a glimpse of how God feels when we want to be with Him, talk to Him in prayer or listen to His word. Jesus showed us how and bridged the gap with His atonement so we could (1 Pet. 1:3-9).

Mt. 26:39 - "My Father. . ."

     Throughout His life, Jesus had resolutely kept a close, intimate relationship with His Father, closer than we will ever fully understand. It was this closeness that always sustained Him.

     Because He never sinned, His heart never knew a cloud of guilt or sense of separation from His Abba (Daddy). He had cultivated such life-long such intimacy He could say “My Father and I are one” (Jn. 10:30).  Often, after long days of ministry, He prayed all night, or arose early in the morning, and was refreshed and strengthened by this communion with His Father.

     Now, as the time of His great Sacrifice approaches, Jesus naturally flees to His Father. But what shocks and pains His heart, what terrifies His soul, is the separation from Abba our sin upon Him is causing.

     Think of the person you hold dearest in life. If they withdrew their love, loyalty, and support (apparently), would it not crush your heart?

     Beginning in the Garden, “He who had been one with God, felt in His soul the awful separation that sin makes between God and man. . .It was the burden of sin, the sense of its terrible enormity, of its separation of the soul from God--it was this that broke the heart of the Son of God.” (The Faith I Live By,” p. 101)

     Writing about Jesus’ experience on the cross (we know His suffering begins in Gethsemane), Ellen White explains: “Upon Christ as our substitute and surety was laid the iniquity of us all. He was counted a transgressor, that He might redeem us from the condemnation of the law. The guilt of every descendant of Adam was pressing upon His heart. The wrath of God against sin, the terrible manifestation of His displeasure because of iniquity, filled the soul of His Son with consternation. All His life Christ had been publishing to a fallen world the good news of the Father's mercy and pardoning love. Salvation for the chief of sinners was His theme. But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father's reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Savior in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt.” The Desire of Ages, p. 753 (Italics mine). 

     Jesus suffered the breaking of His relationship with God so we can experience the healing of ours. What an amazing price was paid so we can receive the acceptance and intimacy Jesus redeemed for us. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” (1 Jn. 3:1-3). 

     “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir” (Gal. 4:6-7). Praise God!

Mt. 26:39 - "My Father, please remove this cup."

     After Matthew tells us about Jesus' deep sorrow--"even unto death", he describes how Jesus "fell with his face to the ground," (further evidence of His superhuman anguish). Then Christ "prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.'"
     Minutes earlier Jesus had offered the Passover cup to His disciples describing as the "blood of the covenent. . .poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Mt. 26:27-28). He announced it then, but now He is tasting its bitter contents. And it was this cup, the cup of His suffering and death, He was asking to be spared from.
     In Gethsemane He teeters on the edge of the abyss, the shadows the Second Death, enveloping Him, and His soul recoils. "May this cup be taken from me!" What made this cup so awful?
     This cup included more than physical suffering and death. In the Bible Jesus used, the Old Testament scriptures, a "cup" is used symbolically for God's judgment on the wicked. In our place, Jesus was accepting the results of our sin and drinking it "down to the very dregs" (Ps. 75:8: Isa. 51:17).
     Three times Jesus asks if there is another way, if He can be spared. But the steel-black heavens are silent, because God's will--a plan to which Jesus had agreed way back in eternity--had already been sealed. And as One Who always placed His Father's will above all, Jesus surrendered.

Mt. 26:38 - "Stay here and watch with me."

We are thinking about Jesus' suffering as we move toward Easter, convinced that meditating on His death will draw us closer to Him. In Matthew 26:37, we read that as Jesus entered the Garden, an overwhelming sorrow came over Him. In verse 38 He says to Peter, James, and John, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." Yesterday we learned that this sorrow "to the point of death" was more far more than anxiety about His impending suffering. He was, even then in the Garden, becoming the Divine-human Substitute for the world's sin, and it was crushing out His life (Isa. 53). Now Jesus pleads for His three closest disciples to stay with Him and keep watch. Always the One to support others, Jesus now feels His need of human support and the assurance they are praying for Him. But it may also have been for their sake He invited their prayers. They needed to enter into what Jesus was going through for them. If they had, they would not have fallen, and they would have understood so much more of the events of His Passion. "Stay here and keep watch with me." Jesus words are also for us. We need to stay right here--in the Garden of Jesus' suffering, keeping watch and praying. Do not run through the Garden in your devotions. Stop and ponder the meaning of each word, each emotion Jesus expresses, and you will learn precious things that will bind Him to your heart. We need to "stay here" in His story regularly and often, or we will forget what Jesus' sacrifice cost. And if we forget, we wander from His love.

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?