Luke 22:21-44
There used to be a commercial for deodorant with a tag line that was “never let them see you sweat” the commercial was about being under stress but not letting anyone see it. Do you sweat when you are stressed? Do you cry? Do you hold it all in so no one sees how much you are struggling? We are now in what the Church identifies as Holy Week and in just days we will remember with somberness the day that Jesus died.
In some ways Thursday was a good day and in other ways it was not. Jesus had shared a good meal with his friends, He had blessed the bread and the wine and called on them to remember Him and the new covenant he was making with the world, that would be sealed with his own body – the time was drawing near for the reason He had come. Jesus also identified his betrayer and told Peter, that he would not stand up to the pressure and would deny even knowing him.
After supper they went out into the country side to a place on the Mount of Olives that Jesus liked to frequent. Jesus wanted to pray, He needed to pray. The human side of him didn’t want to go through with the plan. That’s where we are with this week’s passage from Luke. Matthew and Mark both tell us that Jesus said to them “that my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38, Mark 14:34). Jesus asked His Father to take the cup from him, Mark says He essentially cried “Daddy, daddy everything is possible for you, take this cup from me” (Mark 14:36).
Each time he prayed, Jesus seemed to be more distressed. In the passage from Luke we read that at some point an angel appears and provides something that strengthens Him, what we don’t know – perhaps the angel carried a message from the Father, that He understood it was hard but that it would be ok. Perhaps the angel’s presence gave him some supernatural strength. Luke tells his readers that even with the visit from an angel, Jesus was still in deep distress, so much so that not only was He sweating, He was sweating blood. Each time he prayed, He told the Father, even so not My will but Yours be done. Yet by the time Judas arrives with the authorities, Jesus seems to be calm and in complete control, enough to control at any rate to heal the high priest’s servant. Enough control to fulfill Isaiah’s words “…he was led like a lamb to slaughter…” (Isaiah 53:7).
We are the cause of His great distress, we are responsible for the pain He endured. Our judgmental attitudes, our disobedience, our selfishness, our self-reliance, our lack of compassion, our desire to be our own god – these are the things that brought Jesus to the garden, that caused Him such pain. Yet it was His non-judgmental attitude, His obedience, His selflessness, His reliance on His Father, His compassion that allowed Him to pay the cost required of Him, to restore the relationship between God and mankind, to make everyone who believes new creatures, who look like him and will spend eternity with him.
It is His blood, sweat & tears that makes us whole and give us abundant and eternal life
A Prayer
Father – forgive us for our judgmental attitude, our disobedience, our selfishness, our lack of compassion and our desire to be our own god doing things our own way. Thank you that Your Son, was everything that we are not and that He has shown us a better way. For those of us who believe and have been recipients of Your amazing gift, may our lives reflect Your Son in all we do and say. Give us the strength and the courage to point others to the cross with our actions and words. In the name of Jesus, whose blood, sweat and tears makes us new – Amen.
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