It is with deep emotion and utmost reverence that I approach this scripture with you this morning. As I have said several times, an expositional study, such as what we have been in for so long, forces me to address subjects which I might otherwise avoid. That might have been the case with the verses before us, because I fear that I’m neither smart enough or holy enough to do this justice. This is holy ground, and we need to take off our shoes. We need to veil our faces and only make fleeting glances toward the Saviour here. What I might say this morning will not be spoken with any sort of implied authority or divine insight. This is so mysterious, that my current impressions may not even be close to accurate. But, Lord willing, I hope that we’ll come away with something practical about which to contemplate and higher ground upon which to worship the Lord.
Our Lord Jesus had been sitting at the table of fellowship with disciples only a few minutes earlier. They rejoiced in the Passover meal and celebrated the first observance of the Lord’s Supper. Earlier, Jesus washed the disciples feet and instructed them on some very important issues. Some of that material was uplifting and some of it cast them into despair. Then following those emotional words, and knowing that the time had come for His departure, Jesus led the disciples out toward the Garden of Gethsemane.
The city of Jerusalem was full happy festivities – it was “the Passover.” We know that the air was crisp and cool, because we later read of people warming themselves at the fire in the courtyard of the High Priest. It might have been a cloudy night, because those who came to arrest the Saviour carried torches, but I believe that the moon was full on the night of the Passover. Because the Jewish month always started with the new moon and it was now the 15th. After the Lord Jesus lead the little group in the singing of an hymn, they all left the upper room heading toward either the Valley or the Golden Gate – one of the Eastern Gates to the city. Then they passed over the brook Kidron, just as His grandfather David had done when he fled from Absalom. Finally they came to a garden on the western slope of the Mount of Olives. It was called “Gethsemane” – a name which means “the Olive-press.” The Bible implies that Jesus was often found in this beautiful, quiet place in the cool of the evening. The Second Adam was like the first before his fall, fellowshipping with Jehovah in their respective gardens
Jesus then told the disciples to stay where they were – and to pray. He has been asking his saints to do that from the very beginning of time. But it seems that with each passing generation, we sleep more and pray less. Then Jesus took Peter, James and John and went a bit deeper into garden, again asking them to pray. And finally He Himself began to pour out His heart to the Father.
Very, very seldom do we see Jesus’ emotions so transparent and so tumultuous. These are indeed the deep things of God. We find here mysteries beyond compare. I would like to ask three questions here this morning: What CAUSED Christ’s grief, what KIND of grief was it; and what was its CURE?
What CAUSED our Lord’s Grief?
Some foolish people say that what we see here was the Lord Jesus’ fear of death. I have often told you that I don’t like to use the name “Jesus” without the prefix “Lord.” It’s not that I don’t call our Saviour simply “Jesus” – I do. And because we find Him addressed that way very often here in Matthew, I find myself doing it far more than I used to. But I prefer to say “LORD Jesus.” And when I do that, I find it very hard to attach the word “fear” to the person bearing that Title and Name. That the Lord Jesus should be afraid of anything is, to me, an heretical thought. It is far more demeaning than simply to call Him “Jesus.”
Every book in God’s Word encourages the saint not to fear death. If Paul could say, “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain” – how much more could the Saviour say? In fact, just a few minutes earlier, when Jesus was praying in John 17, He was talking about His upcoming glorious reunion with the Father on the other side of death. And if the death of one of Lord’s earthly saints is precious, then what is the value of the death of Christ? Has Jesus forgotten the many victories won by so many of His saints at the time of their death? If the Lord possessed this kind of fear then, it puts Him below His own martyrs. Think of the boldness of Stephen facing the stones of Saul of Tarsus. Look at Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael, facing the burning, fiery furnace in the Book of Daniel. What did elderly Daniel care about a bunch of hungry lions? When Ignatius of Antioch was being led to his place of execution, he begged his church not to try to rescue him. “Let fire and cross, let companies of wild beasts, let breaking of bones and tearing of limbs, Let the grinding of the whole body, and all the malice of the devil come upon me; Be it so, if only I may (please) Christ Jesus.” When Polycarp, the pastor of Smyrna, and successor of John, refused to flee death, he said, “O Father, I bless thee that thou hast counted me worthy to receive my portion among the number of martyrs.”
If Jesus feared death, it makes Him lower than His own saints, but it also puts him below many of the wicked who spit death in the face. Plato says that Socrates, while in prison, took cup of hemlock without trembling or changing expression. Then he raised the cup to lips and very cheerfully and quietly drained it. When friends burst into tears, he rebuked them for their absurd behavior, and urged them to keep quiet and to be brave. Was Socrates more courageous than my Lord Jesus when He was faced with death? But then again, he was a foolish sinner, while Christ knew far more about the subject of death.
My Saviour has never feared anything. He dared Herod to come and get Him just as he had done John the Baptist. He looked for the face of Satan, knowing what was coming after He spent those forty days in the wilderness fasting. If you worship a timid Christ then you worshiping a false Christ. Earlier Jesus steadfastly set his face toward Jerusalem, knowing full well that death await Him there.
Some people say that what we are reading here in this chapter is Jesus’ fear of betrayal, and the beating, and the mocking of the priests and guards. Some people say that the Lord’s grief here in the garden was the result of a fresh attack from Satan. They say that whereas the Devil, in the wilderness, came to Lord in garments of light – here he came in his most hideous form, and that he actually terrified our Saviour. But, among other things, that denies the omniscience of Christ. Jesus knew the form of evil, and its father, long before the creation of man. It matters not what disguise Satan takes, my Saviour knows the truth behind the evil facade.
Many good people say that Jesus’ passion here in the garden was due simply to the nearness of death. They say that the words “exceeding sorrowful unto death” means that Jesus felt the chill of the grave right there in the garden. They say that Christ feared that He wouldn’t make it to the cross; that the death angel stalked Him in Gethsemane. But that is to say that Christ thinks the plan of God can be disrupted by will of man or by the Devil. That is to say that the angels of God operate outside of the will of the Son of God.
These things cannot be. And although I don’t have all the answers, it seems to me that there is only one explanation to all of this: It was the Father Who put the Son to such grief – as part of man’s redemption. Don’t let me rob your hearts of the importance of the cross itself, but the weight of our redemption was not laid upon Him there at that place alone.
We read from Isaiah 53 a few minutes ago: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” When were the stripes laid upon the Saviour? While He was on the cross? Or is this just speaking figuratively? “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; And the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” Wasn’t this part of our redemption accomplished during the night and before His crucifixion? “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” When was He bruised? When the Lord Jesus spoke of “the cup” in Gethsemane, He was speaking of the wrath of the Almighty. That cup was already in the Master’s hand and touching His lips. I won’t go so far as to agree with Adam Clark, saying that Jesus suffered more in garden than on cross, but the suffering of Christ for man’s salvation was well begun before the nails were driven into his hands. The burden of the guilt of His people was bearing down on the Saviour while still in the “Olive press.” He was being squeezed nearly to death there under the will and wrath of Almighty God. And although He was guiltless, at this time He was standing in the place of the world’s greatest offenders. “The Lord hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; That we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Christ was experiencing judgment for our sin and the wrath of the Holy God was laid upon His soul. He was being forsaken by the Father.
I think that it is likely that from His infancy Jesus of Nazareth had suffered at the hands of man. As a child he was forsaken by his family, just as Joseph, the son of Jacob, had been by his brothers. Satan had plagued His life without ceasing, long before the forty days in the wilderness. But now the wrath, even of the Father, was falling on his shoulders – and all for my redemption.
I think the events of the garden are so mysterious and inexplicable that only the direct hand of God can shed any light on it at all.
But what KIND of grief was it?
Think of the different words used to describe the Lord and what was going on here: Christ was “sore amazed” – He was in the greatest extremity of emotion. These words contain the idea that this would make a person’s hair stand on end. This is what it is to have one’s skin crawl with fright. He was “very heavy” – with a heart so overwhelmed that it felt like it was filled with lead. He was “exceedingly sorrowful” – the kind of thing that makes a person weep, and weep, and weep until they think that there can’t be any more moisture in their body. He was “sorrowful unto death” – the God-man was on the very edge of death. This is almost unfathomable. And the scripture uses the word “alone” to describe the state in which our Saviour found Himself. Three times He returned and pled for the prayerful companionship of His disciples. But He was forsaken by all men. Luke says that he was in “agony” – like the torment of burning flesh or inner poison. His body was in fact coming apart – dissolving – dying. And all the while he was sweating great drops of blood. The stress, if that’s the right word to use, was causing capillaries all over is body to explode. Blood was oozing out of his forehead and other places.
I don’t know that any human being has ever suffered as severely as did Jesus that night. The agony of Christ, due to your sin, was soulish, spiritual, physical and even emotional. It was the breaking of the divine heart; even the pulverizing of that heart. The suffering of the Lord makes sense only when realize it was ten times more spiritual than physical.
But it WAS physical. The blood was real, the pain was real, the suffering was real. It was definitely physical suffering. It doesn’t happen often, but medical science describes these sorts of events. It is curious to notice that Luke’s is the only gospel which describes this exsanguination of blood. We remember that Luke was a scientist and physician. That blood was being shed, even there in Garden, towards the salvation of God’s elect. Do you really think that your sin is unimportant and that you can continue in sin now that grace has been given?
This was human suffering, but at the same time it was superhuman suffering. And it was very nearly fatal. Sin is an exeprience that the Lord has felt on your behalf if you are a saint of God. How can you go on in your sin, ignoring the agony on the face of the suffering Christ? How can you possibly call yourself a saint of God, when choosing the very thing that caused the Saviour such pain? Christ was suffering the equivalent of Hell for the sinner, both in these verses and in what followed. He was feeling every emotion imaginable, and yet so many professing Christians feel nothing at all. Surely nothing else proves our damnable nature more than things like this.
But thankfully there was a CURE for our Lord’s grief.
What transported Jesus through His agonies? Among other things there was His divine love. “Greater love hath no man than this than that a man lay down his life for his friends.” “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us” – I John 3:16. How can anyone read a verse like this and not conclude that Jesus is divine? “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us” – I John 3:16. Love can make the impossible possible and the unlikely a reality.
What carried the Lord through this grief in the Garden? It was Jesus’ communion with His Father. Oh, what strength we forfeit when we never really learn to pray.
How did Jesus make it through to the Cross? He was helped by an angelic visitor. Luke 22:43 – “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.” A pastor named John Robertson was preaching series messages on angels. After a couple of months someone asked, “When are you going to preach about my favorite angel?” The preacher said, “That depends on which is your favorite angel.” The man said, “Well, he’s not named, but he’s the one who strengthened my Lord to go through all that agony for me. He helped my Savior to go forward to the cross and finish my redemption. I have more love for that angel than for any other created being. I just wonder what I will say to him when I meet him in Glory.” An angel helped the Lord through His agony, and God’s angels have probably helped some of us as well.
But primarily, it was the Lord Jesus’ surrender to the plan of God which lead Him through. “Not my will, but thine be done, Father.” Gethsemane and then Golgotha are the only pathway to eternal redemption for any of us. The birth of Christ was not sufficient, nor was it the teaching ministry of the Lord. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” “Christ hath redeemed us from the the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with silver and gold, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish or spot.” “He gave Himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”
Christ’s surrender to the will and plan of God is what carried the Lord Jesus through the garden and on to the cross. And there is a sense in which we have to step up and duplicate – at the very least that attitude. “Lord, not my ideas of salvation, but thine be done. O Lord, I am a wretch sinner, unworthy of the least of your mercies. But you have said to me, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” So Lord, I am humbly coming, asking that you be merciful to me, a sinner. How can I go on in my sin, when the Saviour has suffered all this to save me? O God, I repent in dust and ashes.” Have you ever found words like these in your heart? Is this your attitude before Christ?