In this passage, Jesus is facing death. He knows it is coming and he feels its pain within him long before he experiences it in reality. What Jesus is dealing with here is the agony of anticipation. No one has laid a hand on him yet. There are no whips or nails yet. There is no pulling of the beard or spitting in his face yet. Even so, there is enormous emotional pain in his life at this moment.
Jesus describes the pain in words that I cannot fully comprehend. He says, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." I know the words overwhelmed, sorrow, and death, but I can only imagine them in the context that Jesus uses here. Maybe some can identify with this. I remember being with Robert Schuller years ago when he said for two years of his life the will to die was greater than the will to live. People tell me about losing their will. They simply cannot get out of bed another day. They are overwhelmed. Jesus identifies sorrow as the emotion overwhelming him.
We should notice that Jesus wanted to avoid the coming pain. In his humanity, he naturally wanted to escape death and the torture and suffering that would accompany it. I don’t find it difficult to believe this at all. Who in their right mind wouldn’t feel the same way.
This was not a fleeting thought or a passing consideration. Three times Jesus returned to the same prayer and the same request. "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." If the matter had been resolved in his heart he would not have returned to the same thought at least three times. I think we can safely assume that this was the thing he was wrestling with in the Garden that night.
Secondly, there is the agony of preparation. Even though he knows what is coming and he would prefer to avoid it, he must prepare for what is coming. Jesus made the choice to surrender to the will of God. It is so powerful to hear Jesus say, "Yet not as I will, but as you will."
How does Jesus prepare? In verse thirty-eight Jesus tells his disciples what to do so they can prepare as he was. He said, "Stay here and keep watch with me." He wanted them to stay and pray with him. Jesus knew that was the only way to survive the coming onslaught. They needed to make the decision to keep going but they also needed to do something to make it happen. They needed to stay awake and pray.
Even with the commitment of his will through conscious choice, and engaging in prayer, Jesus still needed supernatural strength to keep going. Luke 22:43-44 tells us, "An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." As a human being, he had come to the end of his strength. He was exhausted. He had nothing left to give. Only an angel allowed him to keep going. These are the Lord’s ministering angels who came to him that night as they had after his forty days of fasting in the wilderness.
At some point in your life, if you have not already done so, you will come to the end of yourself. Some people are stronger than others. Some have incredible powers of endurance and perseverance. I am amazed at what certain people can handle. But in the end, even "youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall."
Jesus was at that place that night. There was just nothing left to give. He was on empty and there was no possibility to recover on his own. Even with prayer he was done. Only the angels saved him that night. The words of Isaiah were fulfilled, "but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."[1]
Galatians 6:2 reminds us to "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." We can be like an angel of mercy in people’s lives when we strengthen them for the journey. If we can help someone face another day, or even another hour, then we are doing God’s work.
For Jesus, the anticipation and preparation gave way to the agony of Salvation. For him, the suffering was headed somewhere. Paul said it well. "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."[2] That cross became the means by which we are saved today. We confess Jesus with our mouth and believe that God raised him from the dead and we are saved.
In my view salvation has more than future possibilities. Jesus provided for here and now as well. I think this is what the Lord’s brother had in mind when he wrote in James 5:14-15
"Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well[3]; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven."
The sick person will literally be saved. This has two meanings. It clearly is about healing but it would be wrong to stop there because the thought does not stop there. It goes on to speak of sins being forgiven by the same prayer of faith. There is something powerful about coming to Jesus that covers all the issues of our lives.
I remember praying with a man about a year ago who was dying. He was not a church-going man but his daughter brought him to be prayed for. As I prayed for his illness, I did what this Scripture suggests. I also prayed that his sins would be forgiven him as well. Even though he was an older man, in my prayer I mentioned forgiveness of sins, even the sins of his youth. As it turned out, he had gone into World War II as a teenager. He had apparently killed a lot of people, possibly the kind of situation that Senator Kerry has been talking about, although I do not know the actual circumstances. All I know is that he had spent a whole lifetime outside the church because he could never come to the idea of being forgiven. The grace of God was present as we prayed because he felt, for the first time in his life, the forgiveness of Jesus for his sins.
It reminds me of what Jesus did for the man who was carried in by his four friends. First Jesus forgave his sins. Because they grumbled about that, he next healed the man so no person could wonder if Jesus really had the ability to forgive sins. In this passage, James connects healing and forgiveness almost seamlessly because they were both purchased on the same cross. Our forgiveness and our healing flow from the same blood of Jesus.
Here is what I want you to know from today’s message: You need to understand that something is not wrong with you if you want to avoid painful circumstances. Nor is it a sign that you are not truly spiritual. It would be a very healthy thing for some of you to look to the Lord and tell him you know exactly how he felt that night because that is how you feel. If you will let me be the voice of the Lord to you, he wants you to know that he knows exactly how you feel today. He knows because he has been there.
Furthermore, if Jesus were standing before you today, the first thing he would do is forgive all your sins. We do not teach that sickness comes to you because of some sin. The rain falls on the just and the unjust in this fallen world. It is just that forgiveness is what we all need. With Jesus here, you would be 100% clean and free of sin. Your eternity would be absolutely secure. In fact, Jesus is here by his Spirit.
In the prayer time today, we want to pray for those whom the doctors have diagnosed as beyond any medical answer. Later we will pray for all those who are sick.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Isaiah 40:30-31
2. 1 Corinthians 1:18.
3. The prayer of faith will "save" the sick. The greek word is sozo
(sode'-zo) from a primary sos (contraction for obsolete saoz, "safe"); to
save, i.e. deliver or protect (literally or figuratively): KJV-- heal, preserve, save
(self), do well, be (make) whole.