Jesus is now in Gethsemane on this Thursday evening and agonizes while His disciples sleep. His mind is tortured by thoughts of what is before Him. After a sleepless night in a dungeon under the high priest’s house, He will be dehydrated – - He knows that His will be no ordinary crucifixion, His will have many harsh brutalities added. But, none of this is the real reason for His stress. What is in the cup that He wishes He could avoid. Definitely not the Cross because He said in His prayer (John 17:4) “Father, I have finished the work you gave Me to do.” Had He? Not literally yet, because there was still the Cross - - but Jesus was so committed to the Father’s will, it was as good as done – as sure as history, but just hadn’t yet happened. What then, was in the cup that caused Him such anguish? I see two things - - one causing horrifying dread and the other causing anxious fear.
Why DREAD? From the beginning of no beginning, Jesus had always been in close loving relationship with the Father and as MAN on earth, had fellowship with His Father. Now He would be cut off, totally separated from God treated like the vilest sinner. His dread was because of His love for the Father.
Why FEAR? Jesus knew that several criminals who were sentenced to crucifixion never made it to the cross because they died from the terrible scourging. In His humanity, with all the weakness, blood loss and torture, Jesus was afraid that He would die before He got to the Cross. If so, then it would all be in vain and we would be damned and doomed. His fear was because of His love for us!
The stress was so great the blood vessels in His temples burst and covenant Blood ran down His face mingled with tears. He cried, “Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from Me, but Your will be done”. Jesus will not be permitted to call God Father again until Friday afternoon.
Did God hear His prayer? Yes! Did He answer? No!
Can we try to grasp, even slightly, the pain in the Father’s heart as He looks down at His beloved Son, hears His prayer and abandons Him? With one word He could have delivered Him - - but actually He could not. God is immutable and billions of years previously the holy Trinity ordained that One Member of that Trinity, who would be called Jesus in the far-distant future, would be the Lamb slain for you and me. So God suffered and let His own heart break.
Now consider the grief of the Holy Spirit. He is always grieved by sin so when the treachery, filth and vileness of our sin invaded Jesus, He had no choice except to withdraw. Now Jesus was left abandoned and alone.
Actually, not quite alone. Remember the temptation of Jesus after His baptism? Satan is back and brought many demons with him to tempt, confuse and overcome Jesus, and by any means keep Him from reaching the Cross alive. While the demons taunted and shrieked, Satan urged Jesus to get out of it all by dying now. He told Him that if God really loved Him, He would not have cursed and abandoned Him. “Get out of it all, just die now and save yourself – to hell with humans, let them be damned”
The demons fueled the words of the mob the next day. “Let Him come down from the Cross and we will believe Him.” Of course they would and make Him a King, who would destroy Rome, supply all their needs and give them a comfortable life of self-indulgence? What about us? Do we minimize the suffering of Gethsemane and Calvary to fire insurance? Certainly we want to go to Heaven so we will accept Jesus as Saviour of our soul but reject Him as Lord of our life. This is not why Jesus died. Heaven is a glorious fact for Christians but Jesus wants to restore us to the full maturity and beauty of total humanity as it was before the Fall. This will not be complete until we see Jesus, but in the meantime it is God’s purpose to change us from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18) and conforms us to the image of His beloved Son (Romans 8:29).
Listen! Jesus is on the Cross and in anguish pleads, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Satan seizes on this as an opportunity to assure Him that He is truly forsaken and for His own sake should die right away. But Satan has not counted on the stupendous faith of Jesus. Did you hear that? Jesus is speaking again from the Cross and what He says is thrilling beyond overwhelming. He says, “It is finished” (and then) “Father into Your Hands I commit My spirit”. He has done it! He has won! Jesus is Victor and can call God “Father” again. If it were not for the faith of the Son of God, we would have nothing to put our faith in – BUT - -
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought
My sin, not in part but the whole
Is nailed to His Cross and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul.
In his folly Satan thought he might seduce Jesus at Calvary, but instead it was at Calvary he received his death-blow. Satan’s strategies always work against him and he ends up being the pawn. The astounding, hell-shaking faith of the MAN Christ Jesus gives us every reason to put our faith in Him alone. (Galatians 2:20).
With trembling I begin to see how and why my sin hurts God - - how and why my sin grieves the Holy Spirit - - how and why my sin is folly to me and the death-blow to everything worthwhile - - AND WHY JUDGMENT MUST COME!!
Will God ever suffer heart-break like that again? Yes! (Revelation 8:1) There is silence in Heaven for 1/2 hour. Why? Everything stops in Heaven, everything is put on hold, all Heaven is stunned before the heart-break of Almighty God. Why? The very ones He created in His own image for loving fellowship with them - - now, His holiness and justice demands that He pour out wrath upon those who have despised and rejected and deliberately refused the amazing grace, purchased at such horrendous cost, by His beloved Son.
I ‘m seeking and praying to be able to fathom more deeply this amazing love of God and the terrible cost of that love.
