WHAT MAKES JESUS SORROWFUL?
Anguish and dismay came over him, and he said to them, "My heart is ready to break with grief." Matt. 26:37, 38, N.E.B.
We urgently need to see, with spiritual eyesight, just what was bringing such great anguish upon our Lord during the final hours of His life. For it will unfold to us some exceedingly rich understanding of the meaning of the cross.
Certainly He was dismayed by the betrayal of His friends; as a feeling, social being, He felt the loss of their presence. Yet many people through the ages have been abandoned by their friends at crucial moments; but this seldom has led to near-fatal anguish. Obviously He was not looking forward to the pain and suffering of the cross. No feeling person would. Yet many condemned prisoners have faced their final moments with stoic bravery. There must have been something deeper.
It was there in the garden, just before His capture, that Jesus began to bear the sins of the world. There, in the crucible of the experienced anguish itself, Jesus had to make the decision to continue with the plan of redemption. The events that followed--the mockery of a trial, the humiliation, the painful death--were but the carrying out of the decision that He made in Gethsemane.
But in what specific way was Jesus bearing our sins that dark night? What was the cause of such anguish that, had the angel not strengthened Him, would have snuffed out His life even before the cross? The evidence is this: Jesus began during this hour to experience what all unredeemed sinners will experience--the breaking up of His relationship with the Father. For this, precisely, is the consequence of sin. This is what Jesus has experienced in our place. This is how He was the sin-bearer for all mankind.
In a very real sense, it was far more dreadful for Jesus to experience separation from His Father than for any other human, because Jesus always had enjoyed a richly close fellowship with Him. We, by contrast, usually experience such a sparse and threadbare relationship with Him that we hardly feel the difference when it dies completely.
What a wonderful statement of spiritual maturity it would be if we had such a close relationship with God that any distance, any hint of separation, would bring us immediate anguish. Of all the things that could cause us sorrow, what could be more beneficial?
Anguish and dismay came over him, and he said to them, "My heart is ready to break with grief." Matt. 26:37, 38, N.E.B.
We urgently need to see, with spiritual eyesight, just what was bringing such great anguish upon our Lord during the final hours of His life. For it will unfold to us some exceedingly rich understanding of the meaning of the cross.
Certainly He was dismayed by the betrayal of His friends; as a feeling, social being, He felt the loss of their presence. Yet many people through the ages have been abandoned by their friends at crucial moments; but this seldom has led to near-fatal anguish. Obviously He was not looking forward to the pain and suffering of the cross. No feeling person would. Yet many condemned prisoners have faced their final moments with stoic bravery. There must have been something deeper.
It was there in the garden, just before His capture, that Jesus began to bear the sins of the world. There, in the crucible of the experienced anguish itself, Jesus had to make the decision to continue with the plan of redemption. The events that followed--the mockery of a trial, the humiliation, the painful death--were but the carrying out of the decision that He made in Gethsemane.
But in what specific way was Jesus bearing our sins that dark night? What was the cause of such anguish that, had the angel not strengthened Him, would have snuffed out His life even before the cross? The evidence is this: Jesus began during this hour to experience what all unredeemed sinners will experience--the breaking up of His relationship with the Father. For this, precisely, is the consequence of sin. This is what Jesus has experienced in our place. This is how He was the sin-bearer for all mankind.
In a very real sense, it was far more dreadful for Jesus to experience separation from His Father than for any other human, because Jesus always had enjoyed a richly close fellowship with Him. We, by contrast, usually experience such a sparse and threadbare relationship with Him that we hardly feel the difference when it dies completely.
What a wonderful statement of spiritual maturity it would be if we had such a close relationship with God that any distance, any hint of separation, would bring us immediate anguish. Of all the things that could cause us sorrow, what could be more beneficial?
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