I can think of no other single word that comes anywhere close to what our Lord endured in the Garden than the word ‘agony.’ When Jesus went into the Garden, He “began to be sorrowful and very heavy” (Matt. 26:37). Our Lord was “deeply distressed” and said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matt. 26:38). Luke tells us that Jesus was in “agony” as He prayed to the Father (Luke 22:44).
This word ‘agony’ is derived from the Greek which refers to a contest. The root idea is the struggle and pain of the severest athletic contest or conflict. In many cases the athletic competition in the Roman theaters boiled down to a contest between life and death. All that is suggested by the exhausting struggles and sufferings of the Grecian and Roman gladiators in the amphitheaters is summed up in the pain and death-struggle of this solitary word “agony.”
Luke tells us that when our Lord prayed to the Father sweat fell from His brow like great drops of blood. The sweat that poured from the head of our Lord was not the natural sweat that is produced from physical toil. Nor was His the sweat which runs down the face of a man walking in the sun, or toiling in the fields, or even a raging fever. It was not the physical walk from the upper room to the garden, but the emotional struggle within the heart of our Savior that produced the Lord’s agony.
The blood which He had promised to shed for man was shed first on the grass of the garden of Gethsemane. Great drops of blood mixed with sweat fell on the earth as a first offering of His conquered flesh. It was the beginning of liberation, almost a relief to that humanity which was the greatest burden of His expiation. Then from His lips wet with tears, wet with sweat, wet with blood, arose a new prayer: “Oh my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. Not my will, but thine, be done” (Crawford, p. 89)
What was it that drove our Lord to enter the Garden of Gethsemane prior to His crucifixion? Why even leave that upper room to make the journey across the Kidron to some point on the Mount of Olives? Why not just wait in the upper room? Surely Judas could have easily led the soldiers to the room as to the garden. Yet, it was to the garden that He went. I ask again, why? Consider the following.
He went for solitude. He needed to be alone with the Father. Upon His arrival at the Garden our Lord allowed only three to enter with Him into that place of prayer (Matt. 26:37). Even those three were not allowed to go with Him to that inner Garden where our Lord would be alone with His Father. Leaving Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, our Lord went “further” (Matt. 26:39), “about a stone’s cast” (Luke 22:41), where He “fell on His face, and prayed” (Matt. 26:39). Thomas Edison is credited with having said, “The best thinking has been done in solitude.” It is in solitude that we sometimes find the answers to life’s greatest questions.
He went for solace. He needed to be comforted in this His time of distress and sadness. Witness the human side of our Lord. He was about to drink the “cup” that had been given to Him by the Father, a cup that contained an admixture of ingredients. He had been rejected by His own people. He had been betrayed by one of His own disciples. He would soon be denied by another. Those in authority were rapidly carrying out their treacherous scheme to murder the Messiah. Many of His disciples had turned back to walk with Him no more (John 6:66). The cross lay before Him. Yes, the cross! He was fully aware of the ignominious and excruciatingly painful death that He was about to face.
He went for sin. Not His. “For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Not one time did our Savior even hint that He needed forgiveness. David prayed often that he might be forgiven. Not so with He Who is the Son of David. It was the weight of the sin of humanity that produced the greatest burden for our Lord. I do not know who wrote the following, but it certainly captures the essence of this one single ingredient in the cup our Lord was about to drink:
Here was incarnate God, the God-Man, submitting Himself to the punishment of sin, tasting death for every man, bearing in His own Person the inexpressible bitterness of this penal humiliation. Added to all this was the incalculable fact that the Lord had laid on Him the iniquity of us all. The burden of the sins of wicked mankind He bore on His sacred shoulders on our behalf. What this involved, we cannot tell: but to a being perfectly pure and holy it must have been anguish unspeakable (Crawford, 89).
He went for strength. There were two moments in the ministry of our Lord when it is said that angels ministered to Him. The first was at the beginning of His ministry when He was tempted by the devil. “Then the devil leaveth him; and behold, angels came and ministered to him” (Matt. 4:11). The second was in the Garden where Luke tells us that “there appeared unto him an angel from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22:43). What a paradox. The Holy One of God, possessing all the attributes of deity, being Himself omnipotent, yet seeking strength and in need of the assistance of angels. It was not spiritual strength He needed. On both occasions our Lord’s body was in need of strength. The first was from lack of food. Now we see Him physically exhausted from three plus years of strenuous labor for the souls of men, praying with such intensity that great drops of blood fell from His head (Luke 22:44).
He went for salvation. “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me” (Luke 22:42). Yes, our Savior went to the Garden for our salvation. Those words do not speak of our salvation from sin, but His salvation from the cross. He had no need to be saved spiritually, for He was sinless. From His human perspective, He did not want to drink this bitter cup. Yet, it was here, in the Garden, on His knees, that our Savior won the victory. Is it possible that our Lord’s greatest temptation was in the Garden? Was He about to call it quits? His whole life was acquainted with suffering. The actuality of suffering was no secret from Him. He knew, in advance, what would be the agony of head, of hands, of feet, and of heart, and His whole being craved for deliverance. He was not tempted in the Garden as greatly as in the wilderness, for indeed He was, as much, or more so. “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42) were the words that gave Him the victory over whatever temptation He might have faced in the Garden. He gave up His salvation so that we might obtain ours.
By Tom Wacaster
