Awaken The Dawn

Gethsemane: Last Morning of Prayer

And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.” 7 But His impassioned plea went unheeded as their heavy eyelids locked in sleep. Why such heavy emotion? It was only moments ago when Jesus was lifting them up to heaven with His glori- ous priestly prayer. At that time, He spoke with such assurance of victory, but now He is “very distressed and troubled.” 8 His soul is so sorrowful and deeply grieved to the point of death. He seems to go from the mountaintop of spiritual ecstasy to the deepest valley of despair, agony and doom. Is He so fearful of dying? Have not other men, less brave or virtuous than He, accepted death more will- ingly, died more bravely, showed their confidence in God’s purpose more astutely? It would seem so to those who miss the grand mystery of it all. Yes. Jesus would die physically, but His death would be more than a mere expiration of natural life, or a cessation of breath. He would die bearing the full weight of spiri- tual guilt of every man. By suffering, He will destroy the stronghold of Death itself. Alfred Edersheim explains in this piercing analysis:

But what, we may reverently ask, was the cause of this sorrow unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ? Not fear, either of bodily or mental suffering: but Death. Man’s nature, created of God immortal, shrinks (by the law of its nature) from the dissolution of the bond that binds body to soul. Yet to fallen man

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