Everett Henes: Agonizing prayer

Jesus suffered. This is the core of the Christian Gospel. Luke 22 teaches us the significance of Jesus’ suffering. It was near the end of Jesus’ earthly life. In the middle of this chapter (39-46) we read about Jesus going to the garden to pray. He takes his disciples with him, and he tells them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” He leaves them, for a time, to go and pray.

Jesus made it a habit to pray so there is nothing that the disciples might think is out of the ordinary. We read that when Jesus returned, he found them “sleeping for sorrow.” In the other Gospels, it is recorded that Jesus came back three times and, each time, found his disciples asleep. Luke’s phrase here most likely refers to the fact that they are emotionally exhausted after everything that Jesus has told them in preparation for what is to come.

During this time, Jesus was praying and suffering intensely. “He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.’ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:41-44)

It was not common to kneel in prayer in those days. Normally one would stand to pray. Jesus takes the position of one surrendering before his Father. That is what this prayer is about. Jesus did not pray to discover the Father’s will or try to change it, but to be surrendered to it. We also see that Luke points out how he prayed more earnestly after he had been strengthened. The words used here pertain to an unceasing activity that involves intensity and perseverance. He modeled for the disciples, at a distance, how they were to pray that they might not fall to temptation.

We see, further, the intensity of his prayer because he begins to sweat. Another word that Luke uses to describe Jesus in this prayer is ‘agony.’ He was in agony as he prayed. This word is only used once in the whole Bible. It is a word that was normally used to speak of the arena, the struggles that would take place in sporting events. Often it was a word used to speak of those who had been condemned to die in the arena and were, therefore, fighting for their lives. It combined emotional, mental and physical anguish all together.

We might want to ask why Jesus was suffering like this before his death? Remember what Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The infinite and perfect son of God — who never sinned — was made to be sin for us. That means that, on the Cross, the Father will look upon the Son as though he were a sinner. It is his knowledge of what is to come and his willingly doing it that causes such a tremendous agony within himself that we read that “his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

As we reflect upon the suffering of Christ that we see in this passage we must understand that it is a suffering for his people. As Matthew says at the beginning of his Gospel, Jesus will save his people from their sins. And as we read of Christ’s sufferings here, we are also reminded of the weight of our own sins. We can never say that it was sin, generally, that caused Christ to suffer and die, but our sins. This ought to bring us to praise our Savior for so great a salvation.

We also see the extent of Christ’s humiliation in this suffering. Sweat came in with sin and was a branch of the curse we learn in Genesis 3:19, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” When Christ was made sin and a curse for us, “he underwent a grievous sweat, that in the sweat of his face we might eat bread, and that he might sanctify and sweeten all our trials to us.”

— Pastor Everett Henes, the pastor of the Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, can be reached at pastorhenes@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Everett Henes: Agonizing prayer