Teachings – Christ’s Heaviness in the Garden

CHRIST’S HEAVINESS IN THE GARDEN

UNFOLDING FORTY-FIVE

WHERE WE ARE

It is appropriate that Pastor would have us spend five discourses in the garden of Gethsemane with Jesus and His disciples. No doubt, for Jesus, the time passed as it existed when He was in the bosom of His Father in eternity… forever and not.  

SCRIPTURE

Matthew 27:45

“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.”

CHRIST’S HEAVINESS IN THE GARDEN
UNFOLDING FORTY-FIVE

Pastor opened –

“Such is the dolefulness and gloom of a heavy soul, yes, a soul exceeding heavy even unto death, that I could imagine the pangs of dissolution to be lighter.”

Christ’s heaviness in the garden. 

“Everything was draped in gloom, and overcast with darkness that might be felt. This was the past.”

Why would Jesus say that of the past?

“He could say with Isaiah, ‘Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He came into His own, and His own received Him not.'”

That was His past. Yes, but what of the present?

“Did not He go three times to His disciples?”

“Did He not return back again to prayer because there was no eye to pity, and none could help?”

Both past and present depressed him, but there was the future, wasn’t there?

“…as He looked forward to that, devoted as His heart was, and unfaltering as was the courage of His soul… yet, His human heart quailed: He seemed to think – ‘Oh, how shall I bear it?'”

Thus, the wrestling of agony – two parties, human and divine.

“He was like one bewildered with an overwhelming weight of anxiety and terror. But His divine nature awakened up His spiritual faculties and His mental energy to display their full power. His faith resisted the temptation to unbelief.”

Wrestling, indeed.

THOUGHT GOING FORWARD

When I say that I cannot fathom the heaviness that Christ felt, that is so trite. I can’t say I understand – not emotionally. I wish I had a stronger sense of empathy for what happened to my Lord that day. My imagination takes me only so far, but short of wounding myself to feel the pain…. I suppose that is why some religions employ self-flagellation, though that is not a Christian practice. Self-flagellation is used by some to pay the penalty of one’s sins, and we know that Jesus did that. That is why He died.     

IN TRIBUTE TO SPURGEON’S LOVE OF SHORT RYHMES

Again, in this discourse, I share a poem that Pastor included:

“The powers of hell united prest,
and squeezed His heart, and bruised His breast.
What dreadful conflicts raged within,
When sweat and blood forced through His skin.”