_Thursday in Passion Week_
There are times in life when human beings are called to sorrows that
seem so hopeless, so cruel, that they take from the spirit all power
of endurance. There are agonies that overwhelm, that crush,--their
only language seems to be a groan of prostrate anguish. There are
distresses against which the heart cries out, "It is too much. I
cannot, cannot bear it. God have mercy on me!"
It was for people who suffer thus, for those who are capable of
such depths and who are called to go through them, that the great
Apostle and High Priest of our profession passed through that
baptism of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Apostle says, "It
became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in
bringing many sons and daughters unto glory, to make the Captain
of their salvation perfect through suffering." And it was at this
hour and time that he was to pass through such depths that no child
of his could ever go deeper. Alone, and without the possibility of
human sympathy, he was to test those uttermost distresses possible
to the most exceptional natures. Jesus suffered _all_ that he could
endure and live. The record is given with great particularity by
three Evangelists, and is full of mysterious suggestion. Up to this
period all the discourses of our Lord, in distinct view of his final
sufferings, had been full of calmness and courage. He had consoled
his little flock, and bid them not be troubled, speaking cheerfully
of a joy that should repay the brief anguish of separation. He not
only was wholly at peace in his own soul, but felt that he had peace
in abundance to give away. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give
unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
Yet he went forth from speaking these very words, and this is
the account of the scene that followed, collated from the three
Evangelists:--
"Then cometh Jesus with them unto the place that is called
Gethsemane, and said to his disciples, Sit ye here while I go
and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and James and John,
and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy (in extreme
anguish). And he said unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with me, and pray that
ye enter not into temptation. And he went forward a little, and
fell on his face and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour
might pass from him, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou
wilt. And he cometh unto his disciples and findeth them asleep,
and saith unto Peter, What! could ye not watch with me one hour?
Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the
second time, and prayed, and said, Abba, Father, all things are
possible unto thee; take away this cup from me; nevertheless,
not what I will, but what thou wilt. O my Father, if this cup
may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done.
And he came and found them asleep again; for their eyes were
heavy, neither wist they what to answer him. And he left them
and went away the third time, and prayed, saying the same words.
And, being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat
was as it were great drops of blood, falling down to the ground,
and there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him.
"And when he rose up from prayer and was come to his disciples,
he findeth them sleeping for sorrow, and saith unto them, Sleep
on now--rest."
There seems here evidence that the anguish, whatever it was, had
passed, and that Jesus had returned to his habitual peace. He looks
with pity on the poor tired followers whose sympathy had failed him
just when he most needed it, and says, "Poor souls, let them sleep
for a little and rest."
After an interval he rouses them. "It is enough--the hour is come;
the Son of man is betrayed into the hand of sinners. Rise up; let us
go: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me."
The supposition that it was the final agony of the cross which Jesus
prayed to be delivered from is inconsistent with his whole life and
character. He had kept that end in view from the beginning of his
life. He said, in view of it, "I have a baptism to be baptized with,
and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" He rebuked Peter
in the sharpest terms for suggesting that he should avoid those
predicted sufferings. Going up to Jerusalem to die, he walked before
the rest, as if impelled by a sacred ardor to fulfill his mission.
Furthermore, in the Epistle to the Hebrews we are taught thus: the
writer says, speaking of the Saviour, "Who in the days of his flesh
offered up prayers with strong crying and tears to him that was able
to save him from death, and _was heard_ in that he feared." Whatever
relief it was that our Lord supplicated with such earnestness, it
was given; and he went forth from the dreadful anguish in renewed
and perfect peace.
We may not measure the depths of that anguish or its causes. Our
Lord gives some intimation of one feature in it by saying, as he
prepared to go forth to it, "The Prince of this World cometh, and
hath nothing in me;" and in warning his disciples, "Pray that ye
enter not into temptation." The expression employed by St. Mark
to describe the anguish is indicative of a sudden rush--of an
amazement, as if a new possibility of suffering, overwhelming and
terrible, had been disclosed to him, such a sorrow as it seemed must
destroy life--"exceeding sorrowful, even unto death."
Let these words remain in all their depths, in all their mystery,
as standing for that infinite possibility of pain which the one
divine Man was to taste for every man. There have been facts in
human experience analogous. We are told that the night before his
execution, Jerome of Prague, in his lonely prison, condemned and
held accursed by the proud Scribes and Pharisees, the Christian
Sanhedrim of his times, fainted and groaned and prayed as Jesus in
Gethsemane. Martin Luther has left on record a wonderful prayer,
written the night before the Diet of Worms, when he, a poor, simple
monk, was called before the great Diet of the Empire to answer for
his faith. Such strong crying and tears--such throbbing words--that
seem literally like drops of blood falling down to the ground,
attest that Luther was passing through Gethsemane. Alone, with all
the visible power of the Church and the world against him, his
position was like that of Jesus. A crisis was coming when he was
to witness for truth, and he felt that only God was for him, and
he appeals to him: "Hast thou not chosen me to do this work? I ask
thee, O God, O thou my God, where art thou? Art thou dead? No, thou
canst not die; thou art only hiding thyself."
In many private histories there are Gethsemanes. There are
visitations of sudden, overpowering, ghastly troubles,--troubles
that transcend all ordinary human sympathy, such as the helpless
human soul has to wrestle with alone. And it was because in this
blind struggle of life such crushing experiences are to be meted out
to the children of men that Infinite Love provided us with a divine
Friend who had been through the deepest of them all, and come out
victorious.
In the sudden wrenches which come by the entrance of death into
our family circles, there is often an inexplicable depth of misery
that words cannot tell. No outer words can tell what a trial is to
the soul. Only Jesus, who, as the Head of the human race, united in
himself every capability of human suffering, and proved them all, in
order that he might help us, only he has an arm strong enough and
a voice tender enough to reach us. The stupor of the disciples in
the agony of Jesus is a sort of parable or symbol of the inevitable
_loneliness_ of the deepest kind of sorrow. There are friends,
loving, honest, true, but they cannot watch with us through such
hours. It is like the hour of death--nobody can go with us. But
he who knows what it is so to suffer; he who has felt the horror,
the amazement, the heart-sick dread--who has fallen on his face
overcome, and prayed with cryings and tears and the bloody sweat of
agony--he can understand us and can help us. He can send an angel
from heaven to comfort us when every human comforter is "sleeping
for sorrow." It was Gethsemane which gave Jesus the power to bring
many sons and daughters unto glory.
And it may comfort us under such trials to hope that as he thus
gained an experience and a tenderness which made him mighty to
comfort and to save, so we, in our humbler measure, may become
comforters to others. When the experience is long past, when the
wounds of the heart are healed, then we may find it good to have
drank of Christ's cup, and gone down in that baptism with him. We
may find ourselves with hearts tenderer to feel, and stronger to
sustain others; even as the Apostle says, he "comforteth us in all
our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them that are in
any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of
God."