Was Jesus Suffering from Anxiety in the Garden?

And the only way that we can even relate to that in a small way is to stand firm against temptation of our own, right? And you're never going to stand firm in the way that Jesus did, okay?

Right.

But what you don't want to do is find some kind of parallel in your own experience in saying that, I gave in to sin and waved the white flag of surrender for a six-month period of time, so me and Jesus went through the same thing.

Whether Jesus Experienced Anxiety in Gethsemane

Tim, the question for today's episode is, was Jesus suffering from anxiety in the garden?

Yeah, this is one of those mind-numbing observations that people make that really is frustrating.

Yeah, it is very frustrating. I have to agree with you there.

Absolutely.

It's very annoying when people…. But Jesus was suffering from anxiety?

I picture them sounding just like that too. So, you know, I try not to be characterized by frustration, but then I really do think this frustration is a righteous frustration on my part.

It's like the most biblical eye roll that you could ever….

Yeah, yeah.

This is like if Paul were here, Paul would eye roll too, you know? And so it's that kind of thing. No, I mean generally when you're talking about any of the psychological disorders for anxiety, particularly like general anxiety disorder, you're talking about something like that.

General anxiety disorder is six months of persistent worry. So it's six months of persistent anxiety and worry, more days than not, right? So more days than not that affect a person in a statistically significant way.

With sleep loss, sleep gain, weight loss, weight gain, all that kind of stuff affects your performance and job. But you're talking about like six months of persistent, like more days than not, characterized by excessive, excessive anxiety and worry.

And so when you're saying something like that is sinful, like six months, six months, you know, persistent, like life-dominating anxiety and worry, more days than not, like that's excessive. Like when you say something like that is sinful, people will go, well, Jesus, like anxiety is not a sin.

Jesus was, you know, he was anxious in the garden, you know, like what's wrong with you? Didn't you know that, you know? And so I think it is one of those very frustrating things that people will say.

Well, I mean, to be fair, you know, to be fair, Tim, I mean, God is outside of time.

A day with, you know, a few minutes with Jesus in his human nature, a few hours with Jesus in his human nature in the garden.

It's like six months.

It's like six months for normal human beings. And so, yeah, well.

Yeah, so I got you there.

Yeah, yeah.

No, that's obviously a very dumb thing to say, obviously.

Yeah, no, I mean, these things are very, what you're talking about is like very different kinds of phenomenon that are happening. And, you know, it's obviously frustrating, but it's just like two, it's like very different kinds of things.

So, I mean, over and over again, Jesus says, you know, why do you worry about your life? You know, what you'll eat and what you'll wear and what you'll put on. Is the body not more than food and, you know, clothing and all that?

And consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and, you know, all that. So, I mean, Jesus tells us like worry is like it's pointless. It's, you know, it's unnecessary. It's, you know, worthless.

Like we shouldn't be worried. And Paul will tell the same thing, be anxious for nothing. There's everything with prayer and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So over and over again, when you read the Bible, you're going to read that like the Christian should be characterized by love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faithfulness, self-control.

Not, you know, anxiety, persistent anxiety over, you know, just normal, you know, difficulties handling normal life problems. And so, you know, Jesus obviously experienced an intense period of stress in the garden.

Like he certainly had like intense stress in the garden. But whatever you're describing that, that's not sinful worry. Like it's not the same thing that Paul is talking about or Jesus is talking about.

This is not sinful worry that's resulting from a distrust in like God's sovereignty or like, you know, just a pervasive general sense of like guilt and shame and condemnation that comes like destabilizing guilt, shame that are coming from, you know, unconfessed sin and things like this.

Or fearing man.

Yeah, it's fear of man. So like whatever Jesus was doing in the garden, he wasn't, you know, violating what he tells us. Like he wasn't fearing him who destroys the body in that moment, right? So this wasn't the fear of man.

Like Jesus in the garden, he obviously like, you know, underwent a trial that I think most, like no one could, not most, but no human being, you know, has gone through a comparable trial like that. He is going to, you know, have the entire weight of all of the sin of every human being throughout the history of the world.

He's going to bear that on the cross and then he's going to, you know, cry out in anguish to God. Like, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So the kind of, you know, experience he's having is, you know, looking at that, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And, you know, basically like the trial there is to, you know, you basically have two impulses. One to save humanity and one is to not have like a relational break of fellowship with like the Father. In that way, right?

In terms of like his humanity to not like bear the weight of sin, you know, for the whole entire world and to have to cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So like that was the nature of his, you know, stress.

That was the nature of his trial that he was experiencing. And, you know, the end of the matter though was yet not my will but thine. So when you think about like the nature of his trial, he was successful in that trial.

And if there's any kind of correspondence that we're ever going to find like relating with Jesus, it's not by giving in to anxiety and worry for a six-month period of time, more days than not, and be absolutely and totally characterized by a sinful distrust of God in those moments.

I mean Hebrews 12, 4 tells us, In your struggle against sin you have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And I think that is a reference to Jesus in the garden. Like he's resisting like, you know, like for him it wasn't like resisting his own personal sinful temptations that are arising from a sinful heart.

But he did, you know, face like this decision that, you know, that like going forward is going to mean like that he's going to bear the weight of sin for all of humanity in that moment. And that was a trial for him and he did like, he did experience the fear of the Lord in that moment and not wanting to displease, you know, the Father in that way.

And so from that point he'd done everything according to the will of God and then he's facing a point where now he's going to have to bear all the sin for humanity. And the only way that we can even relate to that in a small way is to stand firm against temptation of our own.

Right?

And you're never going to stand firm in the way that Jesus did.

Right.

But, you know, like what you don't want to do is like find some kind of parallel in your own experience in saying that I gave in to sin and waved the white flag of surrender for a six-month period of time.

So me and Jesus went through the same thing. It's like, no, he stood firm and he went to the cross and he did so completely obedient both internally and externally to the will of the Father. And, you know, if you want to feel a small measure of that, you fight your own temptation in your own life and see what it's like to actually stand firm, you know, in the midst of trial instead of rolling over the moment you feel slightly tempted.

And then that maybe gives you some small measure of being able to identify with him, not by just rolling over the slightest sign of temptation and be characterized by your sin for months at a time.

Well, and doesn't it seem, I mean, like, you know, in the most charitable way you can put it, doesn't it seem extremely disrespectful to look at what Jesus was going through, you know, facing the fact that he's going to be punished by the Father for the sins of the whole world, looking at that and then saying, and that is why it's okay for me to feel anxious, you know, about being in spaces with a lot of other people.

I mean, and that's what's absurd about it. So, like, you have one picture is a picture of resisting in victory, right? So, Jesus is a picture of resisting in victory, right? And then, you know, our, like, what we're supposed to do is say, hey, he can identify with us in our weakness by pointing to examples of absolute surrender on our part, right?

Yeah.

Like, absolute surrender, comprehensive, like, surrender that we take no responsibility for whatsoever. These are just, you know, yeah, it's an insult to God. It's an insult to the garden. It's an insult to Christ.

And, I mean, it's an insult to God's grace. Like, just to, you know, to take, you know, some sort of passage like that and try to draw any kind of parallel on those lines. You're just talking about two completely different things.

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