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Tonight, we are going to be reading from the Gospel of Luke. We have enjoyed tonight what so few Christians have the opportunity to enjoy. Many never participate in a Seder meal and as such are often left without a sense of the events that would have surrounded Christ's Last Supper.
What we have done takes us out of the theoretical and allows us to experience the reality of a Jewish Seder meal. Now that we have partaken in communion, I want us to begin to imagine the next step in the narrative of Christ's life.
After the Last Supper, John tells us that Jesus went out and he prayed over his disciples. We call this the high priestly prayer of Jesus Christ. He then leads them out to the Mount of Olives where he will pray to God for strength to endure the events of Good Friday.
This evening, I want us to read Luke's account of Christ's agony in the garden and I want us to understand the agony that he faced as he set his heart towards the cross. Let us stand for the reading of God's word.
Luke chapter 22, we will be looking at verses 39 through 46. And he came out and went as was his custom to the Mount of Olives. And the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation.
And 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 agony, he prayed more earnestly and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow.
And he said to them, why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he said to them, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, that I may not enter into temptation.
Our Father and our God, as we come now to the time where we will be examining this text of scripture and we will be learning about the night that Jesus spent in the garden praying. I pray, O Lord, that our hearts will be willing and open to the word, that your Holy Spirit would open them.
And I pray, O God, that you would keep me from error, as I am a fallible man, incapable of preaching error. And I pray, O God, that your Holy Spirit would encompass my heart, give me your truth, keep me in accord with your word.
And Lord, I pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. When I preach, I would preach a series of points. I would read a text and then give a deductive understanding of what the text means based on what it says and simply go point by point through the verse.
But tonight we're going to do a little bit different. Tonight, instead, I want to answer some questions that relate to this very text. Each question will build upon the last and each one will be relevant to the question that came before it in regard to this event in Christ's life.
The first question that I want to answer is this question. What was it that Christ was so anxious about? What was it that Christ was so concerned about that he would go into the garden to pray and in his prayer that he would be so anxious that he would, as the text says, sweat drops of blood?
The text describes Christ as being so anxious, so, so concerned, so fearful even of the next day's events that he literally cried out for God's mercy and it resulted in him sweating great drops of blood.
Some consider this to be somewhat metaphoric. Some consider it to be somewhat allegorical that he wasn't really sweating blood, but that he was just sweating buckets. And it was the text is simply trying to impose upon our understanding and that he was really sweating hard.
However, there is actually a medical condition. I have a hard time saying it is hematohydrosis. And hematohydrosis is where the capillaries that are around the sweat glands begin to burst because of intense stress.
And then a person who is sweating under emotional stress can actually begin to sweat. And from their sweat glands, from their pores, they actually begin to excrete blood. So we don't know whether or not the text is telling us here for certain that Jesus Christ was sweating blood or not.
But we know that it is possible for a human being for and we know Jesus Christ, though divine, had a human body. We know that it is possible that he sweat blood. And this is certainly what the text tells us.
And Luke, by the way, is the only one of the Gospels that mentions that. And what was Luke? Luke was a doctor. Likely this would have been very interesting to him, of course, in his chosen profession.
The amount of stress on Jesus that night was causing him, was causing his physical body to wear. But what was it that caused the stress? Some people believe that Jesus was in fear of the physical torture that he knew he was going to have to endure.
And to be honest with you, there's no way to really describe the physical torture that Jesus underwent. I know many pastors, including myself, have tried to bring a mental image to people's mind as to what it's like to be scourged.
And what it's like to die the painful death of hanging on a Roman cross. And honestly, I know even the films have tried to depict it. Even Mel Gibson tried his hand at really shocking us into understanding how bad it was to be scourged.
And how bad it was to be hung from a Roman cross. But even with all of the film's gore, it still is quite a separation in understanding exactly what Christ was to go through physically. None of us likely will ever know that level of pain.
None of us likely will ever know that level of suffering. And it is not good to underestimate Christ's pain in any way. However, I do want to say this. I do not believe that Christ's agony in the garden was in regard to his coming physical suffering.
I do not believe that the physical suffering was the cup that Christ asked to be removed. The real suffering that Christ feared, in my estimation, was not the physical torture of the Roman soldiers. But was the spiritual torture of the wrath of God.
Consider Christ's groaning from the cross. What did Christ say on the cross? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That is the torture. That is the pain. That is what Christ said to the Father. If there be another way, let this cup pass from me.
It was not the cup of physical torture. Many men have suffered physically. Many men were staked to Roman crosses. It is said that the numbers of Roman crosses during the only, I believe it was only some 150 years, that the Romans actually used the cross as a method of execution.
But during those 150 years, many hundreds of thousands went to the cross. So the cross itself, the torture of the cross, though painful, was not unique. However, Christ was the only one who went on the cross, took upon himself the wrath of God for the sins of his people.
When he talks about the cup, he is talking about the cup of God's wrath. Psalms 11 and verse 6 says, Let him rain coals on the wicked, fire and sulfur, and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
Psalm 75 verse 8 says,. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well-mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. Jeremiah 25 verse 15 says,.
Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me, Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.
Christ's sweat, his blood-filled sweat, was in anticipation of the wrath of God. Not just physical suffering, but the wrath of God that he would absorb, that he would take upon himself, that he would endure for our sins.
Now, another question. How is it that a one-time sacrifice can equal an eternal punishment? Many people have asked me that question. They have said, Now wait, Pastor. When you said Jesus died on the cross, he took God's punishment for you.
And that if I receive God's punishment, my punishment will be an eternity in hell, separate from God's grace and fully absorbing his wrath. Yet Christ's endurance on the cross was not eternal. How can a temporary sacrifice equate to an eternal punishment?
The point of Christ's sacrifice is not that it equals in length the eternal punishment of those who reject Christ. The point of Christ's sacrifice is that while it is in a sense temporary, it was still sufficient to satisfy the wrath of God because Christ was the absolute, spotless Lamb of God.
He shed his blood and made a perfect atonement to a perfect God that he might make all men perfect who are in him. And in shedding his blood, he received the wrath of God in himself in an instant that is reserved for those who will spend eternity in hell.
Ultimately, it is the quality of Christ's sacrifice, not the quantity that matters. But this leads to another question. What does this tell us about the punishment Christ endured from God? If Christ's punishment appeased the wrath of God in an instant for all those who would ever believe on him, the punishment must go beyond anything we can understand.
Consider the thrust of what I'm saying. Christ endured in an instant the same wrath of God that would be eternally poured out upon those who will die in their sins. It is beyond our comprehension the utter torture he must have experienced on the cross.
Not physically, though that was bad enough, but spiritually. Christ endured a one-time spiritual hell on behalf of all people who are his. You know what amazes me? It amazes me that I could stand up here and I could go over the physical torture of the cross.
And I could talk about how death on the cross is death by asphyxiation, which means you die by literally your lungs closing one step at a time and you physically drown in your own fluid. And if I told that story and I walked you through it emotionally, you would have a movement in your heart.
Likely many of your tears, your eyes would tear up and you would become very engaged in what I'm saying. Can we not get even more engaged by the fact that the physical torture, the physical pain, was nothing compared to the wrath of God that Christ endured.
I wonder how many of us actually consider when we come what it is we are here to remember. Christ experienced God's wrath for us. Consider the times God showed his wrath in Scripture. He poured out wrath on Noah's generation.
I tell this every time I mention Noah. I don't know how that story made it into the children's books. Because that story is about the wrath of God being poured out on sinful men and women. And the only people who survived were Noah, his family, and the animals.
Everyone else died in a watery grave. The earth literally ripped itself apart. Yet we tell it as if it's a children's story. And we forget the wrath of God. He poured it out on Sodom and Gomorrah in fire and brimstone.
Yet we spend more time arguing over whether or not Lot's wife really turned into a pillar of salt. And I believe that neither one of those contained the full orb of God's wrath. Certainly Noah's flood did not.
And certainly Sodom and Gomorrah's rain of fire did not. But Jesus Christ on the cross absorbed the wrath of God. The full wrath. The wrath that I deserved. And beloved, the wrath that you deserved. The punishment for sin that we all have earned Christ took for us.
And how does this relate to Christ in the garden? Well, beloved, Christ knew the extent of the punishment that was coming. He knew the spiritual torture He was going to endure. Is there then any question why He would ask for relief?
He asked God if there is another way. Another way for what? What's He asking? If there is another way to bring salvation to your people. If there is another way to bring righteousness to the unrighteous.
To bring forgiveness to the elect. But there was no other way. Beloved, some people argue about whether or not Jesus Christ is essential to go to heaven. Whether or not Jesus Christ is essential. People have that discussion and that debate.
And often the text that they debate is John 14, verse 6. And most of you know John 14, verse 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one cometh unto the Father but by me. Jesus Christ said that.
And there really is no other way to interpret that except for exclusively. Jesus is saying I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father but by me. But when someone asks me that question, I don't jump to John 14, verse 6.
I go to the agony in the garden. Because Jesus asked if there be another way. And there wasn't. If there was another way, he wouldn't have had to suffer. If there was another way, he wouldn't have had to endure the cross.
But the Father assured him there was no other way. And as such, Jesus said, nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. Mel Gibson's film went through great lengths to show us the physical torture of Christ.
It looked in the most graphic detail at that horrible day. But beloved, if you take nothing else away from this message tonight, remember this. The physical torture of Christ was not what he asked to be delivered from.
It was rather the wrath of God that he took upon himself for the sin of everyone who would ever believe on him. And Christ took that cup willingly for us. Because it was the will of his Father to strike him that his people might be free.
If you are Christ's tonight, he has taken your cup for you. The punishment that you deserve, he has taken. And might I say this, if you are not, I beseech you by the mercy of God, cry out in repentance and turn to Christ.
For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you that we have had this opportunity to share the word together.
And I pray, O Lord, that this message will strike to all of our hearts. For the believer, I pray that it would be an encouragement for the love that you have shown us in Christ. And Lord, for the unbeliever, I pray that your Holy Spirit would use this message in accordance with your will.
And in all things and in all ways, I pray, O Lord, that you would glorify yourself through all that we have done this evening. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.