The
Dilemma of Gethsemane.
What was the true dilemma of Garden of Gethsemane? [Mt.26:36-46]
Did Jesus have to experience something like sin?
Jesus prayed 3 times to have the cup passed from him and
each time went back to his disciples for encouragement who slept instead of
prayed.
Down deep, in the recesses of the perfect man, I think
Jesus knew he had to go to the cross, so what was the grief that caused him to
feel “very sorrowful?” The actual pain of the Cross would have been enough, but
there was more.
Here was His dilemma: Jesus came to save man from sin and
here he was having to go through an event [the cross] that would actually cause
men to sin, even his disciples. The cross experience would split the veil in
the temple and literally cause men to have to take sides about God. He knew he
would cause some to sin [including Judas] by doing what the Father asked. This
may be one reason he asked was there some other way.
Through this struggle, he felt the basic sorrow of sin
and had to bear this burden alone.
After what must have been the most agonizing moments,
with amazing effort, he was able to say “not my will, but the Father’s will be
done.”
This establishes Him as the Christ forever. He totally
willed to the Father by feeling the sin without being actually sinful in
nature. WE can never fully understand this, but trust by faith.
Jesus feels the emotional pain again, on the Cross, when
he cries out, “Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani? That is; My God, My God,
why have you forsaken me?”
During the time of the Cross event, God the Father was
saying to the world: “You may break the
back of my Son, but I will in turn break your heart.”
The first shall be last; the greatest the smallest; the
sinless the sinner. God’s ways are not the same as man’s solutions.
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