Friday, March 28, 2014

Overwhelmed with sorrow for our sake

Overwhelmed with sorrow for our sake

Scripture:
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Matthew 26:36-38

Observation:
In the famous garden of Gethsemane, we see the Lord’s last moments of intense prayer before He goes on to be arrested and killed. Peter, James and John, His inner circle, accompany him, but they fail in their attempt to keep watch with Jesus. His soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.
Humanly, if we imagined ourselves in Jesus’ place, we would be terrified of the terrible physical pain that was about to be inflicted upon us. However, it was not fear or anxiety that the Lord felt but incredible sorrow. The pain on the cross itself seems the most terrible to us at first, but that is only on the physical.
Spiritually, the Lord would become the guilt offering, become sin itself as the sins of the world past, present and future was laid upon Him who had no sin. We cannot begin to imagine how terrible it must have been to feel and experience every wicked and horrible sin mankind had ever committed and would commit all at once on the cross.
The great horror of the multitude of sins was so intense that God the Father was forced to turn away from His only beloved Son. Indeed, compared to that, the physical pain was trivial. That’s why Jesus felt such great sorrow, for He knew that as the sins were placed on Him, He would become separated from His beloved Father. Their union that had always been since the beginning of time would be severed in that instant and we simply could not comprehend the intensity of grief and pain that separation would cause Jesus, even in that short time.
 We are creatures subject to time. Once we pass a moment, it is history. We quickly forget and move on to the future. However, to God, who is timeless, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. That faithful day at Gethsemane and later at Golgotha changed everything in the earthly and heavenly realms, and opened up the way for man to come back to God. Everything of importance in all history from a spiritual sense now all goes back to that faithful day. Praise be to the Lord!

Application:-
Consider the Son of God, pure and holy in every way, being completely defiled by all the evil sins of mankind as He hung on the cross – He had no sin bearing all the punishment and consequence of all sins, He who had never been separated from the Father being forced to break this precious eternal communication for our sake. We shudder at the horrors of the physical suffering of the Lord’s body at the cross, but far more precious was His sacrifice of bearing our sins spiritually. Far, fare more precious was His sacrifice of having His Father turn away from Him, having lost that connection of perfect love with His Father for those moments.
But the Lord did all this our of love for us. Both God the Father and God the Son willingly severed their precious eternal bond of love for that moment, so that we might be included. How truly precious is the salvation that He has granted us! How wonderfully precious is the access He has given us to come back to God, to be adopted into God’s wonderful family. We deserved nothing at all, but the Lord sacrificed Himself for us. It was His grace, His truly amazing grace. How ill-deserving we are as a human race. Yet, His marvelous and incomprehensible sacrifice has saved us!
Let us never lose that deep gratitude for our Lord, who suffered such deep sorrow for our sake. Let that deep gratitude inspire and lead us to serve Him more and more in even greater measure, and especially in desiring others to share in our great salvation!
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, how marvelous indeed Your great sacrifice for us! You suffered not just physically, but emotionally and mentally and especially spiritually. How could you who detested all sin carry on yourself all the terrible sins of humanity? How heavy and horrible that burden must have been. How terrible indeed to have our Father turn His face from you. We quickly become concerned for a young baby crying when separated from his mother. How great Your sorrow must have been in knowing You would lose connection with  Your Father whom You always were with before time. O Lord, let me never take for granted Your great sacrifice and suffering. Lead me, Lord to live a life worthy of Your calling. Praise You, Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     




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