As we draw closer to Easter Sunday, people all over the world will celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of our glorious and wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ. Some will undoubtedly celebrate what they don’t even begin to understand or truly know, and others will just go through the motions, taking more delight in egg hunts and chocolate bunnies. And, even for those who truly celebrate the truthful death and resurrection, I feel many miss out on a critical part of what Jesus Christ went through those many years ago.
Let us go back almost 2000 years, to the Mount of Olives, where Jesus would soon be falsely arrested, and where some of the darkest and brightest days in all of human history would take place. Darkest, because of what Jesus went through, and brightest because without those events, we would all be doomed to eternal hell.
Here, in Luke 22, we find Jesus and His disciples as He prays, “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.” (vs. 41-44)
We know from history, how painful and terrible being savagely whipped and then crucified was for anyone to experience, but that wasn’t what troubled Jesus here. Sure, it would be an awful experience to go through, but something far more terrible weighed on His mind. What brought the agony to our Savior was what the prophet Isaiah foretold us in Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Specifically this phrase, “…the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all”. The Apostle Paul put it this way, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin…” (2 Corinthians 5:21) He became SIN and endured the wrath of God for us! We deserve to die for our sins, yet He deserved NOTHING like that, and yet He prayed “not my will, but yours be done!”
Hematidrosis is a very rare condition in which a human being sweats blood. It is when severe mental anxiety causes the capillary blood vessels to rupture. Jesus was about to have all of the sin of the entire world placed upon Him. If doing one wrong action, causes us to feel bad and guilty, think about what ALL of the sin ever committed would do to a person. Here, Jesus Christ, the perfect, holy, and sinless Lamb of God, was about to be treated as if He were guilty of all the sin ever committed, and yet He never even had a wrong thought or sinful action! In just a few hours, we will hear Him cry out from the cross, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'” (Matthew 27:46)
That was the hardest part of what Jesus Christ went through for us, when He died for our sins. So, the next time you think lightly about sinning and disobeying or displeasing God, remember – and TRULY think about what our sins did to our Savior that day close to 2000 years ago! Sin is nothing to be looked at lightly, and when we understand that Jesus Christ loved us enough to endure what He alone went through, we should love Him so deeply that we want to do nothing that would ever displease Him!