The Son in Sorrow

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 10 May 2015

Our text this evening is from Matthew 26:36-39 about the Son in sorrow. When we study the life of the Lord, we realize that indeed He was a man of sorrows. There are statements about His sighing out loud and about His being grieved. But the sorrow here is an accumulation of all the sorrow He ever knew, and all that which was yet to be experienced. We cannot understand the profound nature of the suffering of Jesus Christ, because He, as infinite God, could experience something that we cannot comprehend.

So to enter into the suffering of Jesus in this text is to tread on holy ground, and to try to understand something that is really ultimately not understandable; to try to explain something that is really inexplicable. We stand in awe of the God-Man, fully aware that He is God, and yet seeing Him suffer in pain as a human, almost as if He were not God. But what is the purpose of a passage on the suffering of Christ?

Let us read it and find out, Matthew 26:36-46, “Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour?”

41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. 45 Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

Now, this is the Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, immediately before His capture, mock trial, and execution. It is part of the preparation of the cross. We have already seen Matthew outline for us elements of preparation; the preparation of the religious leaders, who were setting the plot to capture Christ. We saw the preparation of Mary, who loved Him and anointed Him for burial, as it were. We saw the preparation of Judas, who set out to betray Him. We saw our Lord bring to an end the old Jewish economy in the final Passover.

While it is a struggle that Jesus must bring Himself into harmony with the plan of God, it is also an important element of preparation for the disciples, because out of it they will learn the lesson stated in verse 41, where our Lord says, “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Even in the midst of this struggle with the enemy, who tries to divert Him from the cross, the Lord goes beyond His own experience to teach His own. The disciples must learn about how they are to face temptation and severe trials and we should learn the proper way to face severe temptation.

Now, let me give you five key words to think about: sorrow, supplication, sleep, strength, and sequence, and I will unfold those as we go. But before that let us look at verse 36, “Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” They will be in that garden only a very brief time before Jesus will be taken prisoner. But before that occurs, something else must occur, and that is a time of intercession with the Father.

So the Lord uses this time to be instructive to His disciples and to us as well. It gives us insight into how to deal with temptation. They were in a garden called Gethsemane, which means “olive press.” John 18:2 tells us that Jesus went there often with His disciples. It was a private, shaded place, away from the crowd, the streets, the city and the busyness. It was a place where He could go to spend the night in prayer with His Father or instruction with His disciples.

Now, the disciples are told to stay. They have been told that this is the time for Him to die. In Matthew 26:2, Jesus said to the disciples, “Two days and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified.” Jesus said to them in verse 31, “This night you are going to face a temptation, and you are going to be offended, and you are going to run.” So they knew they were at a crisis point. They should have understood what He was saying in verse 41, “Watch and pray;” be on the alert and spend your time in intercession.

Do you know , there is no indication that they even prayed. They existed in a kind of smug self-confidence. Verse 37 says, “And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, who were James and John, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.” Now, we know for sure what He was going to do. He says, “I’m going to go and pray.” And He uses a very intensive word – always used for praying to God. I’m going to go and pour out My heart to God.”

And so He takes Peter, James and John with Him. Somebody says Jesus took them for companionship. There may be an element of truth in the fact that He loved their companionship. But that was not the reason He took them. Someone else has said He took them because they were the weakest of the bunch. And if you watch Peter and James and John, you might come to that conclusion. But that doesn’t really fit either, because He had given more of Himself to these three than any others.

The truth is that He took them because they were the three leaders. He took them because there was a lesson that had to be taught to the rest, and He couldn’t take them all or there wouldn’t be anybody left there to watch. He wanted them to be able to communicate it to the rest, and these were the ones the rest looked up to. They were the ones who would be the teachers.

It says Jesus took the three with Him and He went a little further in verse 39. In fact, He went probably 30 yards beyond them because Luke says a stone’s throw. So He wasn’t there to patrol them, and He didn’t have them there to support and sympathize with Him. They were there because there was something they needed to learn out of this experience about how to face a trial that they could pass on to others. And that they might see something of the agony of their Savior so that they might understand His love.

Sinful, fallen humanity will not acknowledge its weakness. Unfallen, sinless humanity acknowledges its weakness. Jesus was fully human, and He knew that in humanity is a lot of weakness. Tears are a sign of human weakness, because they are a sign of pain. Suffering is a sign of human weakness. God knows no pain and no suffering as eternal God in deity – except that which He chooses to consider on behalf of man.

So, when you enter into a severe trial, you must not look to other men, but you must look to God. Jesus passed the severest test in the history of humanity. And that is why Hebrews 4:15 tells us, “We have not an high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” When you go to the Lord Jesus Christ with your needs, you’re not talking to a high priest who doesn’t know how you feel. He knows our weakness and we all have to learn from this marvelous passage to trust God in the midst of our trials.

Jesus’ ministry began and ended with a severe temptation. Back in Matthew 4, Satan came to Him, after 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, and Satan tempted Him three times, right? How many waves of temptation come to Jesus here? How many times did He go to pray? Three times. And Jesus was victorious in both of those very personal, intimate solicitations to evil from Satan. And Jesus reveals both of those encounters to teach us profound truth.

Jesus replied the first time with Scripture. The second time He responded to this wave of temptation with prayer. So the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but that are spiritual using the Word of God and prayer. That is why Ephesians 6 says, “Take the sword of the Spirit, and pray always.” And so Jesus is completing the lesson that if you are going to handle temptation, you handle it on the strength of the Word of God and the power of God sought through prayer.

Now, let us look at the first key word “sorrow” that helps us understand the text. In verse 37-38, after having gone on with Peter, James and John, some distance further from the other eight, it says, “He began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” Now here our Lord is entering into deep anguish. Every single thought of anticipation of that cross that dwelt in His omniscience repulsed Him. He agonized every conscious moment of His incarnation over the reality of the cross, because everything in it He despised.

This brought Him to an indescribable agony. His whole soul is so repulsed that it is beyond description. And here in lies a new understanding of the love and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. You see, He died on the cross every conscious moment before He died on the cross, because in His omniscience He experienced His own death before it ever happened. So no wonder He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isa 53:3).

The pain here it reaches its apex, but the fact that He endures this, that He goes through this victoriously, shows how much He loves the Father, how submissive He is to the Father’s will, how much He loves sinners who need salvation. Still the anticipation of this brings terror, pain and sorrow. And remember at the grave of Lazarus, in John 11:33-35 when He walked up to that grave, and He began to groan for sorrow. He wasn’t weeping for Lazarus; He was about to bring him out of the grave. It was the power of sin and death that gripped His soul there.

The Greek word sorrow means, to be away from home. Home is where you belong. Jesus was away from home. He was isolated in conflict with hell. He was depressed not only about what had happened, but also what would happen. How can Judas treat Him this way? And then there was the desertion of the eleven. He who was the faithful teacher, loyal friend, encourager, forgiver, supporter, is He to be forsaken by those He would never think to forsake Himself?

Then there’s the denial by Peter. Peter with whom He had spent so much time, how can he deny Him and curse His name? And then to remember the rejection by Israel, too. He is the Lord of the covenant, He is the King of glory, the King of grace, the source of their hope. He is the bringer of the Kingdom, who loved Israel and calls Himself Israel’s Lord and King. He came to redeem His people. Is He to be rejected by them? Is He to be murdered by their unbelief?

And then there is the injustice of men. He comes into a world in which He has made the laws. He is the God of equality and the God of what is fair, and what is true. Is He to be cheated in the courts of lying men who will deny Him His right to justice and truth? And then there is the cursing and the mocking that’s going to come. But He is the one for all eternity who knew nothing but the praise and the adoration of holy creatures. And then there’s the loneliness. He who is the companion of God, is He to be alone, forsaken by all, so that even God the Father turns His back?

And then there is the bearing of sin. The spotless, sinless, holy Son of God is to become sin for us. At the moment of death, 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “He is called sin who knew no sin.” And then there is death itself. Jesus as God is immortal and eternal; He knows no death. But as the writer of Hebrews 2:9 says, “So that He might taste death for every man.” And so He faces something which an eternally undying being can never face, and yet He dies as man for man. And all of this was sorrowful reality. And this is the struggle of our Savior.

And this is the struggle that He is in with Satan. Satan came playing on Jesus Christ’s worthiness. Why are You here on the ground crying out to God in agony, sweating drops of blood? You are the Son of God. Why are You to be humiliated by eleven deserting disciples and one wretched traitor named Judas? You deserve better than this, You are the Son of God. But in Matthew 16:22-23, when Peter said to Him, “Don’t go to the cross,” Jesus said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan.”

And that brings us to the second word, supplication. It says in verse 39, “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” First, He said, “My Father.” He called God “Father” every time He prayed to Him except once, and that was on the cross when God forsook Him. When Jesus called God “Father”, the Jews just could not handle that, because they did not call God their personal Father. He was the Father to the nation, but there was no intimacy to that.

Here Jesus goes a step further, and doesn’t only say “Father,” He says, “My Father,” and Mark says He cried “Abba,” Daddy. Jesus is articulating the intimacy of His relationship with the Father, which He will not release. “My Father,” is very possessive, very personal, very intimate, and He holds on to that. Jesus says, “If it is possible to do this any other way, I would want that, but if it’s not, let it be.” And that is a prayer of resignation to the will of God.

When He says “if it be possible,” He’s not asking if it is possible within the power of God, because anything is possible within the power of God. He is asking, is it possible in the plan of God. If it is possible morally, if it is possible in the consistency with the plan to save sinners, is there any other way. This is an unbearable thing that is torturing Him in the garden. “This cup” is the symbol of the experience He will endure. The cup is often associated with divine wrath. Psalm 75:8, Isaiah 51:17, Jeremiah 49:12, all three of those, and other scriptures, speak of the cup of judgment, or the cup of wrath.

And the cup that Christ was going to drink was the fury of God over sin, was the attack of Satan, the power of death, the guilt of iniquity. All of that was in the cup. And He could wish that He could escape if there was any other way. And so the Lord Jesus Christ then begins the supplication, and the supplication shows us genuine agony because it shows us the desire to be relieved of it. That is the way to face temptation, in prayer and commitment to the will of God. Let’s pray.