September 22, 2023

Mark 14: 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. (NIV)

What would have happened if Jesus had said he couldn’t follow God’s will, the cup was too much to bear?*

There was a short time, in the very distant past, when I felt so hopeless that I just wished I could die. I wasn’t suicidal; I just wanted to go on to heaven because I couldn’t see any other way out of the situation I was in. It was never going to get better, I believed. You might say that my soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Praise God, things did get better. In fact, I doubt if anyone has had a better life on earth than I have.

When Jesus made this heart-breaking confession about his sorrow, I believe the human part of him wished that he could just die right then and there. Not only were things not going to get better . . . they were going to get much, much worse. And he knew it. Everything that he was going to suffer already existed in his mind. Every day of his life, it haunted him. Is there any more vivid example of despair than that?

And yet. With all his knowledge of the horrors that his future held, Jesus also knew the future beyond that future. Jesus the man may have fervently wished to escape his destiny but Jesus the Divine knew it had to be done. And he did it because he wanted us to have that same hope for a future beyond the future. Is there any more vivid example of love than that?

Redemption, the world’s greatest blessing, is the fruit of the world’s greatest sorrow.*