The first sip

In the lead up to Easter, we'll be looking at 5 snapshots from Luke's Gospel as Jesus makes his way to the cross. Today we join him in the Garden of Gethsemane...

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives,
and his disciples followed him.
On reaching the place, he said to them,
“Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”
He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them,
knelt down and prayed,
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me;
yet not my will, but yours be done.”
An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.
And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly,
and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples,
he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow.
“Why are you sleeping?” he asked them.
“Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”
Luke 22 v 39-46

What is happening as Jesus prepares to drink the cup of God's wrath? Jesus Himself has never sinned. He has never earned God’s righteous hatred for His wickedness. He is the only person in human history who doesn’t deserve to face the wrath of a perfect and holy God. But in this dark night on the Mount of Olives, Jesus begins tasting in His soul the contents of that awful cup. In a few hours, at the cross, He will drain it to its dregs. Why?

So that we wouldn’t have to drink any of it, ever.

It’s impossible to overstate the magnitude and mystery of this moment. This is an event that remains utterly unique in human history. Stop and think about it: here in the garden, the perfect, sinless, holy Son of God, whose soul recoils at the presence of sin, begins to taste what it will be like to be treated like a sinner, to face wrath like a sinner. Here the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, who has eternally enjoyed perfect unity and love with His Father, begins to feel what it will be like to be forsaken and abandoned by Him. We cannot hope to fully understand or explain these events. We can only describe them, believe them, and be led to worship by them.

For those of us who have received forgiveness through Jesus’ blood, we have here on the Mount of Olives a beautiful picture of our Lord’s love for us. Can you imagine what it was like for Jesus to endure the cross? If just a taste, just the anticipation of that wrath, was enough to make Jesus fall to the ground and sweat drops like blood, how much worse was His actual experience at His crucifixion the next day? Why did He do it? So that we would never need to face any of it, ever.

This is an edited extract from Mike McKinley's book, Passion: How Christ's Final Day Changes Your Every Day