OUR SAVIOR DRAINED
People have more energy at certain times than at others. The older we get the less energy we seem to have. Maybe at a 7 o’clock midweek Lent service when the sky is already dark and our stomachs are full from a recent soup supper, we might not quite have the energy to stay awake for the entire time like we would on a Sunday morning. After a hard day’s work or after staying up late the night before or after exerting ourselves mentally or physically, our energy is sometimes completely gone. There are plenty of things in this life that drain us of the energy that our bodies normally enjoy.
Jesus, as a true human being in every possible way, was drained of energy at times just like we are. After being in the desert without food for 40 straight days as he was tempted by the devil, Jesus must have been drained to the point of exhaustion. In fact, angels were even sent to help him recover after it was all over. There were times in Jesus’ ministry when he had to take his disciples away from the crowds to a quiet place so that all of them could get a little bit of rest before resuming their preaching and teaching. In fact, Jesus was so exhausted one day that he even fell asleep in a boat during a storm that was so violent that his disciples thought they were going to drown. And then, of course, there was the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion. There on his knees Jesus was praying so passionately for so long that an angel came to strengthen him and his sweat was like drops of blood pouring from his face. The gospel writer Luke describes our drained Savior that night in this way: 39Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40On reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation." 41He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." 43An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. 45When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 46"Why are you sleeping?" he asked them. "Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."
Jesus was kneeling in a garden at night when the sweat began to run down his forehead and collect on the ground. He wasn’t running, he wasn’t working, he wasn’t laboring out in the sun on a hundred degree day. He was praying. But he was praying so hard and so fervently that sweat came pouring out of him to such an extent that it must have soaked through his clothes! Luke says that his sweat was like drops of blood falling from his brow! This was not just a little perspiration. This was not only a bit of moisture beading up on his forehead. Our Savior was praying with such intensity that the sweat poured from his body and actually dripped off his face to the ground below! Our Savior held nothing back in his prayers to the Father that night. He poured out his heart and his soul and his mind. Our Savior drained himself.
Have you ever prayed like that? Have you ever approached the throne of your Lord and prayed so feverishly that not only did you work up a sweat, but you sweated so profusely that it ran off the end of your nose and your eyebrows and your chin like drops of blood? Neither have I. I know what it is to sweat in that way; sweat has poured from my face like a faucet on numerous occasions during triple digit days in the summers of the Midwest, but I’ve never had sweat drop like blood from my head during prayer. I don’t think many people have. Because we are more likely to fall asleep like the disciples than spend that much energy praying! How many times have you dozed off on that soft pillow of yours before you were even close to finishing your prayers for the night? How many times have you purposely stayed up through the entire night and drained yourself of every ounce of energy in your pleas and petitions to the Lord? We just don’t usually pray that hard or that long or that passionately. And it might be a little bit of laziness on our part that we have never done that before; it might be a little bit of indifference; it might be a little bit of neglect. And I’m not saying that you have to sweat with every prayer you pray or pray for hours ever time you approach your Lord - Jesus didn’t even do that - but we probably don’t give prayer the priority it deserves. We like to sleep more than we like to pray. We like to eat more than we like to pray. We like to do a whole variety of different things before we ever make time to pray. We certainly have the opportunities to pray and we definitely have plenty of things to pray for, we just don’t always take advantage of God’s open door policy and talk to him as often as we should - when he has been waiting patiently just to hear from us the entire time.
The disciples didn’t take advantage of their opportunity either. They weren’t on their knees while their Lord was on his in anguish. They didn’t pray with him. They didn’t even stay awake with him. They caught a quick nap on the night that happened to be the last night they would ever be able to spend with their Savior on this earth. But that is why Jesus prayed so hard. He knew what was coming. He knew what he was about to go through. And he knew that no one else could go through it with him. He would be alone on the cross just like he was that night in the garden. He would be left to shoulder the agony all by himself on a hill called Golgotha just as he was that evening in a garden called Gethsemane. And the sweat that dropped from his head like blood was an unpleasant reminder of the blood that would soon drop from his head because of the crown of thorns less than 24 hours later.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that the Holy Spirit inspired the gospel writer Luke to describe Jesus’ sweat like drops of blood falling to the ground. Luke wasn’t just describing Jesus’ physical and emotional exertion in prayer; Luke was hinting at the coming cross. Jesus would have nails in his hands, nails in his feet, scourge wounds on his back, and a crown of thorns pressed into his head in just a few hours. Jesus’ blood would flow freely. It would run down his legs and arms, it would soak into the wooden beams of the cross, and it would pour off of his face as it dropped to the ground. Jesus would be covered in his own blood by the next afternoon and so he prayed that night before covered in his own sweat. He pleaded with his Father to find another way; but he also agreed with his Father that the cross was the only way. He struggled as a true man to face such torture; but he also willingly accepted the impending self-sacrifice because he was and remains true God. And this was the way it had to be. Blood would have to pour off his brow, not just sweat, if he was going to save those disciples that were sleeping a stone’s throw away. Blood would have to run out of his body to the point of death, not just perspiration, in order to save us. The Savior would have to be drained. Drained of energy, drained of blood, and even drained of life itself. Our dear Savior Jesus would have to be stripped of that which he breathed into Adam in the Garden of Eden. God himself would have to become a lifeless body so that he could give life to ours.
And it all started here in the Garden of Gethsemane. Look at the anguish on Jesus’ face. Look at the white knuckles of his folded hands. Look at the soiled knees down in the dew and the dirt. Look at the sweat pouring from his forehead like drops of blood. Your Savior drained himself. Your Savior drained himself of everything he had so that you could be filled with joy and peace and forgiveness. Our Savior drained himself. We are now saved.
Amen.
“May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.” - 2 Thess. 3:5
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