SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/16/2024 10:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Intro to Matthew 26:36-46”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
26:36-46
Message of the verses: “36 Then Jesus came
with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, "Sit
here while I go over there and pray." 37 And He took with Him Peter and
the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. 38 Then He
said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain
here and keep watch with Me." 39 And He went a little beyond them,
and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup
pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will." 40 And He came to the
disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "So, you men
could not keep watch with Me for one hour? 41 “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into
temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." 42 He
went away again a second time and prayed, saying, "My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I
drink it, Your will be done." 43 Again He came and found them sleeping,
for their eyes were heavy. 44 And He left them again, and went away and prayed
a third time, saying the same thing once more. 45 Then He came to the disciples
and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is
at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 “Get
up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!’”
I will conclude the quotation from MacArthur’s
commentary on the introduction to these verses.
“As
we look further into our Lord’s last night before death, we grasp what we can
of the sacredness of this powerful moment in His life and ministry. But we realize that no amount of study or
insight can give more than a glimpse of the divine-human agony He experienced
there.
“One
of Philip Bliss’s beautiful hymns contains the words,
‘Man of
sorrows, what a name,
For the
Son of God who came,
Ruined
sinners to reclaim!
Hallelujah,
what a Savior!’
The
hymn writer borrowed his description of Christ from Isaiah, who predicted that
the Messiah would be ‘a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief’ (Isa. 53:3).
“There is no record in Scripture of Jesus’ laughing,
but there are numerous accounts of His grieving, His sadness, and even His
weeping. He wept at the grave of Lazarus
(John 11:35) and wept over Jerusalem at the time of His triumphal entry (Luke
19:41). Jesus knew sorrow upon sorrow
and grief upon grief as no other man who has ever lived. But the sorrow He experienced in the Garden
of Gethsemane on the last night before His crucifixion seemed to be the
accumulation of all the sorrow He had ever known, which would accelerate to a
climax the following day.
“We
cannot comprehend the depth of Jesus’ agony, because, as sinless and Holy God
incarnate, He was able to perceive the horror of sin in a way we cannot. Therefore even to attempt to understand the
suffering of Jesus that night on the Mount of Olives is to tread on holy
ground. The mystery is too profound for
human beings to comprehend and even for angels.
We can only stand in awe of the God-Man.
“Like
every other aspect and detail of Jesus’ life and ministry, His agony in the
garden was integral to the foreordained, divine plan of redemption. It was part of Jesus’ preparation for the
cross, where the climactic event in the work of that redemption would
transpire.
“Ever
and always the teacher, Jesus used even this struggle with the enemy in the
garden the night before the cross to teach the disciples and ever future
believer another lesson in godliness, a lesson about facing temptation and
severe trial. The Lord not only was
preparing Himself for the cross but also, by His example, preparing His
followers for the crosses He calls them to bear in His name (see Matt. 16:24).” “Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If
anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and
follow Me.”
“Matthew 26:36-46 reveals three aspects of Jesus’
striving in the garden: His sorrow’s His
supplication, and His strength. And in
clear contrast to their Lord’s unremitting struggle we see also the disciples’
indifferent lethargy.”
I
have to say that after listening to two sermons on these verses that my heart
is very open to learn more about things that perhaps I have never thought of in
the way that they will be presented as we move through these verses in the
following days.
5/16/2024 10:40 AM
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