SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/20/2024 8:43 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “Sorrow”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
26:36-38
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.’”
We continue to talk about sorrow in this rather long
section found in MacArthur’s commentary.
I want to think about what happened in what is the shortest verse in the
New Testament which was spoken of by Jesus at the grave of Lazarus seen in John
11:35 where we read “Jesus wept.” The
question is why was Jesus weeping? Well
it was not for Lazarus or for the grieving sisters, because He was about to
restore His dear friend and their brother to life. Jesus rather wept because of the power of sin
and death over mankind, and possibly, even then, over the imminent prospect of
His becoming sin.
As
we continue to look at our verses we can see that at this time a very deep and
desolate kind of loneliness began to sweep over Him that caused Him to be severely
distressed. Not only the cross, but in addition to it were
personal disappointments that perhaps pressed Jesus into deeper
depression. Let us look at some things
that would be causing this great depression coming over the Lord. First was the treachery of Judas, an earthly
Lucifer who betrayed the loving and selfless Son of God, who graciously had
taught and ministered to this traitor for three years. Next there was the desertion of the eleven
other disciples, made more tragic by the fact for them, He was Savior and
Lord. Jesus had been their teacher, also
healer, encourager, forgiver, supporter, and also their friend. Yet He would soon be forsaken by those He had
never forsaken, and this had to be very hurtful to Him. It is easy to read about this knowing that Jesus
knew what was going to happen, and yet one must think of His humanity to which
there was the ability to have great hurt of soul when things like this happened
to Him, which probably was made worse because of Him being 100% God too along
with 100% man. Next there would be
outright denial by Peter, the one in whom Jesus had invested the most. In return, He would be the object of Peter’s
shame and the cause for Peter’s cursing.
Jesus would also be rejected by Israel, which is next on the list,
Israel who was God’s chosen and covenant people through whom He came in the
flesh and to whom He came as Messiah, Redeemer, and also their King.
MacArthur
writes “In addition to the rejections were the blatant injustices He would
face. The very Creator of justice would
Himself be subjected to the ultimate injustice of mankind. He would be vilified and defrauded in the
petty courts of sinful, spiteful, lying men—and that in the name of God. The One whom angels praise and with whom God
the Father is well pleased would be cursed and mocked by the vile and wicked
multitudes, many of whom had a few days earlier sung His praises and attempted to
make Him their king.
“Jesus
confronted a loneliness that no other man could experience. The Son of God, who communed with the Father
and the Holy Spirit and with all the holy angels of heaven, would find Himself
forsaken by His Father as He became sin.
He would be so identified with iniquity that the hosts of heaven would
have to turn their backs on Him. And the
same sin that repulsed them repulsed Him, the sinless, holy, pure, and undefiled
Son of righteousness.
“As
the mortal Son of man, the undying Son of God had to take death upon Himself,
and that, too, was grievous and depressing.
As part of His divine mission of redemption, Christ came to earth to ‘taste
death for everyone’ (Heb. 2:9). As
Alfred Edersheim wrote, ‘He disarmed Death by burying its shaft in His own
heart,’ and death thereby had no more arrows (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971], 2:539). But that last arrow of death caused the Lord
inexpressible torment.”
There
is still a fair amount of commentary in this section, which Lord willing we
will continue to look at in the next SD.
5/20/2024 9:13 AM
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