Would you voluntarily take on suffering that is so repulsive and frightening and upsetting that the anticipation of it nearly kills you?

That's what Jesus does in the garden of Gethsemane. As the soldiers, led by Judas, are on their way, the crushing awareness of all that is about to befall him crystallizes clearly in the mind and heart of Jesus. He falls to the ground. He sweats drops of blood. The sorrow and distress, he says, brings him to the point, nearly, of death.

Why is the anticipation so terrible? Well, if you ever watched the movie "The passion of the Christ" you know that his physical suffering will be excruciating. But, in the movie, the suffering of Jesus is portrayed as so brutal that I'm afraid it does a disservice to our understanding of what is about to happen. It could lead one to think that the physical suffering of Jesus was the worst part of his death. That, I think, is a serious mistake. The worst agony was not physical, as bad as that was. The worst, I believe, is the sudden reality, which crashes in upon him in the garden, is that he is to die in the place of sinners. Yes, friends will fail him. Yes, foes will assail him. But far worse is that the Heavenly Father will turn his face away and Jesus knows he will be cut off from his Father's favor and love.

The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin..." What was the worst part for Jesus? It is that the sinless One will "become sin." All the ugliness of hatred, selfishness, violence, blasphemy; all the perversion, cruelty and arrogance, and all the rest of the terrible evil that defiles the human race, is imputed to Jesus Christ. He becomes sin.

Thus, Jesus, the Holy One, knows he will become repulsive and ugly and unholy in the eyes of God the Father.

So what does Jesus do? He prays from the prayer that he taught us to pray. Yes, he asked three times for God to "deliver me from evil." But underneath is his heart which says "I want your kingdom to come and your will to be done." And so "he who knew no sin" – does not sin.

The essence of sin for me and for you is to insist on our own way in opposition to God's will. It is to say "My will be done, regardless of what God says."

The essence of righteousness, exhibited and lived out in Jesus, is to say "Your will be done, and I will do it."

Jesus does for us what we could never do for ourselves. So at the end of this time in the garden he says, "Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand." And he goes – resolute, willing, and the only One able to do what he must do.

Why? He hates the thought of the cross and he fears drinking the cup of God's wrath; but even more, he loves the hand that brings the cup to him. And most astounding of all, the Bible says he does it "for our sake." In fact, that's how the verse I quoted above begins. Don't rush over it. "For our sake..." "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

He said "Yes" to the cross for you. How can you say "No" to him?

Confess the times that you do say "No." Thank him once again for the atonement he made on your behalf. Ask him to fill you with his New Life. Then with gratitude and joy in your heart, say "Yes" to him. “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Musing’s from Pastor John, April 11, Click to Email Pastor John