He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. (Matthew 26:37, NIV)
Have you ever been extremely lonely? Have you ever had your friends abandon you? Have you ever been misunderstood? If so, then you have a faint idea of what Jesus went through as He agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane.
It has been said that what you don't know won't hurt you. I think there is some truth to that statement. If I had the opportunity to know my entire future from this day forward, I think I would rather not know.
But Jesus, being God, knew everything about His future, down to the finest detail. And He knew He was going to go to a Roman cross to be crucified. He knew that He would be humiliated. He would be beaten. He would go through a horrendous whipping. He knew the great anguish that was ahead.
The Bible says that Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. In the Garden of Gethsemane, we see the great sorrow and grief Jesus went through as He faced His death. I don't think we can even begin to grasp the anguish that Jesus was experiencing at that moment.
We need to remember that, as Hebrews 4:15 says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin."
In other words, you are not alone. God knows what you are going through. You don't have a High Priest, speaking of Jesus, who has not faced the challenges you face. The next time you are facing difficulty, the next time you are facing hardship, the next time you feel misunderstood and abandoned, you can know that Jesus has been through it. You have someone who understands you, sympathizes with you, and is there to strengthen you.
In Jesus,
Cap'n Kenny
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