Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Luke 22:43 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him.
LOVE AT GETHSEMANE (3)
Listen to God's response of love. It was not a response that was spoken in words but in action. God did not take the cup of suffering away from Jesus, instead He sent an angel to strengthen Him to drink it.
The Father so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son. When the Father saw His own dearly loved son in such agony and distress, pleading to have this cup taken away from Him, any father would do anything he could to help his son. Yet "God did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all" (Romans 8:32). He did not take away the cup of suffering. There was no other way.
Why not? Because He loved you and was willing to see His own Son suffer in order to save you. He sent an angel to strengthen Him -- in love for His Son for sure but also in love for you. He wanted to be sure that His Son endured it all for you. Here in the garden we also see the wretchedness of our sin. Our sins are so black and wretched that there is no other way for us to be freed from them than for the Son of God Himself to endure every last bit of punishment that our sins deserved. When our sins were transferred to the Holy Jesus, not even He could be spared from that punishment.
That wretchedness of our sins shows the depth of Jesus' love all the more. For Jesus did not give His live for good and lovely people. He did not give His life for people who befriended Him. Jesus was willing to die for wretched sinners like us. He was willing to die for the ungodly, those who had despised Him. That is love beyond compare.
"For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Romans 5:7-10).
