Jesus Prayed Passionately

What Did Jesus Do?

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
Luke 22.44

I have prayed with some passion. And I have prayed with some power. Shame has marked my prayers of confession. Laughter has enlivened some of my prayers of joy. Tears have dampened my prayers of grief and sorrow. And a “!” has punctuated some of my very brief prayers, as in “God, help me!” But I have never yet prayed such a desperate prayer out of the deep anguish of my soul that I have sweated blood.

But after the Lord had concluded his last supper with his disciples, when Jesus went out to the Mount of Olives to pray, he carried the burden of the full knowledge of what was soon to transpire: Betrayal…Arrest…Denial…Beating…Scourging… Mocking…Crucifixion…Death. That is a crushing weight to deal with, and we can hardly begin to imagine how desperately one would pray at such a time. Anyone but an extreme masochist would plead and search for a way out, and Jesus, though he would not flee from pain, surely did not seek it.

The Lord so exhausted himself in this hour of desperate prayer that his Father sent an angel from heaven to succor him and give him strength. (22.43) I don’t know about you, but it encourages me to know that God does not merely listen to us pray, but sends us aid in our prayers, not only angelic, but the Holy Spirit himself. (Romans 8.26) Even with the added strength supplied by the angel the Lord so emptied himself in his prayer that it was as if his very life was pouring out of him. All too soon would the scourge and the nail make his precious blood to flow, but here it was by his own unimaginably strenuous prayers.

Christ’s passion is perhaps nowhere more evident than here, in his hour of desperate prayer. Now, I’ve seen lots of people get passionate about global warming. Many people get worked up over politics. I confess to getting somewhat carried away myself with the March Madness that comes around this time each year. There is no shortage of causes and crusades to enflame our emotions. But when it comes to prayer, how many of us pray with passion, with, if you’ll excuse the expression, gut-wrenching, sweat-producing, strength-sapping, leave it all on the court passion? That’s what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4