Daily Devotions
Luke
Luke 22 : 39-46 "UNDERSTANDING THE INTENSITY OF JESUS' PRAYER"
Day 296 – Luke 22
Text: Luke 22 : 39-46
UNDERSTANDING THE INTENSITY OF JESUS’ PRAYER
We have spent much time pondering over how Jesus prayed. With great awe we noticed that He had dropped to His knees, and then prostrated Himself to seek His Father’s face.
From hints here and there, we understand that Jesus must have literally spent hours communing with His Father in prayer. His prayer must have been most intensive, for Luke records the fact that “His sweat became like great drops of blood”.
We are puzzled though as to the content of what Jesus said to His Father. The synoptic Gospels record only briefly that Jesus prayed,
“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me;
nevertheless not My will, but Yours be done”
Luke 22:42
How could Jesus have struggled in prayer over these few words for hours? How can we understand what Jesus must have actually struggled with?
We would need to search other passages of Scriptures in order to understand what Jesus actually struggled with as He communed with His Father in prayer.
JESUS AS OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST
Hebrews is a book that has high Christological focus. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews theologically highlighted an important ministry that the Gospel writers only recorded. Whereas the Gospel writers noted that Jesus prayed, Hebrews noted that Jesus was functioning as our Great High Priest in intercessory prayer.
Let us consider the following passages which speak of the High Priestly role of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren,
that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest
in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation
for the sins of the people…”
Hebrews 2:17
What was the context of the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? This verse in Hebrews gives us an invaluable clue. Was He praying for Himself as He prayed to His Father? The answer is “Yes!” Jesus had put on flesh, and thus He was “made like His brethren”. As one fully human, He felt the distress that comes when one is facing an ordeal of great suffering, pain and death at the end of the tribulation.
Was He only focused on Himself? The answer has to be “No!” There were things that were not recorded in the Gospels. The Gospel writers featured the pain and suffering of Jesus. The passage we read here described Jesus as ministering to us with reference to “things pertaining to God”. We are not told specifically what those “things” actually were. Whatever they were, they must have been very heavy to bear.
One of the things that we may suggest is that it had to do with the question of how “to make propitiation for the sins of the people”. The context of Jesus’ words uttered in prayer made reference to the cup of suffering and death that He was given to drink. The death of Jesus was not a personal death. His death had great theological significance. His death would be the propitiation for the sins of the people!
When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was pondering over the propitiation that He must make in order for the sins of mankind to be forgiven. The word “propitiation” has great theological significance.
Jesus was pondering the fact that in order to satisfy the righteousness of God, and the holy justice of the Lord as Judge, He had to shed His blood. This was an awesome thought to ponder over! He would have to stand before His Father as Judge. He would have to bear the weight of all our sins on His shoulders. He was going to make propitiation for us, and the only way to do it was for Him to drink the cup of sorrow and suffering, leading to death! Those were weighty things to ponder over!
ANOTHER ENLIGHTENING PASSAGE FROM ISAIAH
The Book of Isaiah contains many prophetic passages relating to the Messiah-Saviour. Let us look at some of the more well-known passages.
1. The virgin birth of Jesus was prophesied. Isaiah 7:14
2. The ministry of Jesus in Galilee was also prophesied. Isaiah 9:1-2
3. That Jesus would be especially filled with the Holy Spirit was noted . Isaiah 11:2; 42:1 61:1
4. The character and personality of Jesus was also described. Isaiah 42:1-4
5. In Isaiah, Jesus was the Messianic Servant. He was described thus as a contrast to Israel described as a blind and deaf servant. Isaiah 42:19
6. God personally promised the Messianic Servant that He would make Jesus to be “a covenant to the people, and a light to the Gentiles”. Isaiah. 42:6
In Isaiah 49, the Messiah-Servant communed with His Father and sighed,
“Then I said, ‘I laboured in vain,
I have spent My strength for nothing and in vain.
Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord,
And my work with My God.’ “
Isaiah 49:4
In this prophetic passage, the Messiah-Servant reflects on His life’s work, and it seemed to have all been in vain. If viewed from the human standpoint alone, the work of Jesus would seem to have been in vain. He had laboured long and hard. He had expended His strength every day to its limits, to minister to the multitude. Along the way, He had selected and trained a group of disciples. One had betrayed Him, and His three favourite disciples had gone to sleep in His hour of sorrow. Didn’t these facts suggest that His work was in vain?
The Messiah-Servant answered His own heart. He refused to believe that His work was in vain. He chose to trust that His work was with God. His work was done in obedience to His Father’s revealed will to Him. Surely, that work was NOT in vain. Surely the work that He had done would reap a reward some day!
This passage in Scripture might well be one of the things that Jesus struggled with as He ministered in prayer. He reviewed His life’s work and presented it and Himself as the offering of propitiation to His Father. Jesus exercised much faith and trust as He communed with His Father.
How would His Father receive His Messiah-Servant? Happily, Isaiah recorded a significant response. Let us take time to read the following words,
“And now the Lord says, who formed Me
from the womb to be His Servant,
to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel
is gathered to Him
(For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord
and My God shall be My strength).
Indeed He says,
‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ “
Isaiah 49:5-6
The Messiah-Servant was given a response from His Father. The Lord would be His strength (Cf. Luke 22:43, “Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him”). Could not this passage from Isaiah be in the mind of Jesus as He poured out His heart to His Father? Would it not be natural that the Word of His Father would come and bring Him both comfort and strength?
The work of Jesus was more than accepted! His work was not in vain. He had not spent His strength for nothing. God would glorify Him (Cf. John 17). God would honour Jesus. He would not always be Servant. He would be God’s “salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).
The Lord elaborated on what He meant when He promised to exalt the Messiah-Servant.
“Thus says the Lord, The Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One,
To Him (Jesus) whom man despises,
To Him whom the nation abhors, to the Servant of rulers:
Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship,
Because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel;
And He has chosen You.”
Isaiah 49:7
The time Jesus spent in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was not consumed with praying for Himself. He ministered in His capacity as the Great High Priest. He also presented Himself as the Messiah Servant who had fulfilled the work given to Him. More things were on Jesus’ mind than His own personal needs in the Garden of Gethsemane.