14^th April

“He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” …..”Abba, Father,” He cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from Me. Yet I want Your will to be done, not mine!””

Mark 14:34, 36

We often think that Jesus’ pain and suffering started and ended on the cross. Yet Mark tells us here that His suffering started a long time before His actual execution. The suffering He went through, is suffering that I don’t think anyone should or ever will have to go through again. Jesus, let us not forget, was fully God and fully man on Earth. Yet here, in verse 24, we see the first signs of the humanity and emotion of Jesus. He knew that His physical death was going to be a great and painful ordeal, yet what was more crushing to Him, was the burden He would have to carry upon His shoulders.

The language Jesus uses almost seems like desperation to get out of what He was going to do. “My soul is crushed with grief even to the point of death”, “Please take this cup of suffering away from Me.” These are strong and chilling statements from our Messiah.

Yet the last words of Jesus in verse 36, show who He really was and the inner strength He had by the power of the Holy Spirit. “YET I WANT YOUR WILL TO BE DONE, NOT MINE.” These words hold so much authority, and will forever stand as a proclamation of Jesus’ endurance throughout time. Even through the pain, the suffering and the almost unbearable weight of what He had to do, Jesus still exhibited such a sacrificial and loving attitude towards all of creation, even when He knew that there people who were going to reject Him, deny Him and even not believe in Him.

Jesus, our perfect example, showed us how to persevere through trials and tribulations. How? By completely relying on His Heavenly Father. Jesus knew that God the Father was walking with Him, even in His darkest time. So it stands as an encouragement for us, when we are facing situations where we see no light at the end of the tunnel, know that your Heavenly Father is a good God and is walking with you through your storm.