INTRODUCTION
If I were writing the Bible, I probably would have left this passage out. After all, we have here not the image of the powerful Messiah that I would like to show off, but the figure of fear and frailty. For centuries we have recognized that Jesus was all God and all man, but here it seems he is much more man than he is God. After all, Jesus is so crippled with fear and sorrow that he tells Peter, James, and John in verse 37 that his fear was strong enough to kill him. And he begs for God to change his mind about the suffering that lies ahead. He is in such agony that Luke, the gospel writer, says that Jesus experiences a rare medical condition whereby he bleeds through the pores in his skin. This occurs when fear is piled upon fear to where a person can no longer sustain the pain. None of this carries with it the John Wayne like figure who looking death squarely in the eye without fear.
This all begs the question, why include in the Bible such an embarrassing scene. Why show the Messiah begging for the master plan to be reversed? Why show the King of kings so racked with fear and doubt that it nearly kills him? Why not move from the Last Supper directly to the betrayal?
THESIS
The gospel writer chooses instead to include this account of Jesus in the garden, for without it, we would have an entirely incomplete picture of God. We learn from this dramatic scene that the mission of Jesus Christ was directed not only at saving our souls, but Jesus came also to this earth to share in our suffering. Just as Jesus’ death on the cross is essential to our salvation, so Jesus’ suffering is essential to our ability to relate to God.
God understood from the beginning of time that if He were indeed to have a meaningful relationship with his creation, he could not stand outside the fire of the human experience. To know us and love us completely, God had to experience what we experience. He had to suffer in the ways we suffer. Jesus had to experience the power of shared suffering.
While each of us in this room is different to some degree or another, there is one thing that we each have in common. At some point in time, and to some degree, and on some level, we all will experience suffering. I look about at our congregation and I see a number of people who have experienced some unspeakable tragedy in their lives. For some, it is death of a loved one. For others, it is the loss of a career. Maybe it’s a broken relationship or a promise unfulfilled. God’s message for you today is that no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much you suffer, you do not suffer alone.
IMANI ILLUSTRATION
All my life, things have gone my way. And for years, I have feared that that might all end very suddenly one day. I’ve had it good. In a world where half of all marriages end in divorce, I’ve been privileged to have loving parents who loved each other. In an age where cancer and disease can strike any of us, I have been privileged with good health and have had parents and family with good health. In a world where all around me, friends have lost spouses or friends or parents in death, I do not know what it’s like to see the death of someone close to me. In a world where some people work and work and struggle and struggle and never seem to find a place in this life, I have been privileged with good jobs and great opportunities. In a world where people go hungry and have not a penny to their name, I stand as most of you do as one of the richest people in the world.
I get scared sometimes, because I know that someday, tragedy will strike. It strikes us all, and it’s just a matter of time. Probably the most tragic thing I’ve ever experienced happened to me recently. As many of you know, several weeks ago Imani was taken from our home. For those of you who do not know, my wife and I were foster parents of a wonderful child for nearly two years, and for nearly all of that time were led to believe that adopting her would be almost a done deal. When Tara and I awoke on Monday, June 19, we felt all was right with the world. But then shortly after we arrived in court that day, things quickly fell apart. After a technicality that prevented us from being present in the courtroom and after having discovered that social services had changed their mind about where Imani should be, the judged gave custody of Imani to her great uncle from New York.
Since we weren’t allowed in the courtroom, we did not know of the judge’s decision until after we had gotten home. We got the phone call around 12:30 in the afternoon. We had just a few hours left with Imani before they would come and take her. I hadn’t felt that kind of pain in all my life. And during all that grief and hurt and anger, let me tell you that deep in my mind, I believed that Tara and I would suffer this alone. I imagined that Tara and I would sit with Imani in our big, lonely house all by ourselves until they came to get her. Within a half-hour of hearing the news, John was there. And within another hour, several of our friends were there. By the time the family arrived to take Imani there were nearly fifteen of our closest friends there to cry with us. That night, Kevin and Kelli Conover stayed up late with us, because they knew how hard it would be to be alone. Since then we have received so many kind words and letters from you saying how much Imani meant to you. Tara and I continue to undergo a healing process, but I know that because so many of you have surrounded us with your love and support, we are much further along that road of grief than we would otherwise be. Through that experience, I am closer to many of you than I have ever been before. And that’s the power of shared suffering.
When I experience grief, especially of this kind, I feel a lot like Job, ready with my barrage of questions. Questions like why did God allow this to happen? How could an all-powerful God who is by nature good allow evil to take place in the world? And when we do suffer, can we believe that there is any meaning to our suffering? For several millennia, the human race has tried to answer these questions, and to date, no one has come up with a perfect answer to those questions. In fact, in the book of Job, God seems to say that as long as we live, we can rest assured that we will never have all of those answers to the questions of human suffering.
Why do we suffer? I really can’t say. But I do know that God has groaned in the garden. He knows what it means to suffer. And while I do not understand suffering, I do know that I do not face it alone.
BILLCLINTON
And that is why God groans in the garden. To show us that he knows our pain. Do you remember in the 1992 presidential election, Bill Clinton was known for saying, “I feel your pain.” This simple statement endured itself to millions of Americans who at the time believed that George Bush could not relate to the experiences of the average American. Bush didn’t even know the price of a gallon of milk after all. It was no accident that Bill Clinton chose those words, for he knew that deep within us all, we desire to know that out there somewhere, there is someone who understands how we feel and what we are going through. Bill Clinton understood the power of shared suffering.
But Bill Clinton wasn’t the first to discover this. In fact, God knew this all along. God himself wove the power of shared suffering into the very fabric of the world. And it is because of this scene in the garden that we know that God understands our suffering.
“STAY AWAKE WITH ME”
It is God’s passionate desire to relate to us that led him to suffer in the garden that night. God understood that if he were to truly have a relationship with us, he would have to know what it is like to be us. For thousands of years, the Israelites had understood God to be far above our earthly pain. After all, God was the cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. God is the one whose presence makes the nations tremble.
And here we have Jesus and his disciples, moments before his arrest, praying together in the garden. We get another glimpse of the fear within Jesus when he asks Peter, James, and John to stay awake while he prayed. The traditional interpretation of this is that Jesus wanted the disciples to pray to God to protect them from the temptations that they would soon face. But I read recently an article by a Jewish rabbi who is well versed in Jewish custom and tradition. He informs us that on this night, which was the Passover night, that the Passover celebration would continue until the first person in your party fell into a deep sleep. Until that point in time, the celebration would continue.
It is perhaps for this reason why Jesus so insists on his disciples remaining awake. As long as they stayed awake and the Passover celebration continued, his accusers would wait. Perhaps, those waiting to arrest Jesus were waiting until Jesus finished his Passover observance. Three times, Jesus finds his disciples sleeping. In the original language of the New Testament, we find that the first two times they are sleeping, Matthew chooses a word meaning a light sleep. But the last time Jesus finds them asleep, Matthew uses a word for sleep that means a deep sleep. Matthew would be very likely to make this inference since he was writing primarily to a Jewish audience.
If this interpretation is true, then once again, we see a desperate Jesus doing his very best to hold off the suffering he was about to face. The face of God that was once so revered that Moses was not allowed to look upon it was now a face that would be slapped, beaten and spit upon.
KING XERXES
Not what we would expect from the King of kings. In fact, it is not what we expect from a king at all. Kings don’t suffer with their subordinates. Some five hundred years before Christ, the Persian King Xerxes had demonstrated how a true king should act. The Greeks has engaged in a rebellion against his Father, Darius the Great, and now that Xerxes had taken power, it was time for Greece to pay. For Xerxes, no suffering was too extreme. In fact, he even required his own subjects to endure immense suffering during the campaign. On one occasion, his dear friend Pythius of Lydia who as rumored to be the second-richest man in the world offered to pay all of the war expenses. In return, Pythius asked a small favor - that of all five of his sons, his eldest son would be allowed to remain behind to take care of him, since he was advancing in age.
Pythius’ friend, the King Xerxes of Persia responded by ordering his men to find the eldest son and cut him in half and place the two halves on each side of the road for the army to march between. And the order was performed. This was typical of a Persian King, a quick decision to destroy the son of a friend, all before lunch.
Then some five centuries later, the Son of God, the King of all Kings in response to a rebellion of humankind against his Father, chose not to exact revenge, but instead to suffer at the hands of his followers. God Himself, through his son Jesus Christ, walked by himself onto this earth to bridge the great gap between divinity and humanity. God’s way is different than our way. God certainly could have claimed that since he was God, he was above all suffering. He easily could have made his sinful creation suffer alone. But that’s not the God of compassion that we serve.
And that ought to make us rethink our reluctance to dive into the problems of others. In response to God’s suffering, we ought also to suffer with others. Sometimes you probably feel like I do and think, “I have enough problems of my own, do not bother me with the problems of the world. Just making it day to day is problem enough without taking on the burdens of other people.”
THE OLD MAN AND THE SCORPION
There exists a legend about an old man who was sitting along the banks of a river who saw a scorpion floating helplessly down the river. The scorpion got caught in some tree roots that branched out into the river. When the old man saw this, he immediately crawled out onto the extended roots and reached out to rescue the drowning scorpion. But as soon as he touched the scorpion, the scorpion jerked around and stung the old man. But after the man regained his balance, he reached out again along the roots to save the scorpion. But every time he came within reach, the scorpion would sting him. The man’s hand became badly swollen and bloody. The man was in terrible pain.
A passerby noticed this incident and shouted out to the man, “Hey stupid old man! What’s wrong with you? Only a fool risks his life for the sake of an ugly, useless creature. Don’t you know that you just may kill yourself to save that ungrateful animal?” The old man turned and looked at the stranger and said, “Friend, just because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting, why should I give up my own nature to save?”
Through the power of shared suffering we ought to make it our instinct to embrace those around us who suffer, not matter how much it hurts us, no matter how much it costs. And the willingness to suffer with others becomes more and more a part of our instinct as we grasp how much God suffers with us.
ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE
This past week while I was driving to work, I came upon a woman who was broken down in the middle of a major street in the area. My first instinct was to drive by and say to myself, I’m glad that’s not me. But it was different this time. Several weeks ago it was me. Twice. Two times on our trip to MissionFuge in Philadelphia, a tire blew on our bus. The feeling of being helplessly stranded was still a fresh memory for me. I knew that if I drove by this woman without helping her, I would feel the guilt the rest of the day. I stopped behind her and walked up to the car. She asked me, “Do you have a cell phone?” I said, “No.” She then asked me, “Do you know anything about cars?” I said, “No.” I felt like the next thing out of her mouth was going to be, “then what good are you.” I didn’t help much. I just stood with her in the middle of all the angry traffic and waited with her until help came. As I left, she thanked me for helping even if all I was able to do was stand there and be embarrassed with her.
Someone around you needs you. And you need them. And we all need God. The Good News of the Gospel today is not that God came to take our suffering away, but that God wanted to become part of it. There is no suffering, no guilt, shame, loneliness, hunger, oppression, torture, imprisonment, murder or violence that has not been suffered by God. God is our Emmanuel, which means God with us!
