Acquainted with Grief

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God

I’ve read it over and over, and it’s still impossible to comprehend the Lord’s ordeal in the Garden of Gethsemane. Try as we may, the full weight of Jesus’ agony is more than our minds can take in. But because He was the sinless Son of God, He perceived the full scope of the horror of sin in a way we never can. That should not come as a surprise to any Christ follower. Every thing in the life of Jesus, even the agony at Gethsemane, was part of God’s foreordained plan of redemption.

His experience in Gethsemane fits perfectly with what we know about Him from Scripture. Isaiah predicted Him to be “…a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” [Isaiah 53:10]. And often we find Him weeping, like the time at Lazarus’ tomb [John 11:35], and over the entire city of Jerusalem [Luke 19:41].

Gethsemane was the accumulation of the sorrow and grief He had to deal with in His earthly ministry. Sure, there was more suffering to go through, but He resolved that in Gethsemane. Christ’s dark struggle in the Garden is an example of how we can have a godly response to our struggles and sorrows too. His response to sorrow, grief, temptation, and suffering, makes me cry out, “I want to be like You!”

Then Jesus went with them to a garden called Gethsemane and told his disciples, “Stay here while I go over there and pray.” Matthew 26:36