Timothy Keller - The Obedient Master

The Obedient Master

The Encounters with Jesus Series

VIII

Timothy Keller

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Copyright 2013 by Timothy Keller

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In the first five essays in this series, we studied examples of men and women who had life-changing encounters with Jesus Christ in the fleshencounters that decisively answered the big questions of life for them. But how can we encounter Jesus as those in the New Testament Gospels did? How can we experience the same effect? Those same Gospels give us the answer. They show us that Jesus was not merely a great teacher and healer but someone who came to rescue us from evil and sin. He did this through his temptations and sufferings, through his death and resurrection. In this second set of essays, we are looking at these events.

Often Jesus time in the garden of Gethsemane before his death is seen as an interesting and convicting example of the weakness of his disciples, who are even at that moment clueless about what Jesus is about to undergo. But Jesus experience in that dark place was not really an interlude between events of higher and more significant dramatic action. Something happened there that begs for a deeper explanation. There is perhaps nowhere else in the Bible where we get a more penetrating look at Jesus own inner life and motivation and what he experienced at the end of his life. This scene may throw more light on why and how he died, and how we should respond to it, than any other part of the Gospel accountsincluding the crucifixion narratives.

To get the full picture of what happened we should look at the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here is the beginning of the scene, according to Matthew:

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, Sit here while I go over there and pray. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me. (Matthew 26:3638)

First I want to examine the magnitude of the pain Christ experienced here. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each find a way to tell us that Jesus grief and sorrow were enormous, well beyond even what we would expect at such a moment. Matthew records Jesus words My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. He was saying, I am experiencing an internal and mental agony and pain that is so great, I feel I am about to die. It was so unbearable that he felt like the pain alone could kill him right then and there.

Now Jesus is called the Man of Sorrows. Throughout his life we see him weeping and sighing much more than we see him exulting. But this burden is something far greater. Matthew indicates that as Jesus was walking away from the larger group of disciples with Peter, James, and John toward the garden for prayer, he began [emphasis mine] to be sorrowful and troubled (Matthew 26:37). This change happens as he is en routeit almost seems to descend upon him in real time. Not only was this mental agony so enormous that he thought he was going to die, but according to Mark he was astounded by it. Mark uses the Greek word ekthambeisthai, which means to be moved to an intense emotional state because of something causing great surprise or perplexity. Some English translations mute the meaning of this term and just translate it as deeply distressed (as in the New International Version). I wonder if that is because we have a feeling that if Jesus really is who he says he isthe infinitely preexistent Son of God come to earthhe couldnt be thunderstruck by anything. How could the Second Person of the Trinity, who even in his human form seems to anticipate every eventuality, be shocked? But he is. Hes reeling, dumbfounded, astonished. As he is on his way to pray, a darkness and horror comes down on him beyond anything he could have anticipated, and the pain of it makes him feel he is disintegrating on the spot.

Remember that all the Gospel writers knew by the time they wrote their accounts that many of Jesus own followers were able to face death with remarkable serenity. Luke records that when the Christian leader Stephen faced his executioners, his radiant face was like the face of an angel (Acts 6:15), and as they stoned him to death he gently prayed for their forgiveness (Acts 7:60). Early Christian writers such as Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp pointed to the poise with which Christians faced torture and death. One historian writes that this was one of the ways that Christian thinkers attempted to recommend their faith to the pagan population. They argued that Christians suffered and died better than pagans. Christians went to the lions singing hymns; they went into the flames with their hands raised in prayer.

But Jesus Christ is facing death in a way that his followers did not. His face is not as radiant as the face of an angel. He is not calm or poised or at peace. And certainly this must have really happened. If Matthew, Mark, and Luke were making up or even just embellishing the life of the founder of their faith, would they depict him struggling more desperately before his imminent death than most of his followers?