Was there not a heart-crushing ingredient in the blessed Saviour’s path of sorrow which none of His people have ever tasted? I mean, He knew beforehand what was coming. How often we may have heard the desolate widow, the bereaved parent, mournfully saying, “Oh! had I known what was before me—what I had to go through, my heart would have fainted within me. I could never have gone through it; yet the Lord has brought me through it all—I am a wonder to myself.” But the blessed Jesus, always patient, and perfect in every scene, saw in the distance, the bitter, bitter cup.
The deep dark shadows of the cross were ever casting their gloom over His path. He knew what was coming. He saw the gathering clouds. But did He faint under their frown? Oh, no! as they drew near and gathered thick, He retired into the garden of Gethsemane. And, there, anticipating the sufferings of the cross, He went through them all, in communion with God His Father. He had suffered many things from the hands of men, during His blessed and blameless path through this world, but, in Gethsemane He was pressed by Satan with the terrors of death. Still, His sufferings were anticipative. It is quite evident, that at this time, though His sufferings were so intense, He had not taken in His hand the cup of God’s indignation against sin. He saw it. He knew every ingredient that was in it; but He had not yet come into actual contact with it. It was still before Him. But, oh! what must His sufferings have been, as the cross with all its dread realities rose up before His mind. Oh! how His pure and holy soul must have recoiled from the very thought or near approach of sin and wrath. Hence His mournful and pathetic cry, “Ο my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” But it behooved the Christ to suffer, and His subjection to His Father’s will was perfect. “Ο my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done,” Matt. 26.
Having thus passed through the scenes of Calvary while yet in the gloomy garden, He waits, in readiness and with calm, quiet dignity, the actual conflict. He was not like Peter, taken by surprise. He was already girded. His armor was on, none of it was forgotten, none of it misplaced. Peter was fluttered, Christ was composed. True, Christ was perfect in Himself, and perfect in every scene. But here we learn more than these facts. Christ, though thus perfect, was praying before the trial came, while Peter was sleeping. Luke 22:41, 4641And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, (Luke 22:41)
46And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. (Luke 22:46). Heb. 5:77Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; (Hebrews 5:7).
Herein lies the example for us. We are to “Watch and pray.” The Christian can only be calm, peaceful, and dignified, in scenes of suffering, through the power of communion with God his Father.
In illustration of this I will narrate a scene which I witnessed many years ago, as I stood by the bedside of a beloved child evidently dying. His mother, in deep distress, but apparently not aware of what was so near, was bending over him in the agony of suspense. The thought struck me, “How can this mother meet the coming struggle?” I ventured to suggest, that as the Lord might soon take her dear child home to Himself, it would be happy, if she could freely give him up to the Lord. She quietly withdrew, leaving me to watch the dying child, her only son. In less than half-an-hour she returned, calm and peaceful in her spirit. “I have given my darling to the Lord,” she said, “and now I am happy to let him go.” She embraced her son. And now, as if the Lord had been waiting for this victory over the power of death, in a few moments, the little heart ceased to beat, the spirit was gone to be with Jesus. “Oh! he is gone!” calmly exclaimed the now childless mother, and with her own hands, and in great composure, closed his eyelids, until the morning of the first resurrection, when they shall be re-opened to gaze on that mother, and be closed no more forever.