The Wound of Apathy
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” 37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” 39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” 40 Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter! Could you not watch with Me one hour? 41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” 43 And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. 45 Then He came to His disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. (Matthew 26:36–45)
Dear fellow Lenten travelers… Jesus did not want to be alone as He wrestled in prayer that night. How often we forget that our blessed Lord was truly and fully human, for part of His suffering included feelings of abandonment and rejection. He needed the comfort of companionship; He needed the encouragement that comes from loved ones. And so, as Jesus leaves the larger group of His disciples behind, He takes with Him His three closest friends: Peter, James, and John. He can no longer keep back the sorrow and the grief that is weighing Him down.
“My soul,” He says, “is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death; stay here, and watch with Me” (Matthew 26:38). He stumbled a few steps further and landed on His face. Before the eyes of His soul that night was the cup of suffering.
In order to understand the cup, we must go back to the Old Testament. In Psalm 75:8 David sang these words: “For in the hand of Yahweh there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and He pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.”.
In Isaiah 51:22 the prophet foretold of a time to come when the cup would pass from the people: “Thus says Yahweh, your God, who pleads the cause of His people: ‘Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of My wrath you shall drink no more’. ”
So the cup that was set before our Lord for Him to drink and empty down to the bitterest dregs that night was the cup that held the wrath of God – the wrath of God against all our rebellions, against all our lovelessness, against all our passing of judgment upon others, against all our selfish acts, against all our indulging of the flesh, against all our spiritual apathy. All of it was set before Jesus, and He saw it.
And He knew exactly where that bitter cup would lead. Jesus quotes from Zechariah: “I [that is, God] will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered” (Matthew 26:31). Make no mistake about it: our Lord receives His Passion entirely from the hands of His Father. And He struggled mightily with it.
None of us is nearly as frightened of hell as we should be. None of us has the first clue about the real terror of hell’s empty and eternal loneliness. None of us can begin to fathom either its icy coldness or its ever-burning and unsatisfied hunger and thirst.
But Jesus – the Eternal Word of the Father made flesh of the Virgin – He knows the fullness of that. And before this reality, looking into that ultimate and eternal poison in the cup, He trembles.
He trembles, and He begs the Father that, if possible, some other way may be found, some different approach, something other than what is in this cup before Him. He looks over the brim of the cup into its fathomless depths, and He shakes in terror.
You and I, we sin so casually, so unthinkingly. “God will forgive,” we say. “He is so loving and merciful and kind. It is really no big deal.” Is that so? Well, if you think like that then go with your Lord to Gethsemane tonight, and see with your own eyes whether or not it is no “big deal.” Look at Him as He shakes before the very portion that we foolishly choose for ourselves time and again. And see Him as He lifts His eyes from the cup to His Father and pleads for some other way.
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But then see your Savior manifest that radical and ultimate difference between Himself and all the other people. See Him lower His eyes to the cup again and say, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Looking into that cup has exhausted Him, it has terrorized Him. And so He turns back to His friends, His beloved, for the comfort they can give.
But here another wound strikes Him. During the time in which He has struggled with the terrors of death and hell for them, they have fallen asleep. “Peter!” He cries, startling them awake. “Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:40–41).
Weak. That is what our flesh is; pitifully and disgustingly and hopelessly weak. And so we wound our Lord with our apathy. We wound Him with our careless and casual and unthinking sinning. We add to the terrors of the cup He must drink.
Surely Jesus’ word of warning will keep His disciples awake and in prayer. The most terrifying events of their discipleship are only moments away now. Surely, they will realize and pray. But no. They are like us after all…rather, we are like them.
Jesus turns back and again makes the same struggle in prayer. Then He returns for comfort from His friends and again encounters only apathy—they are sound asleep again. And He is all alone with this. He turns back for His final prayer. The sweat falls from Him in great drops like blood under the pressure of His “yes” to the Father’s will. He will do it. He will go forward to drink this cup. He will do so, trusting that, having consumed the poison of our whole race and having experienced in Himself the penalty of our disobedience, His Father will not abandon Him.
Look into the face of your Lord as He rises from that final prayer. What do you see now? You see peace: peace which came from His prayer, peace which came from His trust in the Father. To submit to the One who has loved you with an everlasting love is, in the end, not terror, but joy, no matter how dark the path.
And in that peace, Jesus turned back to His disciples for the last time. Their apathy can wound Him no more; He is going forth to swallow it down with all their sins and the sins of the whole world. So, while they slept, He won the battle, and He won it alone. He will now go forth to meet His betrayer. He wakes up His disciples from their sleep to meet the terrors to come.
And seeing Him march forth to meet this end in peace, we sing in astonished awe: “What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered was all for sinner’s gain. Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain. Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place. Look on me with Thy favor, and grant to me Thy grace.” (LSB 450:3)
As He looked in pity on the three disciples, so Jesus looks in pity on you and me. For He sees us now not full of damnation, but forgiveness and life – flowing freely from Him to us in His Word and Sacraments. By Christ’s walking the path of obedience for us, by His agony and bloody sweat, by His suffering, death, and resurrection, by His wounds, we are healed, forgiven, and set free from our sins.
And by the struggle of Christ’s will to drink the cup and empty it for us forever, He shows you that He will never be apathetic about you. He who drained that cup can be counted on to save you.
And He has.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
