How would you like to drink a cup full of arsenic for lunch today? Or a nice hot cup of benzene or ricin after church with your doughnut? Not me!! Arsenic, benzene, and ricin are poisons, substances that our bodies are not designed to handle. Such toxins are foreign to our systems and not compatible with our biological makeup. None of us would eat or drink poison on purpose, unless we were trying to harm ourselves!

Can you imagine the dread and anticipation you would be filled with if you knew that you would be forced to drink a cup of poison that you will be handed this evening? Awful! If we can understand what it would be like even to anticipate ingesting poison, knowing what it would do to us, perhaps we can begin to understand the agony of our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was about to drink a bitter cup. It was not a cup containing arsenic or benzene. However, the contents of that cup would be just as foreign to Jesus as any deadly poison would be to our bodies. Jesus was about to partake of things absolutely alien to his divine nature. He was about to taste suffering and death, experiences foreign to the immortal God, who by nature cannot die.

Jesus was also about to take on the guilt of the sins of the world. The holy and perfect God would become a sinner by taking the sins of the world on Himself. The agony of anticipating death was so much greater for Jesus, not only because He was no ordinary man but also because his was no ordinary death. We experience the natural consequences of our own sins when we die. But Jesus’ death was the unnatural consequence of the sins of others. The burden of the sins of all people was on his shoulders! Just think of the terror that a guilty conscience can bring upon one sinner who is face to face with death! Then consider the fact that Jesus had voluntarily taken the guilt of the whole world upon Himself! It is no wonder that He said to Peter, James, and John, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." He was going to willingly drink an awful cup of poison for you and me. We cannot begin to comprehend it! We can only thank Him that He was willing to suffer agony foreign to his divine nature.

Jesus was now also true man, and so this upcoming cup of poison brought terror to Him! In the Garden, He fell down on his face and sought the will of his heavenly Father in prayer: "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will." These words of Jesus have become a very important motto in your and my prayer life: "Not as I will, but as You will." May we always be mindful of what God’s will is: that his Name be hallowed and his kingdom come. In other words, it is God’s will that all people be saved and serve Him willingly in love as Jesus did on that night.

At the same time, let us also keep in mind that Jesus was there that night because we have not followed God’s will! We have not always kept God’s name holy or let his kingdom come. That’s right – you’re and my miserable disobedience to God – our selfishness, laziness, hatefulness, jealousy, pride, dishonesty, lust, and all of our sins – brought the agony upon Jesus that should have been ours! And Jesus, as a human being, dreaded the pain and suffering that would have been heaped on us but had to be heaped on Him instead, as He submitted to the will of his heavenly Father, who had sent Him to be our substitute.

What love He expressed for us in the garden! For Jesus was not only willing to suffer agony foreign to his divine nature, but He was also willing to show love to those who didn’t show a lot of love in return. He came to suffer and die for sinners! What wondrous love, that Jesus is willing to heal the suffering of mankind, sinful by nature.

The "hour of darkness" now fell on Gethsemane. One of Jesus’ disciples arrived in the garden with a band of soldiers to betray Him, as Jesus said he would. Judas Iscariot, to add to the insult, betrayed Jesus with a false act of love – a kiss. Do we ever "betray Jesus with a kiss"? Do you live sinfully throughout the week, betraying your Lord with your words and actions, and the importance you place on God’s Word, the impression you give others of how important church and your Savior is to you? Do you betray Jesus by handing Him and the truth of his Word over to the opinions of sinful human beings? Do you let them think they have it right by your lack of standing up to the truth? Do you betray Jesus by failing in thought, word, and deed to do God’s will? And then – show up on Sunday to give him a "kiss" on the cheek? So that everyone will see that and think that you still love Him? That you are faithful to Him? Was Judas hoping the disciples and others would see this kiss as an act of loyalty? God is not looking for false acts of loyalty. He is looking for you to give your whole life to Him! The same way He gave his whole life to you!

How about Peter? He had spent the last couple hours sleeping while Jesus wanted him to stay awake and pray with Him. He failed already that evening, didn’t he?! But now, while he was probably still half-asleep, he takes a blundering swing with his sword to help defend his master, and gets the ear of a servant! Way to go, Peter! Do we ever do that? Do we basically sleep when Jesus is speaking to us in his Word? Become lazy in our devotional life? Become spiritually sleeping? And then, when a crisis happens in our life, instead of being awake and armed with the armor of God’s Word and a strong faith, we swing blindly with a blunt sword and make a mess of things. We try handling a crisis in our marriage or family in a spiritual way, as we should, but we aren’t ready to do that, because we are half-asleep spiritually, since we have not been regularly partaking of God’s Word. So we only make a mess of things.

Look at what Jesus’ night was like in the garden. Everyone there became an enemy of Jesus in one way or another. The kiss of Judas, the arrest of Jesus by the mob, the foolish Peter trying to prevent Jesus’ redeeming work with a sword, and finally Jesus being deserted by all. All these are reminders of the way in which the sinful nature views Christ. And all these are reminders of what we all, as sinners, have done to Jesus by disobeying God’s commandments.

The most important lesson in the story is found in the way Jesus treated all of them. Even when Judas betrayed Him with a kiss, Jesus called him "friend." Instead of running from the mob, Jesus gave Himself to them willingly. Even after He had to tell Peter to put his sword away, He assured Peter that He would be alright, that this was the plan. And on top of that, He also healed the soldier Peter had wounded. This is wondrous love! The greatest demonstration of Jesus’ love was yet to come. All these same people would get to see Jesus hanging on a cross, with nails through hands and feet, blood dripping down. They would see Jesus "drinking his poison." The poison that had contaminated the entire human race. He took this cup for them. He took this cup for you. For me. He suffered and died to redeem all people, even those who have denied, betrayed, accused, arrested, condemned, and abandoned Him in thought, word, and deed.

What was it that brought Jesus to the garden on that night? It was his wondrous love for you and me. Jesus not only came to take the venom of Satan, which was intended for us, but Jesus also became the antidote for us all! This was prophesied in the Garden of Eden, and in the Garden of Gethsemane it would begin to be fulfilled. Jesus would feel the serpent’s bite which was intended for us, intended to kill us and separate us from God. But with Jesus’ suffering and death, He crushed the devil, took our poison away, and gave us eternal life instead!

This morning, as we "go to dark Gethsemane," let us remember that the real lesson is not to learn from Jesus Christ to pray or to learn from Him to bear the cross or to learn from Him to die or even learn from Jesus to rise. Jesus did not enter the garden merely to be an example for us. No, Jesus prayed, bore the cross, died, and rose for us because we could not do it ourselves. Therefore, let’s go to Gethsemane to remember the wondrous love Jesus had for us. What wondrous love is this, O my soul? It is the love of the Savior who, on that horrible night in the Garden of Gethsemane, gave Himself, drank our poison, to nullify the events that had taken place in the Garden of Eden so many years before. What wondrous love is this, O my soul? It is the love of Christ, through whom the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, and heaven itself are yours today. Amen.

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