In the Garden

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day we remember Jesus' suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane before His death on the cross. This idea, that Jesus was a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," (Is. 53:3), has been of particular comfort to me this last month.

As many of you know, throughout your life after a loss, grief sneaks up on you at the most unexpected times--holidays, birthdays, at the tale end of winters that will never end. And as I was in the middle of one of these blue times a few weeks ago, I was comforted by the fact that Jesus--God who became Man--experienced sorrow and grief. In fact, His whole mission in coming to the earth was to suffer and die. I have known this since I was a little kid, but for some reason, it really sunk in: Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

We think sometimes that God is far away and can't see our grief, or can't relate. But Jesus is our High Priest who knows what it is to grieve. He was alone in the Garden. His friends were asleep, and then they left Him. He was our suffering servant who came to pay for our sin with His own blood on the cross. Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Jean

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Isaiah 53:3