Then I’ve
considered that Jesus was overwhelmed by the thought of being alienated from
his Father. But we know from Hebrews
that it was “for the joy set before him that he endured the cross, despising
the shame.” (Heb 12:2). So he knew that God would raise Him
up after three days—he frequently prophesied this and I doubt that he sweat
blood because he lost his faith at the last moment.
I’ve also contemplated
the idea that he was the most human human that ever lived and so he was passionate
about taking on the sins of the world. He, more than any other human, felt the
guilt and the shame of all people’s sins that caused people to be separated
from God and Jesus experienced this separation. “Father, forgive them for
they know not what they do,” he said. But
if anyone had faith it was Jesus. He would know through the promises of God and
the praying He did that God would use His death to release the captives,
atoning for their sins. All these reasons may be true, but I think he mostly sweat blood for another reason. I think Jesus sweat blood for Judas.
Jesus served
Judas at the Last Supper, what we now look at in our remembrance in our Eucharist.
We know from Paul that we must examine ourselves before receiving his body and
blood or we drink judgment upon ourselves. (1 Cor 11:29) That judgment is not
that a big heavy called God will suddenly strike us down. It is that when we look
upon the love of God in the face of Christ we are faced with a decision.
Judas looked upon the face of the Messiah at that Last Supper and then chose
the way of death, the way of betrayal, instead. And he went out afterwards and
hanged himself. Some people just become
weak and ill (1 Cor 11:30).
So I think Jesus
knew God’s love for Judas, and those like him, in the garden. He loved those
who would not choose to receive his love for them and his call to be a safe
place of promise-keeping for others. This is the same heart I hear in God
before the flood— the wickedness of man “grieved him to his heart” (Gen 6:6). The
violence that people were doing to each other caused their tears to ascend to
Him as did the cries of the Israelites in bondage in Egypt. His children were
being abusers and being abused.
I’ve never been raped
but I’ve had two close calls with mass murderers and one pervert. But I know a
great percentage of women have been raped. And a higher percentage of us live
with the fear of it. I suppose this might compare to the fear some men might
have of what might happen to them if they were ever put in the prison system in
this country or other countries. The violence of this earth can ruin one’s life
from either fear or the death that comes upon us from choosing to harm others
as we’ve been harmed.
When living in
selfishness and God’s loving glory begins to shine, many like Judas are lost. “As
it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man,”
Jesus teaches us (Matt 24:37).
His judgment will find the world largely unprepared. “Therefore you also must
be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (v. 44). Then at the end of Jesus’ teaching on
his judgment in Matthew 24 that he compares to the flood, he states that the
one who “begins to beat his fellow servant and eats and drinks with drunkards” (v.
49) winds up in the place where there is weeping and gnashing of his teeth (v. 51). Judas came to this utter anguish.
God came to start
afresh after the flood with Noah to provide a place of shelter from violence in
the promise-keeping of covenant with him. Gen 6: 13: “I have determined to make
an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them.” Jesus did likewise and empowers us through his
Holy Spirit to keep it so that his Church can become an ark upon the earth.
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