Monday, March 2, 2015

Jesus In Mental Pain.

Jesus said, "But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!"
Luke 12:50

Sometimes I think of Jesus as being super-human but this verse denies that. He was God, but when he came here he had laid down his power and was a man: The second Adam. He lived his life relying on his Father as we must do. He had the same feelings as us and needed God's strength to go through trials. 

"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4:15

As I read this verse this morning, I knew Jesus was speaking about his trial and death. He thought of what he would have to go through and wanted it to be over. My heart went out to him. Here are some commentaries on this verse:

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

The baptism of which the Lord now speaks is that of one who is come into deep waters, so that the floods pass over him, over whose head have passed and are passing the waves and billows of many and great sorrows. Yet here, too, the Son of Man does not shrink or draw back. What He felt most keenly, in His human nature, was the pain, the constraint of expectation. He was, in that perfect humanity of His, harassed and oppressed, as other sufferers have been, by the thought of what was coming, more than by the actual suffering when it came.


A baptism - See the notes at Matthew 20:22.
Am I straitened - How do I earnestly desire that it were passed! Since these sufferings "must" be endured, how anxious am I that the time should come! Such were the feelings of the Redeemer in view of his approaching dying hour. We may learn from this:
1. That it is not improper to "feel deeply" at the prospect of dying. It is a sad, awful, terrible event; and it is impossible that we should look at it aright "without" feeling - scarcely without trembling.
2. It is not improper to desire that the time should come, and that the day of our release should draw nigh, Philippians 1:23. To the Christian, death is but the entrance to life; and since the pains of death "must" be endured, and since they LEAD to heaven, it matters little how soon he passes through these sorrows, and rises to his eternal rest.

...these words express both the trouble and distress Christ was in, at the apprehension of his sufferings as man; which were like to the distress of persons, closely besieged by an enemy; or rather of a woman, whose time of travail draws nigh, when she dreads it, and yet longs to have it over: and likewise they signify, his restless desire to have them accomplished;



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