Jesus Sweating Blood

okay morning everyone um at this time kiddos if you're going to go to class this is the time to do it um everyone else we can go ahead and open our Bibles to Luke 22 um today we're going to be in verses 39 through 46 um and just so we don't have any interruptions later uh communion is going to be a little bit different today as you guys can see we no longer have the little pre-made dads uh we have cups of juice and fresh baked bread courtesy of Miranda so make sure you thank her later um um and then eventually I forgot to get

it done yesterday but these cups are recyclable so I will try and have a cup or a box at the back for you to drop them in so I can take them home and recycle them but this week thr I Didn't Do It um so last week Dwayne talked about pet denying Christ um and this week's verses are same which within that story so Peter Jesus tells Peter he's going to deny him couple things happen then Peter denies him and this is today is one of those things that happens in between um we know what's coming obviously since we have the entire Bible um but

in the moment at the moment in this narrative Jesus is the only one that has that luxury um I say that with quotes because what's coming next for him is the most horrific thing that could happen and today we're going to how Jesus responds to to that that level of fear and anxiety um so follow along with me as we read um starting at verse 39 and he came out and went as was his custom to the Mount of Olives and the disciples followed him and when he came to the place he had said to them pray that you may not enter into temptation and

he withdrew about a stone throw away knelt down and prayed saying father if you are willing remove this cup for me nevertheless not my will but your be done we always read that verse just like that but Jesus is an Agony I am not capable of reading this that way but just know that he is in pain when he says that and there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthened him and being in agony he prayed more earnestly and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground and when he rose from prayer he came to the disciples and found them

sleeping for sorrow and he said to them why are you sleeping rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation let's pray God you are so good as we're going to see today prayer is important that's how we can connect and communicate with you but even in your darkest moments you still cared for us thank you for that gift and thank you for the reminder of your scripture just pray that You' speak through the sermon this morning and let our hearts would be ready to receive it it's in your son's name we pray all right um so today we're going to look at three

key elements of this passage um the first one prayer is powerful especially regarding Temptation um the second and this is where we're going to spend the majority of the time today um but lamenting is an important way to handle hardship um and third Jesus suffering actually begins in the garden um not on the cross or even at his trial in this story we see Jesus encourage the disciples to pray two separate times once before he goes to Pray by himself and once when he comes back to check on them and in fact this passage really is just a lot of prayer the disciples start to

pray so they don't fall into temptation Jesus prays about the coming events and then the disciples are re encouraged to pray in Matthew and John's accounts of the story we see that Jesus came back to them a third time but they were asleep again and he left them to go pray again so let me ask ask you this why do you think this passage was included why are the reminders two in the failures of the disciples included here I think it's safe to say the most important part of the story is Jesus and his prayer which we will get to but what if that the

disciples why are they included um remember right before this passage Jesus had warned them how they would all be scattered when the shepherd was struck the shepherd being himself and what was Peter's response absolute denial Peter said to the Lord Lord I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death rejecting what Jesus had said and Jesus doubles down and essentially says No in fact you are going to deny me you specifically are going to deny me three times out of fear Luke doesn't give us as much context here as Matthew and John do um Matthew 26 Jesus explains to the inner

three disciples it says then he said to them my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death stay here and keep watching despite Jesus warnings of his coming death I don't think that the disciples really understood what was happening putting myself in their shoes I think he was sorrowful simply because of judas's betrayal so from their perspective I I think they would be praying for him to be strengthened regarding that but they fail and they fall asleep and this part was always confusing to me as a kid growing up I never understood how you could just fall asleep like that when your dear

friend and Mentor is in agony um but the passage says they were sleeping for sorrow have you ever been so distraught or depressed or weary that it's easier to sleep than to deal with whatever is going on 100% I have I can remember a time when I was going through a really bad and really stupid breakup shouldn't have never been in the relationship in the first place I ignored advice from friends should it wasn't be um but I didn't want to deal with the emotions of it so I just slept all day um I didn't eat for a whole weekend I just slept because it

was easier um more recently as some of you know I was laid off uh and there have been days where it's been really easy to sleep instead of dealing with my emotions and my fears additionally and this is pure speculation on my part um these had just eaten the Passover and if you've ever done that if you've never done that it's not just eating the bread and the juice that we do for communion each week it is a full on Feast U so these guys were stuffed and dealing with the Betrayal of a close friend that is a recipe for sleep and failure to trust

in the Lord we need to take this passage as a reminder especially since I'm sure many if not all of us can really to W both of those things that we need to pray temptation is real and powerful and if we are not prepared to stand up to it it will win we need to be in regular rhythms of prayer Jesus was not only encouraging the disciples to pray for him but for themselves because they were about to experience a whole new world of fears doubts anxieties and angers that they were not prepared for and they were going to respond to in Sun as we

see with Peter's denial which this is amazing to me when you think about it because Jesus knows is about to Beed over and mocked abused tortured and killed and that he is concerned for his disciples his passion for us is another thing I want to point out and this was brand new for me and I was really fascinated by it um but the significance behind the Mount of Olives I've never really looked into that before um Jesus had been frequenting the Mount of Olives that whole week so him going there knowing Judas was going to betray him was him ESS I know you're going to

do this I'm not going to make it hard for you come get Luke 21 3637 says but stay awake at all times praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place so before this telling him to stay awake and to pray um and to stand before the son of man and every day he was teaching in the temple but at night he went out and lodged on the mount called alet so he had already warned them to stay awake and to pray regarding the coming events um just before this passage he had prophesied the destruction of the

temple that would happen 30 years later as well as his own Second Coming which no one knows when that will happen Additionally the disciples likely would have been well versed in the scriptures and if so they would have remembered David's time at the Mount of olivs in 2 Samuel 153 31 says but David continued up the Mount of Olives weeping as he went his head was covered and he was barefoot all the people with him covered their heads too and were weeping as they went up now David had been told hael is among the conspirators with absum so David prayed Lord turn ael's counsel into

foolishness before this um David's son Absalon had declared that he was King instead of David um I was trying to kind of supplant him and ome spot yeah David's close friend and counselor AEL had betrayed David and so David had experienced deep betrayal similar to Jesus with Judas and he also retreated to the Mount of all I think the disciples would have made that connection U and I would I you can go a lot more into this with all the parallels between David and Jesus and the triumphal ENT entry for Holy Week and all those things but I think that kind of gets away from

the main point of today but I wanted to put it on your minds if you want to go dig into it more it's really fascinating um but David and Jesus have in common that they've been been betrayed and they Retreat to pray on the MS um and I want to look at their response to deep sadness Andi according to the National Institute of Mental Health an estimated 31% of adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their life bringing it closer to home for me um the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that around 48% of Americans experience layoff anxiety which is Rel to

either being laid off the fear of being laid off or a possible recession which could be close to home for everyone because it's an election year and those bring all of their own troubles so lots of things to be anxious about and to turn to Christ about um so how do we respond to that anxiety to fear and to loss and despair um in my weakness I tend to distract myself with work which right now is woodworking or yard work or looking for jobs um in other Seasons I've turned to snacking as is displayed here um or video games or movies um hanging out with

people or as I've mentioned before sleeping U but here we see Jesus turn to the Lord in prayer whatever pain or hardship or fear you have or will ever had um absolutely pales in comparison to what he was about to endure on the cross all of God's Wrath is poured out on Christ so that we might never have to experience that he endured mockery and abuse from his enemies betrayal and abandonment from his friends and absence from his father topped off with the most painful and horrific way to die known to man so when faced with all of that he prays and he asks others

to pray with him but that's too General to be an application that's the Christian need of well you should pray about it which doesn't really help anybody um so for the note takers um I have a couple bullets um and I see two practical things in this that help someone who's feeling loss or fear any emotion like that um first we see the Angels come and attend to Christ strengthening him and second we see Jesus lament we are obviously not Angels but in the story The Angels act differently than they do elsewhere in scripture Angels the the word angels are is mentioned over 280 times

in the Bible if you count cherubin and sarapin and the other other names or the Heavenly hosts it gets well over 360 I didn't bother to fact check those and count them myself so I'm rounding down from the numbers I found to play it safe um point is it happens a lot um but every time that I could find Angels mentioned they were either giving instructions verbally encouraging people or doing something like the angel of death at the Passover but here we see them simply strengthening Jesus one commentator I read suggests the Angels might have said things to him reminding the glory that was to

come and the people he was to die for or perhaps they wiped his sweat or held him up when his knes were weak with anxiety personally I think the latter is more likely um that they showed up a silent supportive presence in his darkest moment when you see someone who is hurting just show up be there for them sit with them in their grief rub their back as they saw hug them in the just be there not that there isn't a time for it but hold back your advice for a minute don't recall a time you were in the same or similar boat and say

it will get better because truthfully it might not you don't know but you can be with it the second thing to do is to lament and this is hard to do there's grieving and mourning but lamenting is something different as Christians we are to handle these Deep Emotions differently than those around us in part this is one way we are set apart when we gri we through the lens of scripture not through the lens of emotions or circumstance in today's society emotions and feelings are the dominant source of Truth and as Christians we may feel a resistance to having Deep Emotions because it can feel

like you're giving in to yourself and not to God truth but God made those emotions he has experienced them himself and in this story Jesus himself admits that he is in anguish and cries out to the Lord or maybe you've had the opposite experience maybe you OTE deep and without inhibition but you struggle to see how God can be involved in the situation at all lenting helps with both when we are faced with hardship it is an opportunity to strengthen our faith and trust in the Lord and to display his glory however true biblical lament is uncommon at best we grieve and we mourn but

biblical lament is a completely different skill there's a formula that we see throughout scripture that we're going to go through today side note if we look at our songs that we sing in church very few of them are actual lamenting songs but if you look at the Psalms which are the song book of Israelites onethird of the Psalms deal with lenting and so there's a discrepancy in our culture where we don't feel like we can lament there's an obvious obvious lack so there are four steps to lamenting biblically and we're going to have these up on the screen uh as we go through them but

I'm taking straight from someone else 100% not my work here but the book was excellent I highly recommend it it's called dark clouds deep Mercy by Mark grogot who's pastor of the College Park excellent book my therapist gave it to me after we had a misar last fall and it was a really good tool to get through that for me but you can see these throughout the Psalms um and Jesus displays three of these four three of the four steps here so the first thing you do is you turn God come to him in prayer call out to him from your pain and your sadness

then you can complain to God which kind of feels wrong especially when you first try out for me there's a sort of cognitive dis Happ that happens because you know God is good and Sovereign um and he's going to provide for you so it feels like you shouldn't complain to him but you really should and you should really complain this is where you can get all of your frustrations to about them let him know what makes you angry what makes you sad why you feel hurt we see it all over the Psalms and the entire book of Lamentations is named appropriately this may feel wrong

to do but who is a better person to complain to than God who could be safer to confide your fears of who knows more about your pain God is the safest space I can think of today he knows you he made you cares and we can clearly see by this passage that he has been the third step is to make your request to God ask him to restore what you lost or to redeem a broken relationship or to heal your cancer whatever your situation is ask him to fix it this one I think we're pretty good at it's easy to treat God like a vending

machine for the things that we want or need so don't need to go into that too much and the final step is to trust in God consider his promises look back on ebenezers in your life that of his faithfulness find songs that reinforce God's promises and character for me this often looks like spending time reading through psalms and Lamentations reading other laments throughout scripture um and holding on to the promises that are hidden in I also have a playlist I've been working on over the past year or so that's full of songs that help me process my own pain while reminding me how good God

is so the steps are turn complain request and Trust um I'm going to have some questions for each of these on the screen um feel free to write them down if you want to reflect on them later or maybe talk about small groups um but in turning to God who or what do you turn to when you experience deep sadness and complaining who do you complain to how do you complain do you question your circumstances do you blame others make your request to God do you try and Sol resolve your situation do you turn to coping mechanisms like sleeping food or TV do you ignore

your sadness and trust in God do you question your faith in sadness do you take comfort and worldly advice instead TR kind of but I would encourage you guys to practice the skill um don't wait until you're inow hardship gets you next learn how to lament now so that you'll be equipped to weather the next storm and to be equipped to help those around you when they when their next storm comes um I would encourage you to take some time this week and sit down and try and write out a lament about the hurricane and the devastation that's happened in that or take something that

you've experienced in your life that maybe you never really resolved or got through and will min whatever those hardships are we live in world with every bit of news at our fingertips and it is often very discouraging lament about those things cry out to God and ask him to redeem what's been destroyed search scripture for promises and examples of God restoring the world for you to Le we're going to look now how Jesus does this and then another example from a related Psalm so you guys can get a feel for what a Biblical event might look like so Luke 2241 and 42 and he withdrew

from them about a stone throw and knelt down and prayed saying father if you are willing remove this cup from me nevertheless not my will but yours be done Jesus says father in meals and to pray he turns to God excuse me both in word and in PH action he makes this request if you are willing remove this cup from me asks God to change what's going to happen and then he trusts that God is in control and Sovereign nevertheless not my will but yours be done the only part of the lament formula that he skips is the complaint which he gets a free pass

because he's Jesus and it's not it's not like you have to go through all this step it's just a good guideline let's also look at Psalm 41 and I think those will be up on the screen as well says to the choir Master a Psalm of David blessed is the one who considers the PO in the day of trouble the Lord delivers him the Lord protects him and keeps him alive he is called blessed in the land you do not give him up to the will of his enemies the Lord sustains him on his sick bed in his illness you restore him to full health

so in verse four he turns to the Lord as for me I said oh Lord be gracious to me heal me for I have sinned against you verses 5-9 he makes his complaint my enemies say of me in Malice this is also David writing the psalm just to be clear specifically David wrting the when Absalon is pursuing es me I said oh Lord be gracious to me heal me for I've sinned against you my enemies say of me in Malice when will he die and his name perish and when one comes to see me he utters empty words while his heart gathers iniquity when he

goes out he tells it abroad all who hate me whisper together about me they imagine the worst for me they say a deadly things poured out on him he will not rise again from where he lies even my close friend in I trusted ate my bread Has Lifted his heel against me but you oh Lord be gracious to me and raise me up that I may repay them so there he's um he's making his request you oh Lord be gracious to me and raise me up that I may repay and many he turns and Praises God and he trusts God by this I know that

you Delight in me my enemy will not shout and Triumph over me but you have upheld me because of my integrity and sent me in your presence Breen blessed be the Lord the god of Israel from ever everting amen and amen I did not choose this Psalm arbitrarily because as like I said earlier a third of the Psalms were lament so I could have picked any of those but this ties in directly with where we are in in verse n David is speaking of the same betrayal I mentioned earlier when he goes up on the mount follows to pray um he says even my close

friend in whom I trusted who ate my bread Has Lifted his heel against me one of his complaints is that his CL him and John 1318 so Tim Wise a little bit before where we are in Luke but in John's account of the Gospel the disciples are having Passover with Jesus and he has washed their feet here he says I am not speaking of all of you I know whom I have chosen but the scripture will be fulfilled he who ate my bread Has Lifted his heel against he is quoting this Saul to his disciples AEL at bread with was really close friend to eat

meals at home with them and Judas ate bread with Jesus both betrayed them and both Jesus David turn to the Lord in prayer on I also have an example that I've written so this like I said this is a scale that I've been working on and actively trying to practice and it's part of why I'm preaching this week instead of playing I was supposed to preach a few weeks ago um but the news of my layoff was fres and I need the time to lament before I can faithfully and so this passage seems fit step in um so here's what I wrote out when I

was processing oh Lord this world is cursed you have designed us to work yet you cause Thorns to grow up and Pierce us you have given me desires and skills that bring me joy but do not provide for us the labor of my hands builds frustration my soul yearns for fulfillment everywhere I look it is Barren it is like I am to grow is blamed and without life but is enough to sustain us and yet you strike again you have taken my work from me in some ways this is a gift that I have the freedom to search for more fulfilling work though I despair

thinking that that work does not exist you promis good things to us to supply our every need but you also give season to fam to test our faith and to show you Lord was not Israel condemned to wander the Wilderness for complaining about how you provided is this the same for me since I have grumbled about the work I Des provided for my family how long am I to wander the Wilderness am I to drift endlessly hoping for a Safe Harbor and rest it from this storm but you oh lord of my rock I kiss the waves that crush me against you my body may

break but it is you who heal restore to me my faith and my trust in you guide my search as a pillar of fire lead me as a Col of cloud you are ever faithful abundant and mercy provide for me so that I can provide for others give me work that is hard but fulfilling I may use my gifts to glorify your name I took some time this week made some coffee made a fire and sat in my Bible and searched I searched for truths about God's provision I recall Israel's times of hardships and how God sustained I'm taking time to put my pain and

my fears to words while saturating them with truth from the Bible does not fix my problem that's not the point prayer in general is largely a tool to help us align our hearts to and then lament it's the same lamenting helps me to focus on the hope I have in the Lord not the Brokenness of my situation in lament I exchange a fleeing emotion for an eternal reminder of so now we understand a little more about lament we look more closely at why Jesus is an Agony and how he respond how he LS we know about Jesus suffering on the cross remember that each week

with communion and every year on Easter and Christmas we we talk about that again um but for today is sufficient to know that Jesus being fully God knew that he what was coming for him in perfect detail also being fully man was terrified and filled with anguish it was customary at the time for people to pray standing but here we see Jesus on his knes in Matthew in Mark's accounts he tells Peter James and John my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death he felt so much sorrow that he felt like he was dying and as he prayed the Bible says the

sweat became like blood I believe this was a literal description and nothing less there are a few documented cases of people um sweating blood um and a couple causes um but really the only one that is possible here is intense fear because a woman in fear your body triggers your fight or flight response releasing the hormones you need to survive you have more cortisol adrenaline serotonin and dopamine in your bloodstream this causes increased blood flow to your muscles so you can act quickly increased blood sugar so you have more energy increased breath rate so you can process the sugar you have more clotting factors to

prepare you for blood loss if you're wounded and you have increased muscle tension and your pupil dilate so you can see better and most importantly for this passage your blood pressure increases wanted to share all of this because I I was a biology major fascinated God has created and I want you all to be able to M Marvel at how masterfully God has created our bodies to handle intense situations but for this passage blood pressure is the with intense fear your blood pressure can increase so much that it can cause your capillaries to burst capillaries if you don't know are the smallest parts of your

blood vessels where oxygen is actually transferred into your cells in this condition when the capillaries burst blood can mix with sweat and ESC through the state this phenomenon is called humanit rosis and it's not common it's a very rare condition uh there are cases of humanity roses occurring in people who are about to be executed Leonardo da Vinci recorded it occurring and soldiers who are about to enter battle and there were some reports of it occurring during the London Blitz in World War II when Germany bombed London all of these situations were awful and really difficult and yet none of these people knew what was

going to happen to them Jesus did he knew the pain that would come he asked for it to be taken away knowing it wouldn't and then in Hebrews 12 as Hebrews 12 says for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross Jesus willingly entered that pain for me and for you he laid down his life so that we don't have to he drank the cup full of God's Wrath so we don't have to Charles spurton said I am never afraid of exaggeration when I speak of what my Lord endured all H was into that cup of which God Our Savior Jesus Christ

was made to drink he is our savior he is our King and yet his crown he bore was made of thorns Thorn made to pierce and mock him a side effect of hris is that the skin of the affected area becomes incredibly tender and Jesus had Thorns shoved into that skin his love for you is so incredible and so deep that he looked at all that was to happen when he was in the garden all that was coming and he saw Joy has this torment the sacrifice our relationship with him how incredible the creator of the universe loves us so much that he put off

his divinity became lower than the angels and died the most horrific death as we come to our time of communion today um I want you to consider Christ's suffering not out of guilt um because that's already been paid for but out of gratitude take some time to be deeply grateful for his sacrifice sacrifice for you and the love that he gives for you um I'm going to pray and then van can go ahead and come on up um you after we pray you guys can come down and collect the elements and then head back to your seats and we'll take them together after the van

play but if you guys are going through something deep and painful and need to LI or if you think you're beginning to understand the gift we have in Jesus sacrifice for us I'll be standing down here in front while the's playing if you want to come talk we can find me you're doing later love to talk God you are so good you just the gift we have in you in your Divinity experiencing everything we experience in community is so precious we when we Face hardship we know that we can trust you have and endure and are there to support us you know what's ahead of

us and you've prepared our way so that we can grow closer and closer to you so that we can be reminded of your faithfulness and so that we can just be with you thank you for your sacrifice on the cross thank you for your sacrifice in the garden and your blood and your sweat that you poured out for us just help us to never forget that but to be thankful and mindful of who you are and what you've done for us e