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God grant us his grace and peace.
Throughout all of Holy Week, our Lord Jesus had been going back and forth between Jerusalem and Bethany, where he lodged in the house of his friend Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. So in like manner, after that last supper, which became the first Lord’s Supper, he was on his way back from Jerusalem. And he stopped on the Mount of Olives, as he was accustomed in order to pray. That night, he would not return to Bethany. That night would become the opportunity for the hardened and envious leaders of the Jews to seize him as they would seize a robber. And they very much preferred the deserted Mount of Olives at night over the crowded temple during daytime because they were afraid of the crowds. And being themselves darkened and unbelieve, they preferred the darkness of night. So they came to seize him.
And what did Christ do? Did he simply go his way, passing right through the midst of them, as he once did when they were trying to go after him in Nazareth? As you all know, he did not. He was very well aware of what was going to happen. He submitted to the divine plan and allowed himself to be bound and led away and arrested as a lamb led to the slaughter. So in his prayer and arrest, Christ acts in perfect obedience.
St. Paul writes, “As to one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one man, many will be made righteous.” This obedience of Christ is what we are going to ponder tonight. Firstly, his submitting to the divine will in prayer; secondly, his bearing of God’s wrath and agony; and thirdly, his not using divine power when being arrested.
Now, firstly, consider that prayer that Jesus prayed there on the Mount of Olives submitting to the will of God. Here, while sweating blood, his suffering really begins. “Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from you. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” How beautiful these words of obedience. And notice what he’s not saying. He does not say, “Father, I really don’t want to die.” That is how I have often thought about these words in the past. I pictured it as if there’s this internal conflict in Jesus, one will against another will, and in the end, he finally comes around. But what is he actually saying? He says, “Father, if you don’t want me to die, then I don’t want to die. But if you want me to die, I want to die.” There’s no internal conflict, only perfect obedience.
To be clear, there are actually two wills in Jesus. Think about this: the Son of God becomes a man, assumes a human nature, and this means that he actually had a natural human will, like you and I. But the Son of God already had a will before he became a man, and this divine will is one with the Father and Holy Spirit. So in the person of Jesus Christ, there is his human will and his divine will. But here’s the point. The Lord’s human will is completely aligned and directed towards the divine will.
Now, what is the problem with your human will? By nature, your will is exactly, precisely not at one with God’s divine will. According to our human nature, our will seeks after self-love, pleasure, and all sorts of other idols. And this is actually how it all began in the garden when the evil foe tempted our first parents to eat of the forbidden fruit. While their human will was supposed to cling steadfastly to the Lord’s will, they turned their will away from God. While their will should have continued to align with their Creator’s will, they turned away against what God had said. And this is, by the way, how our Lutheran confessions explain the origin of evil. God did not create evil. Instead, those whom he created to be good and who indeed were good, turned away from God. And by doing that, they broke the first and foremost commandment. They did not fear, love, and trust in God above all things anymore.
Now, and this is the beautiful plot twist. What did the second Adam, the man Jesus, do when he prays there earnestly on his knees, sweating blood, right before being betrayed and arrested? He does exactly the opposite of what Adam and Eve did. He completely submits to God’s divine will. He perfectly, as a man, fulfills the First Commandment. And this is what the atonement is. Jesus fulfilled the holy and eternal law of God in your stead. What you could not do, that he did. He overcame the temptation by which Satan overcame Adam and Eve in the garden. He restored mankind to original righteousness and thereby, being the perfect mediator, so that by one man’s obedience, many will be made righteous.
But secondly, there’s even more to fulfilling God’s holy law. Have you ever thought about what this agony is that Jesus experienced in the garden? Why exactly did Jesus pray on the cross after this? “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” And as the Psalm 22 goes on to say, “I cry in the daytime, but thou here is not.” Was he simply afraid of dying? Or had God actually forsaken him? Yes. God actually had forsaken Jesus. As a man, he did not experience God’s good pleasure or grace or mercy anymore. Instead, the holy wrath of the triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was placed upon him. This wrath about the sins of the whole world, this wrath that you and I deserved, this wrath he bore in our place. And this is his agony in the garden. It’s the greatest suffering out of them all.
And this is the other essential part of the atonement. This is the reason why Jesus had to die. And that no one tell you anything different. Jesus did not die by accident. Jesus did also not die because God wanted to demonstrate how far he would go in enduring human wickedness without fighting back. And he did not die; he did not have to die, simply because God had promised it before and now had to be faithful to the promise.
He had to die because someone had to be obedient to the point of death, even the death on the cross. Someone had to be obedient as a true servant, fulfill the first commandment, and bear the wrath of the triune God. So praise and thanks be to him for this, his great sacrifice and boundless love. He was forsaken so that you would not be forsaken; however miserable you might feel, you are not forsaken because he was forsaken. And all this he did willingly. “Your will be done, Father.”
And this brings us to our last point. Because Jesus became the obedient servant, he did not use his divine power. He did not resist when being bound and arrested. And this is also another misunderstanding about the atonement. God did not simply pick someone in order to punish him unjustly for the sins of the whole world. No. Your dear Lord took all this punishment upon himself voluntarily and willingly, and in part, he even suffered his own wrath since, after all, he himself is God. As a man, he suffered the wrath of the triune God. But think about this: since he is also God, he could have prevented his own death.
The Apostle John actually adds a little more information about Christ’s arrest showing exactly this. When Jesus says, “I am,” when they ask him, “We are looking for Jesus of Nazareth,” they all dropped down to the ground as if they were dead. Now they rise again, and then he says it again, and nothing happens. This is his first display of his power. But then also he performs a healing miracle. We just heard this in the reading. After one of his disciples cut off the ear of the high priest servant, Jesus heals it immediately by just one touch.
But besides these demonstrations of his divine glory and splendor and power, he did not resist at all because he wanted to die for you. Because he wanted to die for you, he humbled himself, emptied himself, and did not use his divine power. Permit even this, he says. He allows these men with their silly clubs and swords to arrest the almighty Son of God. What a contrast. How great the mystery of our God’s humiliation. How great and wonderful his love that he has for us.
This love is what Peter had to trust in after his shameful denial. This love is what radiated from the soon-to-be smitten face of the bound Lord when he turned and looked at his fallen disciple. “See, I told you so. You did not have the strength to stand by my side. I have to trample the wine press alone. But in doing this, I am paying for your sins as well. Your disobedience is paid for by my perfect obedience.”
And so Peter goes away, weeping bitterly. But you, dear Christians, rejoice. His love for you is boundless and without measure. Thank and praise him for all he has done. Use this Lenten Tide to consider his sufferings for you anew. Learn from his obedience, mortify your sinful flesh, and lay aside sin which so easily ensnares us.
In Jesus’ name.