When Wisdom Prayed

Then an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. Being in anguish, he prayed more fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground. When he got up from prayer and came to the disciples, he found them sleeping, exhausted from their grief. “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray, so that you won’t fall into temptation.”
(Luke 22:43–46)

Our Lord’s first line of defense against anxiety is to pray. Doctor Luke, who records these events and knows wisdom’s hand on the human body, brings us to three important points about anxiety in our flesh:

In His flesh, Jesus anticipated His first and once-in-a-lifetime separation from the Father, which would cause Him to cry in anguish from the cross, “Why? Why have You forsaken me?” Yet Jesus knows the darkness of this separation so well that, after His resurrection, He promises us He will never leave nor forsake us. Once we are united, He will never leave nor forsake His own, especially in our darkest hour. He knows—from a flesh standpoint—that it is terrifying to be alone.

Jesus would, for the first time, know the anguish of sinful rebellion and human regret, carrying forgiveness for each person’s lifetime of sin for time immemorial, every sin of our past, our present, and even our future. Claiming sin and the effects of every cruel and careless word, every beating, every lie, every rape, every torture, every murder, every genocide, every cruelty, and every offense against humanity that man- and womankind could devise, so that we wouldn’t have to bear it.

He also knew He faced a long, slow, and literally excruciating death. Ex crucis—meaning literally “from the cross.” This pain was excruciating of a particular kind, drawn from the prolonged death-drain-by-cross that shattered the bodies of not only of its victim, but the psyche of all who witnessed their agonizing suffocation.

The intersection of these agonies is medically real: “hemosiderosis” is a product of severe mental distress where the capillaries expand from stress and our sweat literally becomes bloody. For our precious Lord, this was the weight of the pain of the cross and our sin that infused every pore and cell of His body.

Wisdom’s prayer produces even more fervent prayer. The more one prays, the more one is moved to pray.

And yet—and this is stunning—despite the anguish and anxiety and the anticipation, the One who rules heaven, the One who set the world in motion from the beginning of time, who set the stars in the sky, who calmed the seas and can still the waters, who knows how His body will be wracked by pain within twenty-four hours . . . He. Still. Prays. for the events that Wisdom Himself has set in motion from the foundation of the world; “nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

And what does His prayer yield? He receives strength from on high in His flesh and weakness to endure the brutal, burdensome task that is to come. Angels come and minister to Him and He’s supernaturally strengthened—not to escape the agony, but He is empowered to pray more fervently to endure it.

Wisdom’s prayer produces even more fervent prayer. The more one prays, the more one is moved to pray.

In praying, Christ moved in His humanity from anxiety to adventure. And I don’t mean “adventure” such as a vacation, or a hike, or a treasure hunt, or into an unknown land full of pleasure and delight. No.

Rather, He walks where no man could walk: to the cross on our behalf, from humanity to the cross then to Sheol to lead the captives out of captivity, to sit at the right hand of the Father to wait and intercede and claim, for His own, that which we could never claim for ourselves.

He walked the road from destruction to life, from folly to wisdom, so that we could take up our cross, follow Him, and live.