Gnarled and weighed down with age,
the olive trees,
deep-rooted in mothering soil
had witnessed the soul-wrenching struggle
that fateful night
when the Lord of all Creation
made flesh
agonised over the magnitude of the cost
of redeeming the creatures
fashioned in His Father’s image.
It wasn’t the humiliation, scourge,
or the fatal cross,
that daunted Him
but the prospect of bearing
the execrable and heinous sins,
the vituperative depravity
of men and women from all time,
that separated humankind from a Holy God
upon Himself,
blameless and without sin,
in essence immortal,
one with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
infused with the Holiness of God
to whose nature
sin was anathema,
That He, the Son of God
should become sin
and perish as the sin offering,
the Sacrificial Lamb
for all people
from all time,
That His precious and immortal blood alone
could atone and save Mankind
from an eternity of suffering
and separation from his Creator,
And far worse
that He would have to be forsaken by the Father
whose Holiness would be repelled
by the presence of sin,
He who had never been separated
from the Father
who with the Father and the Holy Spirit
are one and ever one.
How the Master agonised
over this untenable bifurcation
until drops of blood
fell like sweat over His countenance
As He prayed
“O My Father, if it is possible,
let this cup pass from Me.”
But the divine, ineffable love
He had for His Father and for Humanity
drove Him to His knees
a third time as He prayed
“Not as I will, but as You will.”
O Jesus!
Truly there is no measure known to Man
for the wideness, length and depth
of Your grace and great love for us.
Matthew 26:36-46
Picture by Robert Hoetink/Bigstock.com
Dr Oliver Seet is a member of Wesley Methodist Church and a Board Director of the Metropolitan YMCA.