PADKOS – 5 February

THE AGONY OF OUR SAVIOUR

In Gethsemane our Saviour was in agony. Can you even imagine that? Can you ever measure what it meant for Him when an angel, one of His own creatures, was sent to strengthen Him? The Almighty Son of God,

• who became the meek and lowly, pure and Holy Son of Man,
• who was still strong enough to save the sick,
• strong enough to still the storm,
• still strong enough to seek the lost until He found them,
• no matter how many,
• no matter how distant,
• no matter how depraved,
• still strong enough to send the evil spirits out of man and into the pit,
• still strong enough to sustain the stars and the sun in their courses.

For the Holy, Almighty one’s sweat to be like Great Drops of Blood falling down to the ground, leaves my wisdom in the dust. Man’s sin had brought him to dust, in life to cope with it in turning the soil, and in death to submit to it by returning to the soil.
And the reward of his toil in the soil was his sweat.

Whatever curse was mine He bore, the wormwood and the gall.
There in that lone mysterious hour, my cup, He drained it all.

Tennyson wrote:  Theirs is not to reason why.
I would like to borrow and adapt that, and say:

Ours not to reason why, ours but to hear His cry,
Ours to bow and thus draw nigh, while callous men pass by.
Ours here to watch and pray, ours to worship and to stay.
Ours to share His victory, let evil men pass by.
Ours to weigh such pain and loss, ours to worship ‘neath the Cross.
Ours to grieve o’er heads that toss, those cruel passers by.
Ours to wait that glorious morn, to see such Majesty adorn God’s Holy Son.
And heaven’s First Born, arising from the grave.
It was for this the Mighty God became the Son of Man,
And this o’er countless eons trod, infinity did span,
And here as Man for man He died, and died that He might save.
And here that Spotless, Holy One, that perfect life He gave.
O let men pass, if pass they will, and passing, wag the head,
But let me bow in Worship still, it was for me He bled.