The Sorrowing Servant

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Lenten Service, February 20, 2008

Tonight we continue the series of the suffering servant focusing on those sorrows that Jesus experienced during His passion.

I know there are times when we read in the bible, times when Jesus was moved with compassion where His heart was touched by what He saw. For instance, when He saw the widow who was grieving the death of her only child or when he saw Jerusalem and He remembered the history of how Jerusalem had treated the prophets of old and how they were about to treat Him. Or the time when He looked at the multitude and He said they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus was moved with compassion and urged the disciples to pray that God would send out workers into the harvest fields.

But the ultimate moment when Jesus carried our sorrows was late one night, the night when He was betrayed. You remember that story, how Jesus was having supper with His disciples and they were all gathered in that upper room and they had that wonderful meal. Everything was very symbolic and He instituted the Lord’s Supper and, when they concluded, they went from there and they went to a garden to pray. Now all the disciples went with Jesus but, once they arrived there, Jesus said, “Most of you need to wait here. Three of you will go with me, Peter, James and John.” Those were His closest friends. “Let’s go,” He said. And they went a little bit further into that garden called Gethsemane. Now Gethsemane is a word that means oil press. It’s a place where they would press the olives to make the oil, the olive oil. And it’s kind of a fitting name when you think about it because, in that place, Gethsemane, Jesus was under tremendous pressure and exhibited great emotion during His passion.

So here Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. He has taken those three special friends, Peter, James and John. They’ve gone a little bit further. They found a quiet place and now Jesus says, “Wait here.” That’s where our story begins, the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Scripture says, “Jesus began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.’” Literally, in the Greek, Jesus is saying that His soul is surrounded by sorrow. Have you ever been surrounded by sorrow? Have you ever had one of those days or months or years when everything around you was just colored by sadness and pain and suffering: That’s where Jesus is in the garden. His soul is surrounded by sorrow.

Last Saturday, I was on call at the hospital and I had a really tough day. While attending to a patient in the ER, I was paged. I called the number real quick. It was a nurse from the pediatric ER saying, “Chaplain, we have a 2-year-old who was just brought in and is going through CPR right now. Can you come?” And I said, “Sure, I’ll be right there. Where are you?” And she told me the room and so I went down the hallway to the room. Not knowing what to expect, I came to the room, the door was shut and I couldn’t see in. So I opened the door and the room was packed full of medical people working on this tiny little baby, little boy, stretched out on the table. And as I looked at him, his body was very still, his eyes were half opened. He looked like he was alive but sleeping or something was not right. And there was a nurse doing compressions on his chest and my heart just tightened up within me and I looked at him and I thought, “Lord, please help that baby come back to life.” Well, they kept up the CPR for a few minutes and then I kind of noticed something was different, something had changed. They stopped doing the compressions. The doctor left. Other staff members left and finally, there were just two nurses and myself in the room. They were taking off the monitor wires and removing oxygen. He didn’t make it. And as I sat there watching, I went up to the little guy, I held his hand and rubbed it. I put my hand on his head and prayed a silent blessing. And I looked at the nurse and I said, “It’s hard.” And she said, “Yes, it’s hard.” And we both cried and we just waited there for awhile. No family was present. We didn’t even know the name of the child, the little guy is laying there. After awhile, another nurse came and she said, “Some of the family have arrived and they are out in the ER waiting room. Could you come and bring them back?” So I got up and I went out there and I didn’t know which family. The nurse pointed them out to me and I walked up to them and they jumped up out of their chairs and looked at me desperately for hope. “Is he okay?” And I said, “No.” And they broke out and it was heart wrenching sobs and fell back into their chairs and as I waited with them, more family members arrived and each time more people arrived, the scene repeated itself for two and a half hours. It broke my heart to see those things and to see those people so anguished with their loss, surrounded by sorrow.

And I wonder if, on that night, in the garden, that’s what Jesus felt? I wonder if, as He was kneeling there, praying and His disciples were sleeping nearby, if He was feeling the betrayal already of Judas and the denial of Peter and the whips of the soldiers and the utter rejection of God the Father.

Later on, we read in the gospel of Luke, “And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” Those powerful, terrible emotions were affecting Him physically, quite possibly even blood was coming from His pores.

What was the point of it all? What was going on there? Was He sensing that tidal wave of God’s wrath that was buried down on Him and punishing Him for the sins of the entire world? Was He carrying the burden of billions of sins committed by billions of sinners as He waited those final hours before the cross? What was the point? Simply this: That Jesus, the Son of God, our innocent Savior and Messiah, the pure lamb of God, endured unimaginable pain, pain that our sins required so we might be forgiven and free.

And something else. Jesus was surrounded by sorrow at that time, overwhelmed as He in His own words said, “to the point of death,” I think of this: He suffered all of God’s wrath at that moment and His sorrow was deep and powerful. But because He experienced that, you and I, in the midst of our sorrow, can know that it’s temporary, that there will come a point in time when our pain is no more. There will come a point in time when we will just be with our Lord in eternity in paradise.

There is a man who went through a lot of sorrow in his life. He’s pretty well known but I’ll share the story with you nonetheless. In 1871, tragedy struck Chicago and a fire ravaged the city. Three hundred people lost their lives and over a hundred thousand people were homeless. Horacio Gabe Spafford was one of those who tried to help the survivors, help the city get back on its feet. He was a lawyer who had invested a lot of money into the downtown real estate of Chicago and, because of that, he’d lost a great deal. And at the same time he was financially devastated, he lost his only son. Now he had four daughters and a wife that had survived but what a great loss he had experienced already. And in response, he spent the next two years doing everything he could to help these people get back on their feet, being very generous and helpful and trying to guide these people who were homeless and impoverished back to a life of substance, employment and other things.

But after about two years, he was exhausted and he decided it was time for our family to go on a vacation. So they were going to go to England and they were going to visit his friend, Dwight Moody, who was on an evangelistic crusade. So he made plans and arrangements and, right at the last minute, he had some business to take care of so he couldn’t go right at that moment but his wife and his four daughters went on ahead. But their ship never made it. Off Newfoundland, it collided with an English sailing ship and sank within twenty minutes. And though his wife managed to hang onto a piece of debris and survive, their four daughters did not. In fact, he received a horrible telegram from his wife with only two words, “Saved alone.” He boarded the next available ship for England and, as they came to the place where the ship bearing his wife and daughters had sank, the captain pointed out the place and he was moved and inspired and he wrote the words to the hymn, “It is Well With My Soul.”

I know you go through difficult times, too, times of great loss and illness and tragedy that is like our lives, too. So as I read these words of this hymn written by a brother in Christ, I want you to think about how God helped you through those times. “When peace like a river attended my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my loss, thou has taught me to say ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’ Thou Satan should buff it, thou trials should come, let this blessed assurance control that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed His own blood for my soul. He lives, oh the bliss, of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but in whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my soul. And Lord hast the day when our faith shall be sight, the cloud be rolled back as a scroll. The trumpet shall sound and the Lord shall be sinned even so it is well with my soul.”

Through the work of our sorrowing servant, our sorrows that surround us have been made temporary. But God’s love and mercy are eternal. Amen? Amen.

Copyright 2008 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church