“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground,” (Luke 22:44).
Sweat and blood are direct representations of labor and passion, of doing and suffering. These are two of the best embodiments, or journals, of our Savior’s life and death. Both evidence the travails of his soul (Isa. 53:11), as the first he wrote in sweat, the other in blood. His life could be described as a continual labor, or sweat, of passive action, for he was ever and always going about doing good (Matt. 4:23). And his death is rightly seen as a complete bleeding out of active passion, for he, “poured out his soul unto death,” (Isa. 53:12).
Scripture is replete with symbolism, and there may be no two more appropriate images in nature that serve for the indices, or seals, of God’s two testaments than that of sweat and blood. By his sinless, blameless life, Christ fulfilled every jot and tittle of the Law and in his death, he fulfilled every aspect and requirement of the Gospel, by purchasing redemption with his own blood. Therefore, in the perfect execution of his labor and his passion, Christ fulfilled every requirement inherent in both Testaments.
Consistent with the beauty and mystery of God’s grand plan, the sweat and blood essential for the second Adam (Christ) to fulfill his Father’s will were also integral to the sentence God passed on the first Adam when he fell. Adam’s curse consisted of a life characterized by labor and toil, contending with thorny ground just to survive – in contrast to the abundant and peaceful life he formerly enjoyed in the lush gardens of Eden’s Paradise. As Genesis 3:17-19 states, “ … cursed is the ground for your sake … thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth; and you shall eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return to the ground.” The curse of the fall included a life of labor by the sweat of man’s brow and a realization of the mortality of his life blood that will eventually end in physical death.
A further parallel between man’s ruin and Christ’s ransom is how they both occur in a garden. In the Garden of Eden man played the role of the malevolent one with God’s bounty, and in the Garden of Gethsemane our Savior, the God-man, fulfilled the role of Champion with God’s fury. In the first garden, God sought man who had sold his rights through creation to the devil for an apple. Could you imagine what Adam was thinking about this when God spoke, “Adam where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). And in the second garden, an army of men sought Christ who was betrayed by a devil (John 6:70) for 30 pieces of silver. “Whom do you seek?” the Lord asks them, to which they replied, “Jesus of Nazareth,” (John 18:4-5).
After the fall, at the gateway to the Garden of Eden a flaming sword was wielded in all directions by the cherubim (Gen. 3:24) to prevent entrance to the garden. And in the Garden of Gethsemane a sword was drawn by Peter (Luke 22:50) in a feeble attempt to defend his Christ against those soldiers who had come to arrest him. And yet, knowing this was all part of God’s plan, the Lord rebukes him. “Peter put up your sword. The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11).
In the Garden of Eden, man was doomed by God to earn his earthly life-sustaining bread by the sweat of his brow. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ earns for man the eternal Bread of Life by the sweat of his brow. And not only the sweat of his brow, but of his whole body and even more so that of his soul. His agony of soul was so tortuous that both blood and sweat, i.e., great drops of sweat mixed with blood ran down through his clothes and fell on the ground (Luke 22:44).
What is the significance of these two divinely intertwined events? First of all, we are all born under the curse of that flaming sword of death, the curse of the fall (John 3:18, Ps. 51:5). And yet, coursing through the garden of redemption is the river of life by which we may gain free and safe passage to a better paradise where no sword threatens and no angel prevents entrance. Rather, here the Angel of the Covenant (Rev. 3:7), the only begotten Son of God, is both the door to salvation and the keeper of the door. And in Isaiah 55:1, we find him calling out, “Ho, every one that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that has no money; come, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price,” as if he should say, For I personally paid the price for all believers, with my own sweat and with my own blood.
Contemplations:
- O my blessed Lord and Savior, you began your passion in a sweat. Yours was a bloody garden; let me not pray only from my lips outwardly, or weep only from my eyes outwardly. Rather let my eyes, Lord, wait ever on you (Psalm 123:2) in a true sweat of sorrow and contrition.
- O let me not consider what you suffered for me without sorrow and compassion, because you yourself, Lord, did not consider what I deserved from you without fear and horror. Blood can soften the adamant heart; and if my heart does not soften, melt, and bleed under such a plenteous shower of your so precious blood, what should be left to melt such a heart but the fire of hell? But you, Lord, will you not, “drink of the cup, which thy Father gives thee?” (Matt. 26:39, John 18:11.) It is not possible for this cup to pass from you unless it passes to me. What would it be but fire and brimstone that is my portion to drink? No, Lord, I confess I am not able to drink of your cup. If you left even one drop for me, it would cast me into that place of eternal despair with the rich man who longed for a single drop of water to cool the fire of God’s righteous wrath (Luke 16).
- No, rather give me here, Lord, with David (Psalm 42:3) plenty of tears to drink, and so may my cup overflow. Be the portion of my inheritance (Psalm 16:6) so I shall be able to pledge what I have received in your mercy. So do not spare me from sweating with you, and if need be from bleeding too, and at the very least let me never cease to both sweat and bleed in the good fight, in that daily martyrdom of the mortification of my sin (2 Tim. 4:7).
Further References for Luke 22:44:
John 12:27; Heb. 5:7-8; Gen. 32:24; Psalm 22:1, 130:1
