March 25

During the days of Jesus’ earthly life, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence. — Heb 5:7 BSB

The Apostle says that Christ was “crucified through weakness” (2 Corinthians 13:4). However, we must remember that Christ’s weakness was not imperfection, as it is in us, but rather the weakness of His human nature compared to the strength of His divine nature. Our Lord felt the weakness of His humanity, for although it was united with His eternal Deity and upheld by the power and consolation of the Holy Spirit, His human nature was inherently weak. This experience of weakness was part of the suffering He endured.

Bearing the full weight of imputed sin, the curse of the law, and the indignation of the Almighty, our Lord reached a point where He needed special support. To complete His work safely, honorably, and in full accordance with God’s will, He prayed and cried out to God. This was the solemn conflict He began in the garden and finished on the cross.

We know from the Scriptures what He felt during that solemn agony in the garden, where He said, in a moment of weakness, "Let this cup pass from Me." The cup was so bitter, filled with unmitigated wrath, mingled with God’s anger against sin and His displeasure toward all who were accountable for it. As our substitute, Jesus stood in our place to endure what we would have faced without Him—to bear the full weight of eternal wrath that would have sunk us into hell. He needed the special intervention of God to uphold Him as He drank this cup to the very dregs.

It was to obtain this support that Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears. The intensity of this conflict caused blood to fall from His brow, and His whole soul was engaged in an agony of grief, fear, and supplication. His prayers rose to Him who was able to save Him from death—not the death He came to die, but to save Him from all that was involved in the original sentence of death, which carried the wrath of God and its consequences.