Drops of Blood

Rev. Rhonda Blevins

Luke 22:39-46

Sunday March 19th, 2023

He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done.” [[Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.]] When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.”

______

March madness us upon us! Tensions are rising in my house . . . my Tennessee Volunteers beat Duke to make it into the Sweet Sixteen! My husband’s Kentucky Wildcats play Kansas State today to stay in the “Big Dance.” If both teams stay in it, there’s a chance they’ll square off in the Elite 8. At that point, we may need to hire a referee to run interference at my house!

One of the things I would never want to do would be to referee one of those games. Make one little mistake and an entire fan base hates you! That’s got to be stressful.

I heard a story about a stressed-out referee who went to see his therapist. He broke down in front of the psychologist—he talked about how depressed he was, how hard it was to be hated all the time by so many people, how he felt like he was always disappointing somebody no matter what he did. The doctor was highly sympathetic, and offered a measure of comfort saying, “It must be so hard, I’m glad you came to me. I think I can help.” The psychologist writes something on a piece of paper and tells the despondent referee, “Go to this address, and tell the optometrist I sent you.”

It must be stressful to be a referee.

There are a lot of occupations that require a high level of stress tolerance. From time to time I’ll see an article listing the most stressful professions. I recently saw in “Urology Times” that being a urologist is the most stressful job in America.[1] Another article suggested that enlisted military personnel have the most stressful job.[2] Still a third article said that working parents have the most stress of anyone.[3] (Let me enter these bags under my eyes as “Exhibit A”.)

I’ve known my share of stress, but I’ve never been stressed to the point of sweating blood, like Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane. Some translations say that Jesus’ sweat was like great drops of blood. Other translations say that his sweat became great drops of blood. I’ve never seen anyone sweat blood, though it is a rare condition called “hematidrosis.”

Hematidrosis is: “a condition in which capillary blood vessels that feed the sweat glands rupture, causing them to exude blood; it occurs under conditions of extreme physical or emotional stress.”[4]

Jesus was obviously under extreme emotional stress as he anticipated extreme physical stress. Whether Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood or Jesus’ sweat was drops of blood isn’t that important. What is important is less about the what and more about the why.

Here’s the thing. Jesus could have just walked away. He could have told the disciples, “Hey guys, we need to leave Jerusalem. They’re about to arrest me.” Or, while they were all sleeping there on the Mount of Olives, he could have just slipped away. He had options. He could have avoided being arrested. He could have avoided the mock trial. He could have avoided being flogged with a cat-o-nine-tails. He could have avoided a crown of thorns. He could have avoided nails in his hands and feet. He could have avoided the public humiliation of being hung naked on a cross for all to see.

Jesus could have avoided it all.

So why? Why didn’t he just walk away? Because he believed that staying was God’s will.

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done.”

How did Jesus have such clarity about what God’s will was for him? If I try to place myself in Jesus’ shoes in that moment, knowing what was coming, and knowing that I had options—knowing I could just walk away—I’m not sure I could go through with it. Even if I had the kind of clarity Jesus seemed to have—knowing God’s will—I’m pretty sure I would rationalize my way out of the torture and execution that was inevitable. My rationalization would go something like this:

“If I die, I won’t be able to do anybody any good. I can only do God’s work if I’m alive. So I must stay alive. And to stay alive, I’ve got to get out of town. OK, do God’s work by staying alive. Stay alive by leaving town. That’s what I’ll do. C’mon fellas, we’re getting out of here.”

I mean, that sounds reasonable, right? But not for Jesus. Jesus had clarity about what God was calling him to do.

So I’ll pose the question once again, “How did Jesus have such clarity about what God’s will was for him?”

I want to suggest that the answer lies in the desert.

A couple of weeks ago we explored Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness where the scriptures tell us he was “tempted in every way yet was without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus experienced all three categories of temptation—all three lies we are tempted to believe:

1. You are what you do.

2. You are what other people think about you.

3. You are what you have.[5]

These are the lies around which the false self, the ego structure, is built. And one by one, Jesus rejected these lies. One by one, Jesus refused to yield to the temptations to build his identity around anything but the love of God and his unity with and in that love. His decisions, one by one, in that desert—his refusal to build an identity on anything other than the love of God—pave the way for his refusal to walk away from the even more difficult path that led to Calvary.

But I want to point out something very important here. Sometimes when we Christians talk about Jesus, we speak only in terms of Jesus’ divinity. We imagine that God the Father and God the Son were so aligned, that their desires were always sympatico. But here, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we catch a rare glimpse into Jesus’ humanity. Here’s a snapshot—a moment in time in which Jesus’ humanity was at odds with Jesus’ divinity. We observe this most clearly when Jesus prayed:

“Not my will but yours be done.”

Here’s a fun fact, just to prove I went to seminary. You know what the Greek word for “my” is here in “Not my will but yours be done?” The Greek word for “my” is ἐγώ (transliterated “ego”). We could easily translate this, being faithful to the original Greek, and render this verse: “Not ego’s will but yours be done.”

Here’s the thing about ego. Ego never wants to die. Ego never wants to be diminished in any way. Had Jesus been living from his egoic self, he would have absolutely walked away from the Garden of Gethsemane, either with or without his disciples (probably with, if I know anything about ego.) Had Jesus allowed ego to be in charge, he would have walked away from death on a cross. He would have missed God’s will for his life. We would have never heard his name, and he would have missed God’s will for his life.

The same is true for us.

The thing is, the vast majority of humans live their lives with their egos in charge, and in so doing miss their higher purpose and their deepest calling. Most of us, here in this room (including yours truly) live a good chuck of our lives letting ego rule the day.

So here’s an exercise for you to try to put a check on your ego . . . the “my” in “Not my will but yours be done.”

Pay attention the next time you find yourself offended. Like when you have to enter the roundabout during spring break, for instance. Someone cuts you off, does something rude. Or in conversation, someone says something that injures your pride, or the wait staff doesn’t give you the attention you think you deserve. Whatever it may be—the next time you find yourself offended—just sit with it. Don’t react. Don’t do anything. Don’t say anything. Just notice how worked up your ego gets, but don’t let it respond in any way. Just sit with the discomfort.

That discomfort is ego not getting its way. Because ego desperately wants to respond. To yell or curse or throw up a hand (or a finger!) Ego wants to issue a cutting reply or maybe go hide away and retreat. But you are not your ego. There’s something deeper inside. The ego is your false self. Underneath that false self is the very seed bed of God. The most common way to say this in Christian circles is to say that the Holy Spirit is in you. Another way to say it is that there is a “spark of divinity” in you. Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Our connection to what theologian Paul Tillich called “The Ground of All Being” lies inside the false self or ego we build up over a lifetime. But we are not our ego.

Your homework this week, is simply to notice how ego wants to protect itself or get even. Notice. And don’t respond. And in so doing:

Not ego’s will but God’s be done.

That’s your homework this week. Try it once. See how it feels. Then try it again. Then try it again. And if you can keep at it, mindfully not reacting every time your ego wants to react, you’ll be “taking up your (metaphorical) cross” just like Jesus instructed.

There’s an old hymn, a perfect hymn for this season of Lent, that reminds me of the journey Jesus took on his way to the cross, and the journey we must all take as we “take up our cross” to follow him.

Jesus walked this lonesome valley,

He had to walk it by Himself;

O nobody else could walk it for Him,

He had to walk it by Himself.

We must walk this lonesome valley;

We have to walk it by ourselves.

O, nobody else can walk it for us;

We have to walk it by ourselves.

[1] https://www.urologytimes.com/view/urologist-ranked-as-most-stressful-job-in-united-states

[2] https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/1875-stressful-careers.html

[3] https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/be_your_best/page/top-10-stressful-jobs-america-14355387

[4]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827523/#:~:text=Hematohidrosis%20also%20known%20as%20hematidrosis,or%20emotional%20stress.%5B1%5D