Easter Devotional - Day 4: The Gospel's Power in Prayer

On this day we consider the agony of Jesus as He plead with His Father in the cold garden night. We are told that His prayer was so painfully intense that it caused physical damage to our precious Savior's body even before His torturers began their work. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground (Luke 22:44). Medical News Today reports that tremendous stress can, in rare occasions, cause a condition known as hematidrosis or bleeding through the pores. The heart pounds, blood pressure rises to dangerous levels and blood vessels burst as pores drip crimson sweat.
 
What could be the subject of such stressfully agonizing prayer? The writer of Hebrews helps us with the answer: In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence (Hebrews 5:7). Now at first glance we are tempted to believe that Jesus was simply afraid to die. But Jesus’ prayer was that He be “saved from death”. You see, He knew that He was about to take the sin of the world, the wages of which are death. And His Father would have to forsake Him when that sin was put upon Him. Death without God, takes on a particularly dreadful fear. And of course the Father heard His prayer because of His reverence. Though forsaken as He became sin for us, He who knew no sin, entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly (2Cor. 5:21) (2Peter 2).

Let us go this day to a private place, close the door and plead earnestly with new found reverence for those whom we know and love who are facing the certainty of death without God.