During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. (Hebrews 5:7)
One of my recent devotionals struck a chord with many of my readers. The devotional was entitled, “Flickering Faith,” and in it, I challenged what so often seems to be the prevailing notion that men and women of great faith are akin to superheroes with powers far surpassing those of mere mortals.
I’ll be sixty-four in April, and I’ve spent the majority of my years as a pastor-teacher encouraging others in their faith journeys. In my younger years, I fully expected to be one of those superheroes at this point in my life. Who knows, maybe I am, but it sure doesn’t feel that way!
In many ways, as I’ve grown older and faced more and more of life’s challenges, I have, at times, experienced what I can only describe as a faltering faith, a faith teetering on the brink of total collapse.
I think that’s why this verse in Hebrews means so much to me. Like our misconception of faith as some kind of superpower, we tend to view Jesus’ earthly life as one completely distinct from our own. But when I read the words of Hebrews 5:7, I come face to face with a fellow human being whose life on earth is described as filled with fervent cries and tears, and it sounds all too familiar.
Having shared that with you, I want to return to our theme for Holy Week, found in our devotionals and the podcasts accompanying them - the darkness and death Jesus’ experienced at Golgotha, the “Place of the Skull.”
Before his final demonstration of the perfect faith that revealed him as the sinless Son of God, our Lord suffered greatly in the Garden of Gethsemane. When we pause and reflect on the agony and absolute misery of Jesus at Gethsemane, we see that faith in its finest hour looks less like a superhero and more like a weak and desperate soul crying out to God.
Think about it - the greatest display of faith ever witnessed is seen on a blood-stained cross, where, in the midst of a darkness that covered the land, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith cried out saying, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
Lord Jesus, thank you that in my struggles with what so often seems to be a faltering faith, your cross reminds me that genuine faith is neither glamorous nor attractive. As you submitted yourself to the will of the Father, enduring the cross and despising its shame, I submit myself to you in all my struggles, pain, and weakness knowing that even when I feel abandoned, you are there.
In Christ,
Dan