The Cross He Bore - Strengthened to Suffer

This is the third day of our thirteen days spent reading The Cross He Bore by Frederick Leahy. Today’s text is from Luke 22:43: “And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.”

In this chapter Leahy writes about the angel who comforted Christ and shows that the angel not only brought comfort, but that he strengthened Christ for the greater pain and torment he was about to endure. “The angel’s presence served to aggravate his suffering.” Here is a passage that stood out to me:

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There was an outstretched hand, his Father’s hand—even in the darkness—and Christ knew it. Initially the presence of the angel must have brought some modicum of comfort to the Sufferer. It came at a moment when unaided human nature could no longer take the strain. It was a critical moment. Christ knew that his sorrow was “unto death” and as Dr Frederick Godet remarks, this was “no figure of rhetoric.” But it was not the Father’s will that the Saviour should die in the garden, and just as after the temptation in the wilderness angels ministered to him (Matt. 4:11), so now he was strengthened by an angel. How strange is the sight! A creature sent to minister to the Creator! But then, as man he “for a little while was made lower than the angels” (Heb. 2:9). Here the theologians run out of answers. Mercifully so! There is a place for mystery. There is need for ground on which, in a unique sense, one walks by faith and not by sight. Bishop Ryle says well of Christ’s experience in Gethsemane, “It is a depth which we have no line to fathom.”

For one fleeting moment immense joy must have leaped within Christ’s soul as the Father’s hand touched him. This was a message from home. Heaven was behind him. He was forsaken, but not disowned. His Father was there, somewhere in the darkness. His loud cries and tears had not been unnoticed.