and his sweat became like great drops of blood
falling down upon the ground.”
Luke 22:44, RSV
Over the years, as I have read or listened to this passage in the account of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the extreme anguish that our Lord suffered as he faced horrifying torture and ignominious death, magnified the severe human stress that Jesus experienced. While that is perfectly true, there is a deeper reality taking place here.
According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, every act of Jesus in his passion should be read missionally. This second Adam in a second garden begins the reversal of the disobedience of the first Adam through his perfect, voluntary obedience to death. His blood falling to the ground sanctifies this new garden, and in doing so, begins the restoration of the created order. And, in his agony, we see the commencement of the self emptying descent of Christ into the very lowest depths of God-forsakenness so as to rescue every last recalcitrant rebel (like you and me).
Patrick Henry Reardon wrote, “Prior to the appearance of his betrayer, then, the Lord already begins the shedding of his blood. He pours it out in the struggle of obedience, before a single hand has been laid upon him. In Luke, the agony in the garden is not a prelude to the Passion, but its very commencement, because Jesus’ stern determination to accomplish the Father’s will causes his blood to flow for our redemption.”
Jesus’ voluntary agony as he begins his passion is all for our benefit. St. Gregory Nazianzen famously wrote, “What has not been assumed has not been healed.” In Christ’s incarnation, passion and glorious resurrection, our stresses, dysfunctions, sins and disobediences have been assumed and healed for all time.
Thanks be to God. May you and yours have a blessed Triduum.