Sweating Blood

And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.  (Luke 22: 44)

Of the four gospels describing the ministry of Jesus Christ, only Luke’s account includes the stunning detail that Jesus sweated blood while praying in Gethsemane.  This detail is quite illustrative in conveying the depth of despair Jesus was feeling just prior to His arrest.  Mark describes Him as being “deeply distressed and troubled,” and in Matthew 26, Jesus says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (v. 38).

It's very fitting that Luke - a physician - chose to include this detail in describing the depth of despair Jesus felt.  The sweating of blood is a very rare medical phenomenon called hematidrosis, which can occur under extreme stress or if someone suffers from a blood disorder.  Blood vessels from within burst and blood seeps through the pores of the skin much like droplets of sweat.  Perhaps the most stunning fact about hematidrosis is that it renders the skin and underlying flesh especially tender and vulnerable to injury.  This means that the scourge inflicted on Jesus was likely more painful and caused greater injury than it would have otherwise.  When one considers the extent to which Jesus was whipped and beaten, plus the agony of being nailed to and hung from a cross, plus the fatigue and mental anguish He experienced, well… I would venture to say that none of us can fully appreciate that kind of suffering.

Jesus felt such mental and emotional anguish in Gethsemane because He understood the suffering that He was about to endure.  He had heard and witnessed with human ears and eyes the cruel punishments the Romans inflicted on those who offended them, including crucifixion.  For Jesus to claim to be the Son of God was certainly offensive to them.  But only Jesus could know the severity of pain caused by the physical embodiment of the sins of humanity.  No system of measurement devised by mankind could ever begin to quantify it.  We can’t possibly wrap our minds around it.  But He could.  And He chose it.

The fact is that Jesus loves us so much that He chose to endure pain beyond our imagining, pain inflicted by us.  He loves us so much that He didn’t hesitate to die the cruelest possible death so that we might escape our own much-deserved agony of an eternity separated from God.  He loves us so much that He faithfully followed the will of His Father, who mysteriously, inexplicably believes that you and I are worth it.

Why should we devote ourselves to Jesus?  That's why.  Sweating blood was just the beginning.