Jesus - Driving Force

Mark 14:32-36

And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

The driving force in Jesus’ life

“Your basic impression will be of a man of action: a man always on the move, always altering situations and precipitating things— working miracles; calling and training disciples; upsetting error that passed as truth and irreligion that passed as godliness; and finally walking straight and open-eyed into betrayal, condemnation, and crucifixion, a freakish sequence of anomalies, which in the oddest way one is made to feel that he himself controlled all along the line.

Your further impression will be of a man who knew himself to be a divine person. Mark makes it clear that the more Jesus gave himself to his disciples, the more of an awesome enigma they found him—the closer they came to him, the less they understood him.

Going on from this, your impression will be of One whose messianic mission centered on his being put to death—One who was consciously and singlemindedly preparing to die in this way long before the idea of a suffering Messiah took hold of anyone else.

Your final impression will be of One for whom this experience of death was the most fearful ordeal…It was because Jesus was to be made sin, and bear God’s judgement on sin, that he trembled in the garden, and because he was actually bearing that judgement that he declared himself forsaken of God on the cross.” In My Place Condemned He Stood - J.I. Packer