Matthew 26:45

Then He came to His disciples and said to them “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.”

Matthew 26:45

After their final Passover celebration together, Jesus and His disciples went to pray in Gethsemane.  Jesus and three of his disciples separated from the group and He asked the three to watch while He went off a little farther to pray.  Our passage recounts Jesus returning to the three a third and final time, once again finding them sleeping as in the previous two times. Jesus knew it was time for Him to accomplish His purpose on earth and announced that the time had come for Him to be “betrayed into the hands of sinners.”

How do you think Jesus felt about these sinners who had come to arrest and falsely accuse Him? Did He revile them? No. He loved them, and He later demonstrated this on the cross by praying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 22:34). Sometimes we try to imagine the depth of Jesus’ love for us. Then passages like this come along to make imagining incomprehensible.

Take a moment today to bask in the love of Christ, and then let His love work through you to bless the lives of others.

Pastor Jeff Mericle