Blood, Sweat and Tears

"His sweat was like drops of blood"

Luke 22:44

I re-read, recently, the gospel accounts of Jesus' crucifixion, and what went beforehand, and something struck me in a  new way.  I was focused on this verse in Luke:  "Being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground."  This is a detail mentioned only in Luke's gospel.  Why?  Luke was a physician, and his goal, as stated in the first chapter of his gospel, was to carefully investigate everything from the beginning, and write an orderly account, as only a physician could.

Sweating blood is a phenomenon that has been well-studied.  There is a rare condition called hemato-hydrosis, in which blood can come from the sweat glands during times of great stress or anxiety.  I'm guessing this is the scientific explanation for what happened to Jesus, but it makes it sound like it was an uncontrolled response on the part of His body, and I really don't think that was the case.

If you look through the Bible, in the places where blood is mentioned, you'll invariably find it has to do with one of three things:  sacrifices, battles, or water being turned to blood.  Jesus' agony, in the garden and on the cross, touches on all three.

Throughout Scripture, we see blood shed in battles, and Jesus' blood connects to these battles, because His death on the cross was the ultimate victory, though blood is still being shed, and will be shed in battles yet to come.  But the victory was won, and death was conquered by Jesus giving His life for our sins.

In Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the priests are instructed to either sprinkle the blood of a sacrifice on the people, on the top and sides of the altar; and/or pour the blood on the ground at the base of the altar.  Jesus bled when He was scourged; He bled from the nails pounded into His flesh, and from the thorns driven into His head.  And in the garden, His blood fell to the ground with His sweat.

Exodus 12:21-23 "Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb.  Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and both sides of the doorframe."  The sacrificial Lamb.  And did you know that hyssop was also used by the soldiers to quench Jesus' thirst as He hung on the cross?

The other context in which we see blood mentioned in Scripture, is of blood and water.  In both the Old and New Testaments, we see occasions of water being turned to blood, but do you remember when they came together at Jesus' crucifixion?   John 19:34 ~ "... one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water."

Jesus gave His own life, as it says in the gospels.  He called out in a loud voice, "Father, into Your hands, I commit My Spirit," and He breathed His last.  We know that He could have brought down angels to protect Himself.  He could have made His skin impenetrable.  He could have anesthetized His own pain.  But Isaiah prophesied, "He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth."  And it came to pass.

But today's verse, in Luke, emphasized to me not Jesus' voluntary death, but His bleeding.  Because even though He bled from what the soldiers did to Him, first He gave up His blood.  The blood of the Sacrifice was sprinkled on the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane before the soldiers laid a hand on Him.  Theologian Charles Spurgeon wrote, "if one's cheeks pale, the blood has gone inward as if to nourish the inner man... but Jesus was so utterly oblivious of Himself that instead of His agony driving His blood to the heart to nourish Himself, it drove it outward."  That, too, was His choice.

1 John 5:6 says, "This is the One who came by water and blood ~ Jesus Christ.  He did not come by water only, but by water and blood."

Jesus said, "This cup is the new covenant, in My blood; do this whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me."  I pray that He will cause us to remember that His sacrifice was more than just death, it was a painful death, as was the agony that went before it.  It was the blood in the Garden, and the blood on the cross, all willingly shed, for us.

~ "When the centurion saw what had happened, 

he glorified God, saying, 

"Surely this was a righteous Man!" ~

Luke 23:47