It was February 2004, Lyndsay, her parents, and I stepped into a movie theatre. Suddenly, the lights dimmed and we read the screen, “And now, for your feature presentation.” And what we saw next, is one of the most powerful scenes ever in a movie. One of the most powerful ever in life. The greatest story ever lived. About a parent who gave his family a bigger and better story to live. He was so passionately in love with his kids, he was willing to suffer great cost.
The movie? The Passion of Christ. The scene? The Garden of Gethsemane. You see, only one thing can fuel our passion—and that is the passion of Christ.
The phrase ‘Passion of Christ’ refers to the suffering Jesus endured between the last supper and the cross. The word ‘passion’ comes from the Greek word ‘pasco’ meaning ‘to suffer’. You see, passion and suffering go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. They are one in the same. Joined at the hip. To be passionate is to suffer—and to suffer is to be passionate.
You see, when we are passionate about something, we are willing to suffer for it. So what was the passion of Christ? His Father. Honoring and glorifying God His Father. To save us so we could make much of Him. Because, as Jon Piper says, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.”
The Garden of Gethsemane? The word ‘Gethsemane’ literally means ‘olive press’.
Why is this significant? At that time, the Jewish process used to extract olive oil was a laborious one. Whole olives were put into a circular stone basin in which a millstone sat. A donkey or other animal was then harnessed to the millstone and walked in a circle, rolling the stone over the olives and cracking them. The cracked olives were scooped up into burlap bags, which were then stacked beneath a large stone column – a gethsemane. The enormous weight, up to 1,100lbs, forced the precious oil to drip from the fruit into a groove and into a pit at the base of the gethsemane, from which it was collected. The olives were repeatedly crushed to get all the oil out.
You get the picture? Maybe this will help. Matthew’s account describes Jesus that “he began to be sorrowful and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”
Luke’s account describes Jesus as “being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground…he was exhausted from sorrow.”
Mark describes Jesus as being “deeply pressed.”
Now you get the picture? The Son of God got down on His knees and began to experience the weight of what was going to be laid on Him. The weight of our displaced passions. That weight was so incredibly heavy that it squeezed out of Him His own blood. He was heavily pressed. The burden of carrying our sins was enormous. The “olives” are Jesus. The “weight” is us — we are the weight that squeezed the blood out of Jesus.
For 3 hours, Jesus cast himself to the ground—agonizing in prayer. The mental pain, suffering, and agony here is just as crushing as the physical pain on the cross—maybe even more.
In Isaiah 53:2-7,10 we read “He was crushed for our iniquities…it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer.”
Jesus’ suffering glorified His Father.
Jon Piper says “the purpose of God in creating the universe, is to display the greatness of the glory of his grace supremely in the suffering of His son.”
Our suffering glorifies God?
Think about the history of missions for a moment. Today there are 1.4 billion people who profess belief in Jesus Christ—when it started from 12. How did we get there? The answer is suffering. There has never been a breakthrough in an unreached people group or place without suffering. So what is your mission field? Your office. Your home. Your school. Your team. If you want to impact lives, it’s only through sacrifice. Only through pain. Only through passion.
So what’s that one thing? That one area in your life God is pushing you into? That you are avoiding because it’s too painful? Or what’s that worldly passion in your life that is keeping you from the ultimate passion, Jesus? Or what’s that passion in your life that you can start doing not for YOUR name’s sake, but for God’s?
So, have passion.
Like Jesus.