I’ve read about Jesus’ crucifixion many times, and I’ve heard the words that He died for our sins more times than I could count. But often, I find myself stopping to consider what those words actually mean.
It’s one thing to know that Jesus died on the cross. It’s another to think about everything He endured leading up to His death, especially knowing that He was fully aware of what was coming.
When I read Matthew 26:36–46, the account of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, I find myself thinking about something that’s difficult to fully comprehend. Here was the Son of God, who had willingly come into this world to save us, experiencing tremendous anguish over what He was about to face.
And what makes it even more remarkable to me is that He had the power to stop it.
The Anguish in the Garden
Jesus had already told His disciples what was going to happen. He would be betrayed, handed over to the religious authorities, mocked, flogged, and crucified. None of this would catch Him by surprise.
Yet when He entered the Garden of Gethsemane with His disciples, Matthew tells us that He became sorrowful and troubled.
“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
— Matthew 26:38 (NIV)
Those are powerful words coming from Jesus, and I think they’re worth spending some time with.
We believe Jesus was fully God and fully human, but sometimes I wonder whether we really consider what that means. His humanity wasn’t simply an appearance. The sorrow and distress He experienced were genuine, and He knew the physical suffering that awaited Him. Beyond that, He was preparing to bear the weight of humanity’s sin.
Matthew tells us that Jesus went a little farther, fell with His face to the ground, and prayed to His Father.
“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
— Matthew 26:39 (NIV)
I find that moment incredibly moving because it reveals both the depth of His anguish and His willingness to submit to the Father’s will. Jesus wasn’t pretending that what lay ahead would be easy, nor was He hiding what He felt. He expressed His sorrow openly in prayer.
Luke’s account also describes His anguish as so intense that His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:44). Whether that description refers to literal blood or emphasizes the intensity of His suffering, it gives us another glimpse of what He was experiencing.
The more I read these accounts, the more I find myself thinking about the tremendous weight of what Jesus knew He was about to face.
Jesus Had the Power to Stop What Was Coming
Something else that strikes me about this account is that Jesus wasn’t helpless. When Judas arrived with the men sent to arrest Him, John’s Gospel records an extraordinary moment.
Jesus stepped forward and asked whom they were looking for. When they answered that they were seeking Jesus of Nazareth, He identified Himself.
“When Jesus said, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.”
— John 18:6 (NIV)
John tells us that Judas arrived with a detachment of soldiers and officials carrying weapons. We aren’t told exactly how many men were there, but this was an armed group sent to take Jesus into custody. And when He identified Himself, they drew back and fell to the ground.
John doesn’t tell us exactly why they fell, but think about what happened. Armed men came to arrest Jesus, and when He identified Himself, they drew back and fell to the ground. To me, that’s a powerful glimpse of who they were dealing with—and a reminder that Jesus was anything but helpless.
Then something else happened that I find just as extraordinary. Peter drew his sword and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his ear. Luke tells us that Jesus stopped the violence, touched the man’s ear, and healed him (Luke 22:50–51).
Here were men who had come to arrest Jesus, and in the middle of everything that was happening, He took the time to heal one of them.
When Peter attempted to defend Him, Jesus also made it clear that He didn’t need anyone fighting on His behalf.
“Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”
— Matthew 26:53 (NIV)
Think about what Jesus was saying. He could have called upon His Father for an overwhelming force of angels, yet He willingly allowed Himself to be arrested.
The men who came for Him weren’t overpowering someone who had exhausted His ability to resist. Jesus was allowing these events to unfold so that the Scriptures would be fulfilled.
Understanding that changes how I look at everything that followed.
This Isn’t How We Would Have Written the Story
There’s something about the Bible that I’ve thought about many times. If someone were inventing a story about a great hero, especially one claiming to be the Son of God, would they really write it this way?
Think about how we normally tell stories. The hero faces his enemies, demonstrates his strength, and emerges victorious. We expect the good guy to win in a way everyone can recognize.
But the Gospel accounts tell us something very different.
Jesus is overwhelmed with sorrow in a garden. His closest disciples fall asleep when He asks them to keep watch, one of His own betrays Him, and Peter denies even knowing Him. The others scatter, and Jesus is eventually mocked, beaten, and crucified.
What I find remarkable is that the Gospel writers don’t try to hide any of this. They openly record Jesus’ anguish, the failures of His closest followers, and the humiliation He endured. These aren’t necessarily the details someone would choose if they were trying to invent a convincing story about an all-powerful Savior.
Of course, that alone doesn’t prove the accounts are true. But I think it’s something worth considering. The Gospel writers included events that must have been difficult for even the disciples to understand, rather than presenting the kind of triumphant hero we might have expected.
And to me, that’s one more reason these accounts deserve to be taken seriously.
What Looked Like Defeat Wasn’t Defeat
I sometimes wonder what the religious leaders who opposed Jesus thought when He was finally arrested and crucified. They had wanted Him silenced, and now He was dead. From their perspective, it must have appeared that they had succeeded.
Even Jesus’ own followers struggled to understand what had happened. The One they believed was the Messiah had been executed, and everything must have seemed terribly uncertain.
But Jesus had already predicted His suffering, death, and resurrection. What appeared to be the destruction of everything He had begun was actually part of God’s plan from the beginning.
And this is where the story turns upside down.
The victory didn’t come through Jesus destroying those who opposed Him. It came through His willingness to give His life and His triumph over death.
The cross wasn’t evidence that God had lost control. It was central to how He chose to save us, and the resurrection revealed what those watching the crucifixion couldn’t yet see.
Jesus had accomplished what none of us could ever accomplish for ourselves.
We couldn’t earn our way back to God or somehow make ourselves righteous enough through our own efforts. That’s why we needed a Savior, and why Jesus came into this world for something far greater than simply teaching us how to become better people.
He came to rescue us from sin and death through something only He could do.
Understanding what Jesus did for us is one thing. But it also raises a personal question: What do we do with that knowledge? That’s something I explore further in Now That You Know Who Jesus Is—What Are You Going to Do With Him?
I don’t think any of us would have imagined writing the story that way.
When I Think About What He Endured
I’ve spent a good portion of my life around people who were suffering. One thing experience teaches you is that it’s easy to describe an event in a few sentences without conveying what the people involved actually went through.
And I sometimes wonder whether I do that when I read about the crucifixion.
I can read that Jesus was scourged, mocked, crowned with thorns, and nailed to a cross. I understand what those words mean, but when I stop and really consider what happened to Him, those words become much harder to move past.
I’ve seen The Passion of the Christ, and while a film can only offer a portrayal of those events, it can make you consider the physical reality of suffering that is easy to read past on a page. Yet even that cannot fully capture what Jesus endured.
I’ll admit that when I think about it for any length of time, I can get choked up. Because I believe He did that for me, and for all of us who have sinned and fallen short.
Not because I earned it, deserved it, or could ever repay Him.
Sometimes I think we’ve become so familiar with the words Jesus died for our sins that we can say them without giving much thought to what they cost. I know I’ve done that myself.
And then I return to Gethsemane and picture Jesus in that garden, face to the ground, praying to His Father. He knew what awaited Him, and He understood the suffering He was about to endure. Yet He willingly went forward because He was carrying out the Father’s plan to save us.
It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever fully wrap my mind around. But the more I consider what happened in that garden and everything that followed, the more those familiar words take on a deeper meaning.
He died for me.
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