Waiting, The Gethsemane Experience and Excited Anticipation

"Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and His disciples followed him. On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground."  Luke 22: 39-44

That’s how Doctor Luke describes the depth of agony Jesus experienced as He waited in Gethsemane for arrest, torture and crucifixion.

It appears that Jesus’ emotional stress was so great that He excreted bloodied sweat, a condition known as hematidrosis or hemohidrosis. In extreme stress tiny capillaries in the sweat glands can rupture, causing sweat and blood to mingle  – a condition Doctor Luke was very likely aware of. 
about hematidrosis

Waiting can be agony and often waiting for the thing is even harder than the thing itself.

Last Saturday my friend texted me to say her husband was having unexpected and major brain surgery on Monday. Eleven hours of surgery awaited him and on Monday she was waiting, waiting for him to go in, waiting for him to come out, a Gethsemane  experience. Agony.

I’ve had the experience myself, waiting, waiting in an ante-room as my father was given treatment for a heart attack, the outcome being so unsure.

Waiting can be a 'Gethsemane' experience.

Yet, not all waiting is bad. We’re waiting for a New Earth, for the mortal to be swallowed up by immortality, for the untold splendours of eternity.  Now, that’s a different kind of waiting. The sting of dread is not present; waiting is marked by excited anticipation.

I remember this latter kind of waiting when I was at boarding school. Not having seen my parent for several weeks, the excitement of seeing them again built up so the heart itself raced and time seemed to move slower; it was a waiting game. Then the sound of the old familiar school buzzer that dictated our movements for weeks on end broke the air and we could go; the term was finished.

Sometimes I think about that moment of excitement. It speaks of eternity.  The term has finished, we are released, and the holiday has come.


Does lingering on future excitements and living filled with hope cause us to be wasted idealists? Not according to  CS Lewis who wrote: "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next."

Excited anticipation of eternity puts a different light on present suffering and all our  Gethsemane’s, whether small or great. And yes, my friend’s operation went well. Thank God ...