by Joe Becker

Pennsylvania Preacher, A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) is quoted to have said, “One passage of Scripture is never enough to establish a doctrine.”

If that view is accurate, then we can hardly expect to establish a doctrine with just one verse of Scripture, much less by setting apart any one word of the Text. Yet a certain value may be attached to that principle when the occasion of a word is found only once in all of Scripture. Unfolding its context and definition does not lessen but endears and deepens the Holy Word and Spirit of God to our hearts.

Each year during the Church’s observance of Lent, I recall the lone reference of the term: “Agony”, as it appears in Luke’s Gospel:

               “…and being in agony, (a struggle), He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44 KJB)

Note, this is the scribes’ only use of the word agony in the entire King James Version of the Bible. It amazes me how Luke would, -with this single word-, preserve the Lord’s Spiritual state and exact for us the very essence of Christ’s heart and mind, in the Garden setting. Being concerned not with His own interests but those of our Father in Heaven, “He prayed more earnestly” Luke22:42 (KJV)

Then it becomes a matter of intrigue to review Luke’s Text from the garden to the grave. Ironically, nowhere does the Physician expound on Jesus’ physical condition. Nowhere does he examine or record the wounds or stripes of the tortured Christ. There is no reference to the scourge from Luke’s account, but it is covered in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John. Similarly, there is no reference to the agony by Matthew, Mark, or John but it is wonderfully cared for by the Doctor/author, Luke.

In keeping with the record of the blood, let us remember without any inadvertence, that Jesus was known as the man of sorrows. Here the Hebrew word for sorrow is used of both physical and mental pain. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah53:3 KJV)

Most merciful Father,

Thank you for so many levels of your provision of love for us. May we say with Jesus, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” Thank you for the outcome of Your will, which is grace and mercy toward us. Thank you, AMEN.