Deeply grieved
“My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death” Matthew 26:38
Deeply grieved – Many years ago I stood on the shore of Puget Sound on a cold, bitter Seattle day. The gray water reflected my gray life. That day the faculty at the University of Washington told me that they didn’t think I had what it took to be in their doctoral program. My dream of academic teaching, the thing I loved most in life, came to a screeching halt. I had no job, huge education bills, two small children and, as far as I could see, no future. I looked out across that choppy, dark water and thought, “Why don’t I just walk out there and let it all go?” All around me was nothing but failure and dashed hopes. Twenty-seven years ago I had my first serious encounter with thoughts of suicide. I learned the meaning of “deeply grieved to the point of death”.
We need to put aside our Pollyanna versions of Jesus and listen to what he says in this verse. The word in Greek is perilupos. It means surrounded by sorrow. A 360-degree view of imminent peril, desperate circumstances and hopelessness. No matter which way you turn, you just see that terrible gray slipping into black. Jesus is the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. And in this moment, perilupos is getting the upper hand in his life.
Seattle has the highest suicide rate in the nation. Maybe it’s the endless gray days and interminable rain. Maybe it’s the fact that Seattle is poised on the edge of the North Pacific, clinging for its life to a sand and gravel shoreline. Maybe it’s just the last possible corner before there is no place else to go. Of course, we can experience my Seattle version of perilupos anywhere. Jesus encountered Seattle gray in an olive garden just outside Jerusalem.
Have you ever come to the 360-degree end of yourself? That time when you did a long, slow turn and discovered that the horizon was hopeless in every direction. Death closed in around Jesus. He knew it was coming. He lived his entire life to bring about this event. But as it arrived, it still brought fear and despair and body-shaking sorrow. He faced a different kind of death than anything you or I will ever face. He faced a death that would separate him from God; a death that would literally tear the fabric of the universe in two.
I made it past that gray day on the Seattle shore. I made it because 2000 years ago another man who was surrounded by sorrow made a choice to rescue me instead of him. Jesus changed perilupos into perilampo – glory shining all around (Luke 2:9).
