Crazy Love

On the danger of reasonable temptations and the outrageous victory of Easter.

“For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, … was not ‘Yes’ and ‘No,' but in Him it has always been ‘Yes.” (2 Cor. 1:19)

In an early scene of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, actor Jim Caviezel portrays Jesus praying and sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane. As He rocks back and forth on His knees, agonized by His impending crucifixion, the camera pans to a menacing, androgynous figure in the shadows whispering temptations:

No one man can carry this burden ... It is far too heavy … too costly. No one. Ever.

No. Never.

I haven’t watched The Passion since it debuted more than twenty years ago. But on Holy Thursday, remembering its powerful depiction of the Agony in the Garden, I called it up to screen that scene again. As I did, I was struck by something I’d missed the first time around: the chilling reasonableness of what Satan whispers in Christ’s ear.

It was too much for a mere man.

It was too costly, too heavy, too hard.

In today’s popular parlance, it was unnecessary trauma, a boundary violation, a toxic situation to be embraced only by a pathological codependent who had utterly failed to show up for himself.

And what’s worse, it was done for people who, by and large, wouldn’t care. People who would yawn at the notion that He died for them; people who would mock and jeer like the Roman soldiers at the strangeness or silliness of His sacrifice; people who would profess to follow Him only to betray Him, again and again, in word and deed.

It was crazy to love us that much.

Yet Jesus did it anyway.

Now here am I, plodding through my own trials with far less trust and patience, hearing those same reasonable whispers whenever the suffering gets too intense:

No one can carry this burden. … It is far too heavy … too costly … No.

Sometimes I hear them in my fallen mind, the one that tells me I need to be sensible and look out for myself and never take on more than I can handle. Good Christians acknowledge their limits, right? Do I think I’m better than others, that I can handle something that’s clearly more than any rational person would put up with or take on?

Sometimes I hear them from others around me, well-meaning souls like the ones who scolded Jesus for prophesying His Passion: Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you” (Matt. 16: 22).

Sometimes I hear them from our therapeutic culture, the one that tells me self-care comes first and I should be living my best life now and “you are enough.” If the cross I’m carrying is more than I can carry alone, and it’s making me miserable, then it must be outsourced to someone else or dropped altogether. Who am I to think I can do something so hard, and succeed where so many others have failed?

The scary thing about these temptations is that they make a certain sense. Christians do need to admit our weakness and accept our limits. Faith doesn’t guarantee we’ll see shiny, happy endings to every trial on earth. And caring for myself is part of God’s will for me; I can’t be much help to others if I’m an exhausted trainwreck myself.

Yet the Devil has a way of using sensible notions to obscure deeper, more profound truths. Sometimes God calls me to cry “uncle” and drop the reins of a struggle that has clearly run its course. But other times He calls me to stay in the fight, to keep hanging on long past the time or stage that seems reasonable. He works through my exhaustion and brokenness to more vividly display His power and glory. He invites me to hit my knees each morning and beg for the strength that only He can give me to survive whatever is coming my way—and maybe, if it be His will, to gain a few inches of ground for His kingdom in a battle that’s not going to end anytime soon.

He also calls me to talk back to temptations—including the reasonable ones. When I hear those whispers saying that He’s asking too much, that it’s not fair or right I should suffer so much or so long or spend so much of myself on what feels like a lost cause, He challenges me to answer as Jesus answered Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do” (Matt. 16: 23). He bids me to turn and face my trials with the boldness of a beloved daughter of the Most High King, one who knows that the time has come to “stand erect and raise your heads, because your redemption is at hand” (Luke 21: 28).

The fact is, I’ve never been equal to the heaviest trials of my life, and I never will be. I am not enough.

But Jesus is.

He is enough to get me through this cross, and the next one, and the next. He is enough to give me hope when my frail, human reasoning sees despair as the only logical option. He is enough to bring me victory in the end, even if I can’t fully see or savor that victory in this life.

With Jesus beside me—as He always is, and never more so than in those dark hours when the weight of the cross feels crushing—I have all I need. As the old formula goes, “Jesus + Nothing = Everything.” The God for whom nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37) doesn’t need my strength; He wants only my cooperation and trust. My yes.

My favorite part of that garden scene in The Passion comes after Jesus has given the Father His own yes, praying to “let Your will be done, not Mine.” He collapses into the dirt, weeping under the full weight of what He has consented to, before slowly struggling to His feet. The viewer is surprised to see Him suddenly turn and face the tempter we thought He couldn’t see, who has sent a snake to coil around His sandals, ready to bite.

Jesus locks eyes with the demon, raises His foot, and stomps the serpent. Then He marches out to face His hour and do His Father’s will, to show us on Calvary how to love beyond reason and give too much. And to teach us by His Easter victory that His death-destroying, unreasonable love will make every last bit of our own Calvary worth it in the end.