1.3×10^25 lbs.  Or if you prefer metric, 6×10^24 kgs. That is how much the world weighs.  Certainly, that is exponentially more than even Internet sensation, Anatoly can deadlift.  But when we talk about ‘carrying the weight of the world,’ we have something else in mind. 

No doubt, you have heard the expression. Maybe experienced it.  Or seen it etched indelibly in the furrowed countenance of friend.  Carrying the weight of the world.  Drawn from the story of Atlas in Greek mythology, we use this expression to describe the “struggle with an immense or particularly worrisome burden or responsibility.” 

Guilt, debt, grief, failure, disappointment and loneliness are just a few crushing burdens.  And often responsibility makes demands on us that exceed our ability, endurance, resources or courage.  It’s like we are carrying the weight of the world with no one to share the load.  Stress, depression, sleeplessness and sickness threaten to take control.

But of all the weights that weigh us down, none is more unbearable than our sin.  We get a sense of this in Paul’s lament from Romans 7:24 when he considers his struggle against his own sin, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  And from the Psalmist in Psalm 13 who cries out.

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
    and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

Or even the more plaintive opening to Psalm 130.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?

But these are not the last words.  The Psalmist concludes.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
    from all his iniquities.

And Paul exclaims, “Thanks be to God through out Lord Jesus Christ.  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”   Sin is an unbearable curse, but in God’s mercy he has provided a sin-bearer, someone to carry a weight greater than the weight of the world, the weight of God’s justice.

Gethsemane, the “olive press,” paints this promise in bold strokes as we see both the horror of sin and the power of our savior intersecting in one of the only recorded prayers of Jesus in Mark’s gospel.  Following Jesus’ temptation at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, Luke records, “when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.”  Gethsemane is the “opportune time.”  A time of testing so severe that Jesus sweat drops of blood and cried out to God with “prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who has able to save him from death.” (Hebrews 5:7)

Redemption is wrought through the cross and empty tomb, but victory begins in the Garden of Gethsemane.  In stark contrast, we see the crushing horror of God’s justice for sin and the sufficiency of Christ alone to save from sin’s curse.  Jesus tells the disciples to “watch” while he goes a little farther and wrestles in prayer, pressed down by the weight of the world’s sin.  And in the same way, we need to watchfully observe what it means to face the judgement for sin and who, alone, can bear it for us.

Thomas Kelly’s hymn, “Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted” offers a needful warning.

Ye who think of sin but lightly
    nor suppose the evil great
here may view its nature rightly,
    here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed,
    see who bears the awful load;
’tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed,
   Son of Man and Son of God.

Have you thought of sin but lightly, not supposed its evil great?  Have you viewed its nature rightly, fully its guilt to estimate?   Has your sin felt to you like the weight of the world?  Join us as we examine Mark 14:32-52 and consider both the crushing weight of sin-bearing and the sufficient strength of our sin-bearer.  We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.