So, what was troubling Jesus so much? That’s what he said. "Now my soul is troubled." That’s the specific word he used. What could be so bad that it troubled Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Lords? This is deep trouble he’s hinting at. Not just worry. Not just nervousness. Not anxiety. The word he used was "troubled." That’s a sledgehammer word. It’s strong, heavy, hard-hitting, like metal on metal. Have you ever been troubled that deeply?

Have you ever been in trouble? Not just the kind of trouble you get in when you break curfew, or the kind of trouble you get in when you get a ticket. I mean, real trouble. "My-soul-is-troubled," kind of trouble.

A friend of mine is in trouble. He became involved in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a client. She prosecuted him. He plea-bargained for five years of probation. His face now appears on the Texas Department of Justice website for sexual offenders. His life, as he knew it, is over. He is in deep trouble.

What was troubling Jesus so badly? This sounds like someone who just heard the words, "It’s terminal." Like another friend, who faced forced termination. He saw it coming and couldn’t stop it. He was like that damsel in distress, tied to the railroad tracks in the old black-and-white silent movies. You remember? The train is bearing down her. The sound of it is drowning out her cries for help. My friend was tied to the tracks. The train was coming. He screamed for help. It hit him anyway. And, worse than killing him, it just shoved him out of the way into irrelevance.

Just the other day, he called. For the first time in years I heard the first whimpering sounds of spring in his voice. Like the first bud on the tree. Or, the first bluebonnets on the roadside, before the whole hill explodes with life. It’s not summertime in his soul yet, but there is the bud of hope.

Jesus also talks about that kind of hope. He talks about seeds that die, having fallen into the ground, that reproduce much fruit, many seeds. There is Easter in Jesus’ words here. He makes a promise. The promise to all of us that our lives have potential beyond themselves. "If it dies," he said. If we die, to ourselves, then we have the potential to reproduce much more than just ourselves. That’s the promise of eternal hope. "A man who loses his life now," Jesus said, "keeps it for eternity." Life, gospel life, is full of paradoxes. Only those who die, live. Only those who lose, keep.

Bob Heath reminded me a couple of Sundays ago of a line from the movie, Walk the Line, about Johnny Cash’s life. I’ve not seen it yet, but I had heard this line. Someone in the movie asks June Carter Cash what she is doing with her life. She said, "I’m just trying to matter." Jesus makes this phenomenal promise to us. We have the potential of mattering for eternity. "But now," he says, "now, my soul is troubled."

There’s the ring here of something Tony Campolo is famous for saying in his sermon, "It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming." It’s about the Friday that Jesus died before the Easter Sunday resurrection. The darkness, the death, the grief of Friday. It’s Friday. There’s the promise of Sunday, but it’s not here yet. For Jesus, his soul trouble soul is about the fact that he knows there is no way to get to Sunday without first going through Friday. No way over it. No way around it. Only through it. He can see Sunday. That dead seed in the ground, reproducing life. He can see the empty tomb. He can see eternity beyond it. He can see the possibility of an honored, useful, God-honored, God-useful, eternity-honored, eternity-useful, productive life. But Friday is in the way. "Now my soul is troubled."

The writer of Hebrews put it this way. We should look "to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the [Easter] joy that was set before him endured [Friday’s] cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2). This is no bridge over troubled waters. This is granite-like suffering he is going to have to tunnel through, one hour at a time. That’s why Jesus said, "Now my soul is troubled."

There is a way out. There’s an escape hatch, an ejection seat. "What shall I say?" Jesus said. "Father, rescue me from this hour?" He could have, right? We believe that, don’t we? Jesus wasn’t predetermined to die. He wasn’t a robot. He wasn’t a piece on a chessboard, being moved around by some providential force over which he had no control. He had a choice. He could have called those ten thousand angels, or just one, for that matter. "What shall I say?" he said. "Rescue me from this hour, Father? No. For this reason I came to this troubling moment, for this very reason."

Jesus, whatever he would go through on Friday, at least had the good fortune of knowing the purpose of his existence. Most people never do. They go to school, get a job, three-bedroom brick and two and a half kids, a gold watch at retirement, a nice funeral, never knowing why. Everything they’ve ever done was like taking a bite of cotton candy. The promotion, the honors, the awards, sweet only for a second, then nothing. No taste, no nourishment, no substance. Jesus knew why he was here. But, in knowing, he was troubled.

If you had to choose between a troubled existence, in which you at least knew your purpose, and an untroubled life for no reason you could identify, which would you choose? Jesus chose the troubled way. And, the question stands, is that why he was troubled?

He was troubled specifically because he had a choice. Wheat seeds do not have a choice. They either fall or don’t fall, depending on where they are placed by the farmer. They either count or don’t count for reasons over which they have no control. And Jesus said we get to choose between a life lived for us now, that won’t matter beyond the dust of the grave, or a life of dusty travels down troubled roads that will, by the promise of God, matter beyond the grave. It’s our choice.

Making that choice is not easy. It troubled Jesus. It troubled the walking-on-water, raising-from-the-dead, lame-to-whole, leprosy-to-clean, power-working, miracle-wonder-working Jesus. How in the world would we ever think we would escape the trouble?

You can get in trouble for other reasons. For reasons that don’t matter, by the way. But, the kind of trouble, soul-saving, eternity-mattering trouble, is a choice we have to make. Just like Jesus, for those who choose to follow him, there is no way to get to Sunday’s resurrection without going through Friday’s crucifixion.

Which begs the question for all of us. If we call ourselves Christians, in the 21st Century Baptist, middle-America sense of the word, if we call ourselves Christians, but we have never had to make one choice about Jesus that in any way, shape, or form, troubled us to our soul, is it possible that, though we call ourselves Christians, we’ve never actually become a follower of Jesus? Is it possible to be saved but never converted?

If someone were to ask you what the Christian confession is, what would you say? You might say, "Jesus is Lord." That’s true. But, here’s another one you could add to the list. This is also a Christian confession. "Now my soul is troubled." All this loving, dying, forgiving, serving, shirt-and-cloak, extra-mile-going, jail-visiting, hungry-feeding, naked-clothing, orphan-loving stuff hurts. When you get that close to human suffering with the intention of making a redemptive difference, it gets soul-troubling in a hurry.

It was Jesus’ confession. It was the confession of our Lord before Sunday. Just before Friday, he confessed, from his own mouth, his own heart, Jesus said, "Now my soul is troubled."

That was Jesus’ confession. Is it yours?