IT WAS THE WORST night of His life. He knew He would soon be dying, but that wasn’t what troubled Him. He feared that His human nature would not be strong enough to endure the painful road ahead of Him. If He failed at His mission, the fate of humanity would be lost in sin forever. The weight of the world was literally on His shoulders. The blood dripping from His forehead and His distorted face were clear signs of the torment He was facing.
He was about to do the most selfless thing anyone has ever done. He would willingly be taken as a prisoner, beaten, and put to death in the most torturous way imaginable. Two millennia later, well-meaning Christians would point to this death as an example of why Jesus’ followers should allow themselves to stay in situations of mistreatment and abuse.
Yet as we take a deeper look at the story of this worldchanging event and the life that Jesus led before this moment, we begin to understand that even selfless living can take place in a state of being that modern psychologists refer to as having healthy boundaries. To understand what we mean by healthy boundaries, let’s contrast this phrase with the two extremes humans tend to embrace: rigid boundaries and porous boundaries.
Someone who lives with rigid boundaries avoids intimacy and relationships and has few close friends. They’re unlikely to ask for help and are quite protective of personal information, coming across as detached. This person keeps others at a distance to avoid rejection. In contrast, someone who lives with porous boundaries overshares personal information and is over-involved with other people’s problems. They have a hard time saying “no” to others, fearing rejection if they don’t
comply. They are dependent on the opinions of others and accepting of abuse or disrespect.
Somewhere between these two extremes we find healthy boundaries. Someone with healthy boundaries values their own opinions and doesn’t compromise their values for others. They are appropriate in how they share their personal information, neither over- nor under-sharing. They are able to communicate their personal wants and needs and can accept when others say no to them.
CLUES IN GETHSEMANE
With these ideas in mind, let’s revisit the scene in Gethsemane as described by Ellen White: “The human heart longs for sympathy in suffering. This longing Christ felt to the very depths of His being. In the supreme agony of His soul He came to His disciples with a yearning desire to hear some words of comfort from those whom He had so often blessed and comforted, and shielded in sorrow and distress. The One who had always had words of sympathy for them was now suffering
superhuman agony, and He longed to know that they were praying for Him and for themselves” (The Desire of Ages, p. 687).
We see right away that He doesn’t have rigid boundaries. If He had, He would have tried to soldier through alone. But He has brought His three closest disciples to pray with Him. At first glance, we may think He has porous boundaries. After all, He has done a lot for these disciples, and now He is hoping for a little consideration in return.
But there are two clues that let us know this is not the case:
• He tells them what He needs, asking them to pray for Him (see Matthew 26:38).
• He responds to their failure with compassion and understanding, offering an excuse for their weakness as He comments, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).
These actions reveal a mindset of healthy boundaries. These boundaries did not change His kind actions toward His disciples, but He was able to accept the reality that they were not strong enough to repay Him for His kindness in the way He would have liked. This night in Gethsemane is not the first time we have seen Jesus demonstrate healthy boundaries. In fact, there are many instances of boundary-setting that we see in Jesus’ life. Let’s take a look at a few of those instances as recorded in the Gospels.
BOUNDARIES IN MINISTRY
He didn’t help everyone. Though Jesus freely healed many people, Matthew records that on a visit to Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, He didn’t perform a lot of miracles due to the people’s unbelief. (See Matthew 13:58.)
He had expectations for those He was healing. He encouraged the healthy behavior of asking for what they needed, sometimes asking prodding questions to get the person to the place of requesting help, such as “What do you want Me to do
for you?” (Matthew 20:32) or “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6). Several of His healings involved actions on the part of the recipient, such as telling a lame man to “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house” (Matthew 9:6) or telling the
blind man to wash clay from his eyes in the pool of Siloam (John 9:7).
He didn’t allow Himself to be manipulated. Peter, like most everyone, wanted Jesus to become king. When Jesus tried to tell His disciples of the path ahead of Him that would take Him to Calvary, Peter tried to talk Him out of it. Jesus’ response to Peter was quite strong. “Get behind Me, Satan!” He declared. “You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” (Matthew 16:23).
He didn’t give in to demands to prove Himself. When the Pharisees and Sadducees asked for a sign, He called them out. “A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign,” He said (Matthew 16:4). Likewise, when He stood in trial
before Herod, He didn’t perform the miracle Herod was hoping to see but stood silently saying nothing.
He didn’t give in to family demands. When His mother and brothers came seeking special recognition, He didn’t respond to them but instead declared that “whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50).
He didn’t allow Himself to be unnecessarily harmed. When His former neighbors were about to throw Him over a cliff, He slipped away. (See Luke 4:28-30.)
He didn’t give in to baiting questions. When the religious leaders tried to trick Him with questions that seemed to have no right answer, Jesus always found a way around the trap, often asking questions in return rather than simply answering the unanswerable.
He didn’t allow the crowds to control how He spent His time. Luke 5 tells about the crowds that came to hear Him speak and ask for healing. But in verse 16, we catch a glimpse of Jesus setting boundaries in a clear way: “So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.”
FOLLOWING THE FATHER
This leads us to perhaps the most important way that Jesus set boundaries. No matter how busy He was, He always took time to talk to His heavenly Father in prayer.
“Jesus was often found in prayer,” Ellen White tells us. “He resorted to the lonely groves or to the mountains to make His requests known to His Father. When the business and cares of the day were ended, and the weary were seeking rest, Jesus devoted the time to prayer. . . . Fervent and effectual prayer is always in place, and will never weary. Such prayer interests and refreshes all who have a love for devotion” (Counsels for the Church, p. 293).
It is often said that we cannot give what we don’t have. What Jesus had to give to the world was something He could not get from the world. To be filled with the gifts He was to share with humanity, He needed to spend time with the Father. This was most important. Even if He had to take a step away from His work in order to spend this crucial time in prayer, this was a practice He had to hold on to. Without this prayer time, He might not have succeeded in the mission He had come to earth to accomplish.
Speaking of Christ’s mission, how do we reconcile the healthy boundaries Jesus maintained through His earthly life with the abuse He allowed Himself to endure as “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opened not His mouth” (Acts 8:32)?
First, let’s take a look at who He was being obedient to as He followed the path to the cross. It wasn’t the rulers—He refused to answer Herod’s questions. It wasn’t the religious leaders—He refused to prove His divinity by coming down from the cross as they demanded. The One He was following was God. This was the key component in the plan He and the Father had put together to save the human race, and Jesus was now following through with the plan.
And that leads us to the next thing we need to ask ourselves: Why was He allowing this? Was He allowing the abuse for the sake of abuse? Was He merely enabling His abusers in their sin? No, He had a greater purpose. He was walking this path so that one day we would all be free of abuse and pain and all the other consequences sin has brought to our planet.
As we study the life of Jesus, we can learn how best to live selfless lives while setting healthy boundaries. We can learn how to show kindness for the sake of kindness rather than in an effort to please people and obtain favor. We can learn where to draw lines to allow us to continue serving others without burning out. We can learn to differentiate between sacrifice with a purpose and sacrifice that causes harm to others as well as ourselves.
By following Jesus’ example, we can set boundaries, not for selfish purposes, but so that we may continue giving, and serving, and loving for years to come.
