Passion Week of Christ (Part 11)
Jesus in Gethsemane: The Seriousness of Sin

Isaiah 53; Mt 26:30,11-52 36-40; Mk 14:26, 32-42; Lk 22:39-46; Jn 18:1

This is Jesus’ crucible hour. Here he makes his final decision. Will he
go to the cross or not? We know what Jesus is going to do; he always
obeys his Father. But that doesn’t make it one bit easier.

Not since the wilderness temptations has Jesus wrestled so strenuously
with the evil one. Nor has he been so alone since then. Yet, as in the
wilderness, in his deepest pain, God sent an angel to minister to him (Lk
22:43). And as in the wilderness, Jesus resolves to carry out his
mission. From here on out, there will be no vacillation, no more
questions, no turning back.

Death for Jesus Christ was different than death for all other men. In
death Jesus took all the sins of the world upon Himself and stood before
God the Judge and...
·    accepted the verdict of guilty for every man.
·    accepted the penalty and punishment of death for every man.

It is in the word death that the difference lies. Death is not what some
persons conceive it to be: some dreamy state of being; or some euphoric
existence in another world; or the end (disfunctioning) of the body with
only the spirit of one’s work or life left behind in the memory of
others; or simply annihilation.

Death means separation from God and it is this that makes Christ’s death
different from the death of other men. He did not experience death for
one man’s sins; He experienced death for every man’s sins. In
confronting death He experienced unbelievable agony and pain because He
was to be separated from His Father; and the one thing Christ did not
want to face was having to be cut off from His Father. If there was any
other way to save man, He wanted it (His human nature).

This is the terrifying struggle Christ was suffering in the Garden of
Gethsemane—a struggle so terrible that it would have killed Him if God
had not sent an angel to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43).

In His great struggle and persevering prayer, Christ shows us how to
confront death and the terrifying trials of life.
    1.    Background: Christ entered the Garden of Gethsemane (v.36-37).
    2.    He suffered—agonizing grief and pain (v.37-38).
    3.    He turned to God—crying (v.39).
    4.    He stood alone—neglected by His closest friends (v.40-41).
    5.    He continued to pray—agonizing for release (v.42-44).
    6.    He received release—great peace and courage (v.45-46).
He entered with all the disciples except Judas who had already begun his
terrible be-trayal. The disciples were all still with Him. Knowing the
dark hour and terrible tragedy He was about to endure, He was doing all
He could to keep them close to Himself. He wanted them to remember His
great dependence upon God. By having the experience of Gethsemane fresh
in their minds, they would be better able to face their disillusion-ment,
blindness, unbelief, and desertion. They would be better able to overcome
their weaknesses when He arose and confronted them. Thus He was holding
them together as closely as possible as long as He could.

He leaves eight of the Apostles at the gate of the garden. He tells them
to pray so they will not fall into temptation (Lk 22:40). Then he and the
inner three (Peter, James and John) go to the interior of the grove. With
his closest friends, and a keen awareness of his impending passion, Jesus
is stricken with grief.

The English translation hardly does justice to the seriousness of his
suffering. Between Matthew and Mark there are three different words used
to describe Jesus’ inner tur-moil. His sorrow is so strong he feels like
he’s about to die. Jesus’ suffering begins in Gethsemane, not Golgotha.
Two days ago Jesus mentioned how grief-stricken he was (Jn 12:27-36).

Yet it is here that he begins to realize the weight of guilt from the
sins of the world and the imminent absence of his Father (2 Cor 5:21).
These are new feelings. From time eternal, Jesus has never felt guilt or
abandonment.

He asks his three best friends to keep watch. They are not a military
sentry to warn Je-sus when the enemy is coming. They are to watch by
praying, guarding themselves (Lk 22:40; Mt 26:40-41), and joining Jesus
in spiritual warfare (Eph 6:17-18).

This much seems clear, it is out of earshot yet still within eyesight.
There Jesus drops to his knees (Luke) and then falls on his face
(Matthew) under the full moon of Passover. In his pain, Jesus addresses
his Father with intimacy.

Thought 1. A man needs a garden, a private spot where he can get all
alone with God in times of great trial.

Thought 2. Two things are essential when we face a desperate hour of
need.
1)    Withdrawal, getting all alone in some private spot.
2)    Praying and sharing our need with God.

Thought 3. Note something of paramount importance: How does our desperate
hour affect our loved ones? Christ was thinking as much of His disciples
as He was of His own need. He was holding them together and encouraging
them to pray for themselves as well as for Him.
The word "Abba" is an Aramaic term of endearment that the Jews generally
felt too "familiar" to use in reference to God. He then prays these
words: "Take this cup from me." Look out!  If Jesus doesn’t drink this cup
of suffering, our eternal destinies are left hanging precariously in the
balance. Woe to us had Jesus not finished the prayer: "Yet not what I
will but what you will." Jesus doesn’t have to die—there is no moral
imperative calling for his execution. Furthermore, there was no earthly
power forcing him to do it (Jn 10:18). He dies by choice.

First, it is not cowardice to want to avoid death or to look for another
way out. Bravery is defined by a person’s actions, not his emotions.

Second, it is not fair to compare Jesus’ death with martyrdom. Martyrs
die for a cause; Jesus died for the sins of the world. He became sin on
the cross (2 Cor 5:21) and took in his own body the sins of the world (1
Pet 2:24). What troubled Jesus was not the physical torture of a martyr,
but the spiritual torment of the God-man experiencing for the first time
both the guilt of humanity and separation from the Father.

There is no way that we can understand how far Jesus had to condescend in
order to do that. Consequently we are unable to measure the depths of his
spiritual torture."

Furthermore, the "cup" was not merely suffering. It was a common OT
symbol of the wrath of God (Ps 75:8; Isa 51:22; Jer 25:15-16; Lam 4:21;
Hab 2:16).

Jesus is not merely looking back to Matthew 20:22-23, but looking forward
to Matthew 27:46 when God’s anger against sin would fall full-force on
him.

Finally, had Jesus marched like a stoic through the passion we could have
little hope of him understanding our human frailty. It is, paradoxically,
his humanity that draws us to his divinity. The writer of Hebrews recalls
the weight of this prayer to Jesus (Heb 5:7).

1. Christ felt so much sorrow and heaviness, so much inner pain that it
almost killed Him. Note His words: "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even
unto death." The pain and agony were so intense that He sweated great
drops of blood.

God the Father had to send an angel to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43-44).
Apparently all that Christ had been through and was about to go through
was opened up to His mind. His whole being was now focusing in upon the
suffering He had to experience as the sin-bearer for the world. The
mental vision literally compressed His physical body, al-most to the
point of crushing Him.

While it is not unnatural for Dr. Luke to mention either the angel or the
physical condition of Jesus (bloody-sweat), the text of Luke 22:43-44
has weak textual support. In other words, it is not found in the oldest
and best manuscripts.
Since it is more likely that this information would be later added than
purposefully dropped, we conclude that it was probably not penned by Luke
but added later, based on a reliable oral tradition.11-57 So we accept it
as true, but not as a part of the original text.

It tells us that in the midst of Jesus’ suffering an angel came and
ministered to him. That would be the first time since his wilderness
temptation three years earlier (Mt 4:11). As a result of his suffering,
Jesus experienced what Luke describes as "sweat like drops of blood."

The most likely medical explanation for this is hematidrosis. It is a
condition where the capillaries of the forehead actually burst due to
stress.11-58 This certainly describes accurately Jesus’ condition.

2. Christ was suffering so much agonizing grief and pain that He
requested the presence of close friends. He needed them to pray for Him
and be a comfort to Him. This is seen in His words, "Watch with me."
Christ needed to be alone with God, but He also needed friends close by
who were also praying for Him. Just knowing that they were close by
praying and feeling for Him would be a strong encouragement.

3. Christ warned: watch and pray for yourselves as well. The greatest
trial the disciples were to ever know was at hand, and they did not know
it. In just a few hours they were going to fall away. They desperately
needed to pray that they "enter not into temptation" (Matthew 26:41);
that the depth of sin would not discourage them to the point that they
would feel too unworthy to repent.

The greatest lesson to be learned from Gethsemane is probably this:
we are to strive against sin at any cost.

A second question arises from Jesus’ prayer: "Was there another way?"
Jesus uses a first class conditional clause in Matthew "If it is
possible…" This speaks of a real possibility, at least in Jesus’ mind
(although cf. Mt 26:42). In Mark it is even more bold—"Everything is
possible with you." Theoretically there may have been another way to save
humanity without a vicarious death. But that is mere speculation.

God’s sovereign will had determined that his own Son would die for the
sins of the world. Therefore, in reality, there was no other choice.
Jesus was determined to carry out his Father’s will no matter how
unpleasant or painful the consequences.

Three times Jesus prays, "Father, let this cup pass from me." Three times
God answers his prayer, "No." God could send Jesus an angel in this hour,
he could promise him a resurrection, he could restore him to the heavenly
throne room. But it is not in his will to release Jesus from this task.
Neither our prayers nor our faith are weak merely because God says, "No"
to our requests.

Three times Jesus returns to the inner three; and three times finds them
sleeping. He singles out Peter, asking, "Could you not watch with me for
one hour?" (Although an hour is not an exact sixty minutes it gives us a
general impression of the length of Jesus’ first prayer.) Likely he
picks on Peter because just a few hours earlier he had boasted that he
would even die with him. And just a few minutes from now he will draw his
sword and bear down on Malchus. Conclusion: He is willing to fight with a
physical sword for Jesus but too sleepy to fight with spiritual weapons
of war.

They are about to undergo an unparalleled spiritual trial which physical
rest won’t help. They need prayer to empower them to resist the
temptation of abandoning Jesus. Jesus is right. Their spirits are
willing, but their flesh is weak. As the following narrative will show,
they made the wrong choice. They followed the prompting of their bodies
rather than their spirits.

- The Surrender Was Conscious
Between the dismissal of Judas from the upper room and the actual arrest
in the garden, at least two hours must have elapsed. In that time Jesus
could have left Jerusalem and have been well on His way across the river
to Perea, or to some hiding place where the Jewish leaders could not have
found Him.

Why should He have gone deliberately to the place where Judas would
surely look for Him, and wait until the traitor came to capture Him?
Furthermore, when the mob with Judas at its head finally arrived, Jesus
walked boldly out to meet it.

His complete calm, determined resolution, sublime majesty, and commanding
manner and courage frightened the would-be captors so that they shrank
back from Him and fell on the ground!
The kiss was the basest act of treachery recorded anywhere! It was a sign
of affection and devotion. When people today pretend to know and love
the Lord, they are committing the sin of Judas.

- The Surrender was Vicarious.
Verse 9 seems to be John's own parenthetical insertion into the narrative
here as John is writing the account years later to show that what Jesus
had prophesied in 6:39, 10:28, and 17:12 was in part fulfilled in this
very incident.

He gave Himself in the place of the disciples all of whom made good their
escape. The essence of the atonement was illustrated by this act of
Jesus, who purchased their security by His sacrifice.

- The Surrender was Loving.
Peter, in a fit of loyal zeal, drew a sword and cut off the ear of
Malchus, a servant of the high priest. The probability is that in nervous
haste he struck three inches wide of his original aim! Certainly, it was
not Peter's intention to damage only an ear!

Peter's sword symbolizes rebellion against the will of God. He made every
mistake possible:
- fought the wrong people
- had the wrong motive
- used the wrong weapon
- accomplished the wrong result

Besides: Jesus didn't need Peter's protection! He could have summoned
legions of angels had He wanted to Be delivered (Matthew 26:52-54: "Put
your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the
sword will die by the sword. {53} Do you think I cannot call on my
Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions
of angels? {54} But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say
it must happen in this way?")

Think of the Lord’s enormous love for us. He foresaw all that He was
to bear for us. All was opened up to His mind, yet He willingly
surrendered Himself to bear it all.

There are three vivid pictures in this point that should speak to our
hearts.
1)     The picture of Christ’s child-like dependency and trust in His Father.
2)    The picture of Christ bearing the awful cup of God’s wrath forus.
3)    The picture of the enormous obligation that we have to Christ: the
obligation to be appreciative and to express our appreciation in love,
adoration, worship, and service.

 Last modified: April 18, 2006