Night in Gethsemane

Olive trees in the dark. A full moon over the valley. And a man lying face down on the ground, praying words he can hardly bear to say. “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.”

It is the night of the Passover meal. Jesus has just shared bread and wine with his twelve disciples in an upstairs room in Jerusalem. He has told them that one of them will betray him, and that all of them will fall away. Peter insisted he never would. Now they walk out of the city, down across the Kidron valley and up the slope of the Mount of Olives, to a place called Gethsemane. The lamps of the city are behind them. The night is cool and very quiet.

Jesus tells most of the disciples to sit and wait. He takes Peter, James and John a little further. And they see something they have never seen before. Their teacher, who calmed storms and healed the sick, is deeply troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, even to the point of death,” he tells them. “Stay here and keep watch with me.” He goes on a few steps and falls with his face to the ground. “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” In the Old Testament the prophets sometimes spoke of a cup to mean suffering and judgment. Jesus knows what is coming. He asks if there is another way. And then he places his own will in his Father’s hands.

He comes back to his three friends. They are asleep. “Couldn’t you keep watch with me for one hour?” he asks Peter. He sounds less angry than sad. “Watch and pray, so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” He goes away and prays a second time. “My Father, if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, may your will be done.” He returns. Asleep again, their eyes too heavy to stay open. A third time he prays the same words. And when he comes back, something has changed in his voice. “Get up. Let us go. Look, my betrayer is here.”

Torches flicker between the olive trees. Voices. The clank of metal. A large crowd arrives with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests and the elders of the people. At the front is Judas, one of the twelve. He has arranged a signal. The one I kiss, that’s him. He walks straight up. “Greetings, Rabbi,” he says, and kisses him. Jesus looks at him. “Friend, do what you came to do.” Hands seize Jesus. And one of the men with him draws a sword and swings, cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant.

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus says. “All who take the sword will die by the sword.” He could ask his Father, he tells them, and more than twelve legions of angels would come at once. But then how would the scriptures be fulfilled? He turns to the crowd. “Am I leading a rebellion, that you come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me.” All this, Matthew says, happened so that the writings of the prophets would be fulfilled. And then comes the saddest line of the night. All the disciples left him and ran away.

The name Gethsemane comes from words meaning oil press. The Mount of Olives was covered in olive groves, and olives were crushed in heavy stone presses to squeeze out their oil, used for lamps, cooking and medicine. Matthew calls it a place. John calls it a garden across the Kidron valley, and says Jesus often went there with his disciples, which is how Judas knew where to find him. Old olive trees still grow on the slope today, though no one can say for certain exactly where Jesus knelt.

Night in Gethsemane. You’ll find it in Matthew chapter 26, verses 36 to 56. In the garden, Jesus told his Father honestly how he felt, and then trusted him anyway. His friends slept, and then they ran. He stayed. So here’s the question to carry with you. When doing what God asks feels hard, what would it look like to pray, not my will, but yours?