In Gethsemane

182:2.1The apos­tles were greatly shocked when they re­turned to their camp and found Ju­das ab­sent. While the eleven were en­gaged in a heated dis­cus­sion of their traitorous fel­low apos­tle, David Zeb­e­dee and John Mark took Je­sus to one side and re­vealed that they had kept Ju­das un­der ob­ser­va­tion for sev­eral days, and that they knew he in­tended to be­tray him into the hands of his en­e­mies. Je­sus lis­tened to them but only said: “My friends, noth­ing can hap­pen to the Son of Man un­less the Fa­ther in heaven so wills. Let not your hearts be trou­bled; all things will work to­gether for the glory of God and the sal­va­tion of men.”

182:2.2The cheer­ful at­ti­tude of Je­sus was wan­ing. As the hour passed, he grew more and more se­ri­ous, even sor­row­ful. The apos­tles, be­ing much ag­i­tated, were loath to re­turn to their tents even when re­quested to do so by the Mas­ter him­self. Re­turn­ing from his talk with David and John, he ad­dressed his last words to all eleven, say­ing: “My friends, go to your rest. Pre­pare your­selves for the work of to­mor­row. Re­mem­ber, we should all sub­mit our­selves to the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. My peace I leave with you.” And hav­ing thus spo­ken, he mo­tioned them to their tents, but as they went, he called to Pe­ter, James, and John, say­ing, “I de­sire that you re­main with me for a lit­tle while.”

182:2.3The apos­tles fell asleep only be­cause they were lit­er­ally ex­hausted; they had been run­ning short on sleep ever since their ar­rival in Je­ru­sa­lem. Be­fore they went to their sep­a­rate sleep­ing quar­ters, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes led them all over to his tent, where were stored the swords and other arms, and sup­plied each of them with this fight­ing equip­ment. All of them re­ceived these arms and girded them­selves there­with ex­cept Na­than­iel. Na­than­iel, in re­fus­ing to arm him­self, said: “My breth­ren, the Mas­ter has re­peat­edly told us that his king­dom is not of this world, and that his dis­ci­ples should not fight with the sword to bring about its es­tab­lish­ment. I be­lieve this; I do not think the Mas­ter needs to have us em­ploy the sword in his de­fense. We have all seen his mighty power and know that he could de­fend him­self against his en­e­mies if he so de­sired. If he will not re­sist his en­e­mies, it must be that such a course rep­re­sents his at­tempt to ful­fill his Fa­ther’s will. I will pray, but I will not wield the sword.” When An­drew heard Na­than­iel’s speech, he handed his sword back to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes. And so nine of them were armed as they sep­a­rated for the night.

182:2.4Re­sent­ment of Ju­das’s be­ing a traitor for the mo­ment ec­lipsed ev­ery­thing else in the apos­tles’ minds. The Mas­ter’s com­ment in ref­er­ence to Ju­das, spo­ken in the course of the last prayer, opened their eyes to the fact that he had for­saken them.

182:2.5Af­ter the eight apos­tles had fi­nally gone to their tents, and while Pe­ter, James, and John were stand­ing by to re­ceive the Mas­ter’s or­ders, Je­sus called to David Zeb­e­dee, “Send to me your most fleet and trust­wor­thy mes­sen­ger.” When David brought to the Mas­ter one Ja­cob, once a run­ner on the overnight mes­sen­ger ser­vice be­tween Je­ru­sa­lem and Beth­saida, Je­sus, ad­dress­ing him, said: “In all haste, go to Ab­ner at Phil­a­del­phia and say: ‘The Mas­ter sends greet­ings of peace to you and says that the hour has come when he will be de­liv­ered into the hands of his en­e­mies, who will put him to death, but that he will rise from the dead and ap­pear to you shortly, be­fore he goes to the Fa­ther, and that he will then give you guid­ance to the time when the new teacher shall come to live in your hearts.’” And when Ja­cob had re­hearsed this mes­sage to the Mas­ter’s sat­is­fac­tion, Je­sus sent him on his way, say­ing: “Fear not what any man may do to you, Ja­cob, for this night an un­seen mes­sen­ger will run by your side.”

182:2.6Then Je­sus turned to the chief of the vis­it­ing Greeks who were en­camped with them, and said: “My brother, be not dis­turbed by what is about to take place since I have al­ready fore­warned you. The Son of Man will be put to death at the in­sti­ga­tion of his en­e­mies, the chief priests and the rulers of the Jews, but I will rise to be with you a short time be­fore I go to the Fa­ther. And when you have seen all this come to pass, glo­rify God and strengthen your breth­ren.”

182:2.7In or­di­nary cir­cum­stances the apos­tles would have bid­den the Mas­ter a per­sonal good night, but this evening they were so pre­oc­cu­pied with the sud­den re­al­iza­tion of Ju­das’s de­ser­tion and so over­come by the un­usual na­ture of the Mas­ter’s farewell prayer that they lis­tened to his good-bye salu­ta­tion and went away in si­lence.

182:2.8Je­sus did say this to An­drew as he left his side that night: “An­drew, do what you can to keep your breth­ren to­gether un­til I come again to you af­ter I have drunk this cup. Strengthen your breth­ren, see­ing that I have al­ready told you all. Peace be with you.”

182:2.9None of the apos­tles ex­pected any­thing out of the or­di­nary to hap­pen that night since it was al­ready so late. They sought sleep that they might rise up early in the morn­ing and be pre­pared for the worst. They thought that the chief priests would seek to ap­pre­hend their Mas­ter early in the morn­ing as no sec­u­lar work was ever done af­ter noon on the prepa­ra­tion day for the Pass­over. Only David Zeb­e­dee and John Mark un­der­stood that the en­e­mies of Je­sus were com­ing with Ju­das that very night.

182:2.10David had ar­ranged to stand guard that night on the up­per trail which led to the Beth­any-Je­ru­sa­lem road, while John Mark was to watch along the road com­ing up by the Kidron to Geth­sem­ane. Be­fore David went to his self-im­posed task of out­post duty, he bade farewell to Je­sus, say­ing: “Mas­ter, I have had great joy in my ser­vice with you. My broth­ers are your apos­tles, but I have de­lighted to do the lesser things as they should be done, and I shall miss you with all my heart when you are gone.” And then said Je­sus to David: “David, my son, oth­ers have done that which they were di­rected to do, but this ser­vice have you done of your own heart, and I have not been un­mind­ful of your de­vo­tion. You, too, shall some day serve with me in the eter­nal king­dom.”

182:2.11And then, as he pre­pared to go on watch by the up­per trail, David said to Je­sus: “You know, Mas­ter, I sent for your fam­ily, and I have word by a mes­sen­ger that they are tonight in Jeri­cho. They will be here early to­mor­row forenoon since it would be dan­ger­ous for them to come up the bloody way by night.” And Je­sus, look­ing down upon David, only said: “Let it be so, David.”

182:2.12When David had gone up Oli­vet, John Mark took up his vigil near the road which ran by the brook down to Je­ru­sa­lem. And John would have re­mained at this post but for his great de­sire to be near Je­sus and to know what was go­ing on. Shortly af­ter David left him, and when John Mark ob­served Je­sus with­draw, with Pe­ter, James, and John, into a near-by ravine, he was so over­come with com­bined de­vo­tion and cu­rios­ity that he for­sook his sen­tinel post and fol­lowed af­ter them, hid­ing him­self in the bushes, from which place he saw and over­heard all that tran­spired dur­ing those last mo­ments in the gar­den and just be­fore Ju­das and the armed guards ap­peared to ar­rest Je­sus.

182:2.13While all this was in prog­ress at the Mas­ter’s camp, Ju­das Is­car­iot was in con­fer­ence with the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards, who had as­sem­bled his men prepara­tory to set­ting out, un­der the lead­er­ship of the be­trayer, to ar­rest Je­sus.