In Gethsemane

182:3.1Af­ter all was still and quiet about the camp, Je­sus, tak­ing Pe­ter, James, and John, went a short way up a near-by ravine where he had of­ten be­fore gone to pray and com­mune. The three apos­tles could not help rec­og­niz­ing that he was griev­ously op­pressed; never be­fore had they ob­served their Mas­ter to be so heavy-laden and sor­row­ful. When they ar­rived at the place of his de­vo­tions, he bade the three sit down and watch with him while he went off about a stone’s throw to pray. And when he had fallen down on his face, he prayed: “My Fa­ther, I came into this world to do your will, and so have I. I know that the hour has come to lay down this life in the flesh, and I do not shrink there­from, but I would know that it is your will that I drink this cup. Send me the as­sur­ance that I will please you in my death even as I have in my life.”

182:3.2The Mas­ter re­mained in a prayer­ful at­ti­tude for a few mo­ments, and then, go­ing over to the three apos­tles, he found them sound asleep, for their eyes were heavy and they could not re­main awake. As Je­sus awoke them, he said: “What! can you not watch with me even for one hour? Can­not you see that my soul is ex­ceed­ingly sor­row­ful, even to death, and that I crave your com­pan­ion­ship?” Af­ter the three had aroused from their slum­ber, the Mas­ter again went apart by him­self and, falling down on the ground, again prayed: “Fa­ther, I know it is pos­si­ble to avoid this cup—all things are pos­si­ble with you—but I have come to do your will, and while this is a bit­ter cup, I would drink it if it is your will.” And when he had thus prayed, a mighty an­gel came down by his side and, speak­ing to him, touched him and strength­ened him.

182:3.3When Je­sus re­turned to speak with the three apos­tles, he again found them fast asleep. He awak­ened them, say­ing: “In such an hour I need that you should watch and pray with me—all the more do you need to pray that you en­ter not into temp­ta­tion—where­fore do you fall asleep when I leave you?”

182:3.4And then, for a third time, the Mas­ter with­drew and prayed: “Fa­ther, you see my sleep­ing apos­tles; have mercy upon them. The spirit is in­deed will­ing, but the flesh is weak. And now, O Fa­ther, if this cup may not pass, then would I drink it. Not my will, but yours, be done.” And when he had fin­ished pray­ing, he lay for a mo­ment pros­trate on the ground. When he arose and went back to his apos­tles, once more he found them asleep. He sur­veyed them and, with a pity­ing ges­ture, ten­derly said: “Sleep on now and take your rest; the time of de­ci­sion is past. The hour is now upon us wherein the Son of Man will be be­trayed into the hands of his en­e­mies.” As he reached down to shake them that he might awaken them, he said: “Arise, let us be go­ing back to the camp, for, be­hold, he who be­trays me is at hand, and the hour has come when my flock shall be scat­tered. But I have al­ready told you about these things.”

182:3.5Dur­ing the years that Je­sus lived among his fol­low­ers, they did, in­deed, have much proof of his di­vine na­ture, but just now are they about to wit­ness new ev­i­dences of his hu­man­ity. Just be­fore the great­est of all the rev­e­la­tions of his di­vin­ity, his res­ur­rec­tion, must now come the great­est proofs of his mor­tal na­ture, his hu­mil­i­a­tion and cru­ci­fix­ion.

182:3.6Each time he prayed in the gar­den, his hu­man­ity laid a firmer faith-hold upon his di­vin­ity; his hu­man will more com­pletely be­came one with the di­vine will of his Fa­ther. Among other words spo­ken to him by the mighty an­gel was the mes­sage that the Fa­ther de­sired his Son to fin­ish his earth be­stowal by pass­ing through the crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence of death just as all mor­tal crea­tures must ex­pe­ri­ence ma­te­rial dis­so­lu­tion in pass­ing from the ex­is­tence of time into the pro­gres­sion of eter­nity.

182:3.7Ear­lier in the evening it had not seemed so dif­fi­cult to drink the cup, but as the hu­man Je­sus bade farewell to his apos­tles and sent them to their rest, the trial grew more ap­palling. Je­sus ex­pe­ri­enced that nat­u­ral ebb and flow of feel­ing which is com­mon to all hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, and just now he was weary from work, ex­hausted from the long hours of stren­u­ous la­bor and painful anx­i­ety con­cern­ing the safety of his apos­tles. While no mor­tal can pre­sume to un­der­stand the thoughts and feel­ings of the in­car­nate Son of God at such a time as this, we know that he en­dured great an­guish and suf­fered un­told sor­row, for the per­spi­ra­tion rolled off his face in great drops. He was at last con­vinced that the Fa­ther in­tended to al­low nat­u­ral events to take their course; he was fully de­ter­mined to em­ploy none of his sov­er­eign power as the su­preme head of a uni­verse to save him­self.

182:3.8The as­sem­bled hosts of a vast cre­ation are now hov­ered over this scene un­der the tran­sient joint com­mand of Ga­briel and the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster of Je­sus. The di­vi­sion com­man­ders of these armies of heaven have re­peat­edly been warned not to in­ter­fere with these trans­ac­tions on earth un­less Je­sus him­self should or­der them to in­ter­vene.

182:3.9The ex­pe­ri­ence of part­ing with the apos­tles was a great strain on the hu­man heart of Je­sus; this sor­row of love bore down on him and made it more dif­fi­cult to face such a death as he well knew awaited him. He re­al­ized how weak and how ig­no­rant his apos­tles were, and he dreaded to leave them. He well knew that the time of his de­par­ture had come, but his hu­man heart longed to find out whether there might not pos­si­bly be some le­git­i­mate av­enue of es­cape from this ter­ri­ble plight of suf­fer­ing and sor­row. And when it had thus sought es­cape, and failed, it was will­ing to drink the cup. The di­vine mind of Mi­chael knew he had done his best for the twelve apos­tles; but the hu­man heart of Je­sus wished that more might have been done for them be­fore they should be left alone in the world. Je­sus’ heart was be­ing crushed; he truly loved his breth­ren. He was iso­lated from his fam­ily in the flesh; one of his cho­sen as­so­ciates was be­tray­ing him. His fa­ther Joseph’s peo­ple had re­jected him and thereby sealed their doom as a peo­ple with a spe­cial mis­sion on earth. His soul was tor­tured by baf­fled love and re­jected mercy. It was just one of those aw­ful hu­man mo­ments when ev­ery­thing seems to bear down with crush­ing cru­elty and ter­ri­ble agony.

182:3.10Je­sus’ hu­man­ity was not in­sen­si­ble to this sit­u­a­tion of pri­vate lone­li­ness, pub­lic shame, and the ap­pear­ance of the fail­ure of his cause. All these sen­ti­ments bore down on him with in­de­scrib­able heav­i­ness. In this great sor­row his mind went back to the days of his child­hood in Naz­a­reth and to his early work in Gal­i­lee. At the time of this great trial there came up in his mind many of those pleas­ant scenes of his earthly min­istry. And it was from these old mem­o­ries of Naz­a­reth, Ca­per­naum, Mount Her­mon, and of the sun­rise and sun­set on the shim­mer­ing Sea of Gal­i­lee, that he soothed him­self as he made his hu­man heart strong and ready to en­counter the traitor who should so soon be­tray him.

182:3.11Be­fore Ju­das and the sol­diers ar­rived, the Mas­ter had fully re­gained his cus­tom­ary poise; the spirit had tri­umphed over the flesh; faith had as­serted it­self over all hu­man ten­den­cies to fear or en­ter­tain doubt. The su­preme test of the full re­al­iza­tion of the hu­man na­ture had been met and ac­cept­ably passed. Once more the Son of Man was pre­pared to face his en­e­mies with equa­nim­ity and in the full as­sur­ance of his in­vin­ci­bil­ity as a mor­tal man un­re­servedly ded­i­cated to the do­ing of his Fa­ther’s will.