Gethsemane

• Gethsemane

147:2.2The party had an un­event­ful trip to Je­ru­sa­lem, but they had hardly got them­selves set­tled at Beth­any when from near and far those seek­ing heal­ing for their bod­ies, com­fort for trou­bled minds, and sal­va­tion for their souls, be­gan to con­gre­gate, so much so that Je­sus had lit­tle time for rest. There­fore they pitched tents at Geth­sem­ane, and the Mas­ter would go back and forth from Beth­any to Geth­sem­ane to avoid the crowds which so con­stantly thronged him. The apos­tolic party spent al­most three weeks at Je­ru­sa­lem, but Je­sus en­joined them to do no pub­lic preach­ing, only pri­vate teach­ing and per­sonal work.

176:3.1As they gath­ered about the camp­fire, some twenty of them, Thomas asked: “Since you are to re­turn to fin­ish the work of the king­dom, what should be our at­ti­tude while you are away on the Fa­ther’s busi­ness?” As Je­sus looked them over by the fire­light, he an­swered:

176:3.2“And even you, Thomas, fail to com­pre­hend what I have been say­ing. Have I not all this time taught you that your con­nec­tion with the king­dom is spir­i­tual and in­di­vid­ual, wholly a mat­ter of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence in the spirit by the faith-re­al­iza­tion that you are a son of God? What more shall I say? The down­fall of na­tions, the crash of em­pires, the de­struc­tion of the un­be­liev­ing Jews, the end of an age, even the end of the world, what have these things to do with one who be­lieves this gospel, and who has hid his life in the surety of the eter­nal king­dom? You who are God-know­ing and gospel-be­liev­ing have al­ready re­ceived the as­sur­ances of eter­nal life. Since your lives have been lived in the spirit and for the Fa­ther, noth­ing can be of se­ri­ous con­cern to you. King­dom builders, the ac­cred­ited cit­i­zens of the heav­enly worlds, are not to be dis­turbed by tem­po­ral up­heavals or per­turbed by ter­res­trial cat­a­clysms. What does it mat­ter to you who be­lieve this gospel of the king­dom if na­tions over­turn, the age ends, or all things vis­i­ble crash, since you know that your life is the gift of the Son, and that it is eter­nally se­cure in the Fa­ther? Hav­ing lived the tem­po­ral life by faith and hav­ing yielded the fruits of the spirit as the righ­teous­ness of lov­ing ser­vice for your fel­lows, you can con­fi­dently look for­ward to the next step in the eter­nal ca­reer with the same sur­vival faith that has car­ried you through your first and earthly ad­ven­ture in son­ship with God.

176:3.3“Each gen­er­a­tion of be­liev­ers should carry on their work, in view of the pos­si­ble re­turn of the Son of Man, ex­actly as each in­di­vid­ual be­liever car­ries for­ward his life­work in view of in­ev­i­ta­ble and ever-im­pend­ing nat­u­ral death. When you have by faith once es­tab­lished your­self as a son of God, noth­ing else mat­ters as re­gards the surety of sur­vival. But make no mis­take! this sur­vival faith is a liv­ing faith, and it in­creas­ingly man­i­fests the fruits of that di­vine spirit which first in­spired it in the hu­man heart. That you have once ac­cepted son­ship in the heav­enly king­dom will not save you in the face of the know­ing and per­sis­tent re­jec­tion of those truths which have to do with the pro­gres­sive spir­i­tual fruit-bear­ing of the sons of God in the flesh. You who have been with me in the Fa­ther’s busi­ness on earth can even now desert the king­dom if you find that you love not the way of the Fa­ther’s ser­vice for man­kind.

176:3.4“As in­di­vid­u­als, and as a gen­er­a­tion of be­liev­ers, hear me while I speak a para­ble: There was a cer­tain great man who, be­fore start­ing out on a long jour­ney to an­other coun­try, called all his trusted ser­vants be­fore him and de­liv­ered into their hands all his goods. To one he gave five tal­ents, to an­other two, and to an­other one. And so on down through the en­tire group of hon­ored stew­ards, to each he in­trusted his goods ac­cord­ing to their sev­eral abil­i­ties; and then he set out on his jour­ney. When their lord had de­parted, his ser­vants set them­selves at work to gain prof­its from the wealth in­trusted to them. Im­me­di­ately he who had re­ceived five tal­ents be­gan to trade with them and very soon had made a profit of an­other five tal­ents. In like man­ner he who had re­ceived two tal­ents soon had gained two more. And so did all of these ser­vants make gains for their mas­ter ex­cept him who re­ceived but one tal­ent. He went away by him­self and dug a hole in the earth where he hid his lord’s money. Pres­ently the lord of those ser­vants un­ex­pect­edly re­turned and called upon his stew­ards for a reck­on­ing. And when they had all been called be­fore their mas­ter, he who had re­ceived the five tal­ents came for­ward with the money which had been in­trusted to him and brought five ad­di­tional tal­ents, say­ing, ‘Lord, you gave me five tal­ents to in­vest, and I am glad to pre­sent five other tal­ents as my gain.’ And then his lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faith­ful ser­vant, you have been faith­ful over a few things; I will now set you as stew­ard over many; en­ter forth­with into the joy of your lord.’ And then he who had re­ceived the two tal­ents came for­ward, say­ing: ‘Lord, you de­liv­ered into my hands two tal­ents; be­hold, I have gained these other two tal­ents.’ And his lord then said to him: ‘Well done, good and faith­ful stew­ard; you also have been faith­ful over a few things, and I will now set you over many; en­ter you into the joy of your lord.’ And then there came to the ac­count­ing he who had re­ceived the one tal­ent. This ser­vant came for­ward, say­ing, ‘Lord, I knew you and re­al­ized that you were a shrewd man in that you ex­pected gains where you had not per­son­ally la­bored; there­fore was I afraid to risk aught of that which was in­trusted to me. I safely hid your tal­ent in the earth; here it is; you now have what be­longs to you.’ But his lord an­swered: ‘You are an in­do­lent and sloth­ful stew­ard. By your own words you con­fess that you knew I would re­quire of you an ac­count­ing with rea­son­able profit, such as your dili­gent fel­low ser­vants have this day ren­dered. Know­ing this, you ought, there­fore, to have at least put my money into the hands of the bankers that on my re­turn I might have re­ceived my own with in­ter­est.’ And then to the chief stew­ard this lord said: ‘Take away this one tal­ent from this un­prof­itable ser­vant and give it to him who has the ten tal­ents.’

176:3.5“To ev­ery one who has, more shall be given, and he shall have abun­dance; but from him who has not, even that which he has shall be taken away. You can­not stand still in the af­fairs of the eter­nal king­dom. My Fa­ther re­quires all his chil­dren to grow in grace and in a knowl­edge of the truth. You who know these truths must yield the in­crease of the fruits of the spirit and man­i­fest a grow­ing de­vo­tion to the un­selfish ser­vice of your fel­low ser­vants. And re­mem­ber that, inas­much as you min­is­ter to one of the least of my breth­ren, you have done this ser­vice to me.

176:3.6“And so should you go about the work of the Fa­ther’s busi­ness, now and hence­forth, even forever­more. Carry on un­til I come. In faith­ful­ness do that which is in­trusted to you, and thereby shall you be ready for the reck­on­ing call of death. And hav­ing thus lived for the glory of the Fa­ther and the sat­is­fac­tion of the Son, you shall en­ter with joy and ex­ceed­ingly great plea­sure into the eter­nal ser­vice of the ev­er­last­ing king­dom.”

176:3.7Truth is liv­ing; the Spirit of Truth is ever lead­ing the chil­dren of light into new realms of spir­i­tual re­al­ity and di­vine ser­vice. You are not given truth to crys­tal­lize into set­tled, safe, and hon­ored forms. Your rev­e­la­tion of truth must be so en­hanced by pass­ing through your per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence that new beauty and ac­tual spir­i­tual gains will be dis­closed to all who be­hold your spir­i­tual fruits and in con­se­quence thereof are led to glo­rify the Fa­ther who is in heaven. Only those faith­ful ser­vants who thus grow in the knowl­edge of the truth, and who thereby de­velop the ca­pac­ity for di­vine ap­pre­ci­a­tion of spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties, can ever hope to “en­ter fully into the joy of their Lord.” What a sorry sight for suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of the pro­fessed fol­low­ers of Je­sus to say, re­gard­ing their stew­ard­ship of di­vine truth: “Here, Mas­ter, is the truth you com­mit­ted to us a hun­dred or a thou­sand years ago. We have lost noth­ing; we have faith­fully pre­served all you gave us; we have al­lowed no changes to be made in that which you taught us; here is the truth you gave us.” But such a plea con­cern­ing spir­i­tual in­do­lence will not jus­tify the bar­ren stew­ard of truth in the pres­ence of the Mas­ter. In ac­cor­dance with the truth com­mit­ted to your hands will the Mas­ter of truth re­quire a reck­on­ing.

176:3.8In the next world you will be asked to give an ac­count of the en­dow­ments and stew­ard­ships of this world. Whether in­her­ent tal­ents are few or many, a just and mer­ci­ful reck­on­ing must be faced. If en­dow­ments are used only in self­ish pur­suits and no thought is be­stowed upon the higher duty of ob­tain­ing in­creased yield of the fruits of the spirit, as they are man­i­fested in the ever-ex­pand­ing ser­vice of men and the wor­ship of God, such self­ish stew­ards must ac­cept the con­se­quences of their de­lib­er­ate choos­ing.

176:3.9And how much like all self­ish mor­tals was this un­faith­ful ser­vant with the one tal­ent in that he blamed his sloth­ful­ness di­rectly upon his lord. How prone is man, when he is con­fronted with the fail­ures of his own mak­ing, to put the blame upon oth­ers, of­ten­times upon those who least de­serve it!

176:3.10Said Je­sus that night as they went to their rest: “Freely have you re­ceived; there­fore freely should you give of the truth of heaven, and in the giv­ing will this truth mul­ti­ply and show forth the in­creas­ing light of sav­ing grace, even as you min­is­ter it.”

177:3.1The apos­tles spent most of this day walk­ing about on Mount Oli­vet and vis­it­ing with the dis­ci­ples who were en­camped with them, but early in the af­ter­noon they be­came very de­sirous of see­ing Je­sus re­turn. As the day wore on, they grew in­creas­ingly anx­ious about his safety; they felt in­ex­press­ibly lonely with­out him. There was much de­bat­ing through­out the day as to whether the Mas­ter should have been al­lowed to go off by him­self in the hills, ac­com­pa­nied only by an er­rand boy. Though no man openly so ex­pressed his thoughts, there was not one of them, save Ju­das Is­car­iot, who did not wish him­self in John Mark’s place.

177:3.2It was about midafter­noon when Na­than­iel made his speech on “Su­preme De­sire” to about half a dozen of the apos­tles and as many dis­ci­ples, the end­ing of which was: “What is wrong with most of us is that we are only half­hearted. We fail to love the Mas­ter as he loves us. If we had all wanted to go with him as much as John Mark did, he would surely have taken us all. We stood by while the lad ap­proached the Mas­ter and of­fered him the bas­ket, but when the Mas­ter took hold of it, the lad would not let go. And so the Mas­ter left us here while he went off to the hills with bas­ket, boy, and all.”

177:3.3About four o’clock, run­ners came to David Zeb­e­dee bring­ing him word from his mother at Beth­saida and from Je­sus’ mother. Sev­eral days pre­vi­ously David had made up his mind that the chief priests and rulers were go­ing to kill Je­sus. David knew they were de­ter­mined to de­stroy the Mas­ter, and he was about con­vinced that Je­sus would nei­ther ex­ert his di­vine power to save him­self nor per­mit his fol­low­ers to em­ploy force in his de­fense. Hav­ing reached these con­clu­sions, he lost no time in dis­patch­ing a mes­sen­ger to his mother, urg­ing her to come at once to Je­ru­sa­lem and to bring Mary the mother of Je­sus and ev­ery mem­ber of his fam­ily.

177:3.4David’s mother did as her son re­quested, and now the run­ners came back to David bring­ing the word that his mother and Je­sus’ en­tire fam­ily were on the way to Je­ru­sa­lem and should ar­rive some­time late on the fol­low­ing day or very early the next morn­ing. Since David did this on his own ini­tia­tive, he thought it wise to keep the mat­ter to him­self. He told no one, there­fore, that Je­sus’ fam­ily was on the way to Je­ru­sa­lem.

177:3.5Shortly af­ter noon, more than twenty of the Greeks who had met with Je­sus and the twelve at the home of Joseph of Ari­mathea ar­rived at the camp, and Pe­ter and John spent sev­eral hours in con­fer­ence with them. These Greeks, at least some of them, were well ad­vanced in the knowl­edge of the king­dom, hav­ing been in­structed by Ro­dan at Alexan­dria.

177:3.6That evening, af­ter re­turn­ing to the camp, Je­sus vis­ited with the Greeks, and had it not been that such a course would have greatly dis­turbed his apos­tles and many of his lead­ing dis­ci­ples, he would have or­dained these twenty Greeks, even as he had the sev­enty.

177:3.7While all of this was go­ing on at the camp, in Je­ru­sa­lem the chief priests and el­ders were amazed that Je­sus did not re­turn to ad­dress the mul­ti­tudes. True, the day be­fore, when he left the tem­ple, he had said, “I leave your house to you des­o­late.” But they could not un­der­stand why he would be will­ing to forgo the great ad­van­tage which he had built up in the friendly at­ti­tude of the crowds. While they feared he would stir up a tu­mult among the peo­ple, the Mas­ter’s last words to the mul­ti­tude had been an ex­hor­ta­tion to con­form in ev­ery rea­son­able man­ner with the au­thor­ity of those “who sit in Moses’ seat.” But it was a busy day in the city as they si­mul­ta­ne­ously pre­pared for the Pass­over and per­fected their plans for de­stroy­ing Je­sus.

177:3.8Not many peo­ple came to the camp, for its es­tab­lish­ment had been kept a well-guarded se­cret by all who knew that Je­sus was ex­pect­ing to stay there in place of go­ing out to Beth­any ev­ery night.

173:5.5About four o’clock this af­ter­noon Je­sus beck­oned to his apos­tles and in­di­cated that he de­sired to leave the tem­ple and to go to Beth­any for their evening meal and a night of rest. On the way up Oli­vet Je­sus in­structed An­drew, Philip, and Thomas that, on the mor­row, they should es­tab­lish a camp nearer the city which they could oc­cupy dur­ing the re­main­der of the Pass­over week. In com­pli­ance with this in­struc­tion the fol­low­ing morn­ing they pitched their tents in the hill­side ravine over­look­ing the pub­lic camp­ing park of Geth­sem­ane, on a plot of ground be­long­ing to Si­mon of Beth­any.

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.

183:0.3Fail­ing to dis­perse his fol­low­ers, the Mas­ter left them and walked down to­ward the olive press near the en­trance to Geth­sem­ane Park. Al­though the three apos­tles, the Greeks, and the other mem­bers of the camp hes­i­tated im­me­di­ately to fol­low him, John Mark has­tened around through the olive trees and se­creted him­self in a small shed near the olive press. Je­sus with­drew from the camp and from his friends in or­der that his ap­pre­hend­ers, when they ar­rived, might ar­rest him with­out dis­turb­ing his apos­tles. The Mas­ter feared to have his apos­tles awake and pres­ent at the time of his ar­rest lest the spec­ta­cle of Ju­das’s be­tray­ing him should so arouse their an­i­mos­ity that they would of­fer re­sis­tance to the sol­diers and would be taken into cus­tody with him. He feared that, if they should be ar­rested with him, they might also per­ish with him.

142:8.4Al­though Je­sus and the apos­tles spent the en­tire month of June in or near Je­ru­sa­lem, they did no pub­lic teach­ing dur­ing this pe­riod. They lived for the most part in tents, which they pitched in a shaded park, or gar­den, known in that day as Geth­sem­ane. This park was sit­u­ated on the west­ern slope of the Mount of Olives not far from the brook Kidron. The Sab­bath week­ends they usu­ally spent with Laz­a­rus and his sis­ters at Beth­any. Je­sus en­tered within the walls of Je­ru­sa­lem only a few times, but a large num­ber of in­ter­ested in­quir­ers came out to Geth­sem­ane to visit with him. One Fri­day evening Nicode­mus and one Joseph of Ari­mathea ven­tured out to see Je­sus but turned back through fear even af­ter they were stand­ing be­fore the en­trance to the Mas­ter’s tent. And, of course, they did not per­ceive that Je­sus knew all about their do­ings.