Gethsemane Revisited

Matthew 26:36-46, Hebrews 4:14-16

The account of the Garden of Gethsemane is something we might hear each year during Holy Week since it is one of the Passion of Christ passages. This Lenten season I’d like to revisit it anew. Though it is a beautiful passage which celebrates the humanity of Christ, I have found over the years that both Christ and the disciples seem to have gotten a bad rap from it. The disciples are considered wimps for falling asleep when Christ asks them not to, and they get yelled at three times. Then there’s Christ who  seems to be getting cold feet before doing the mission he was sent when we see him asking God to remove the task before him. Many, I’m sad to say, have rendered this as his spiritual low point letting his humanity override him in this moment. Well, I’d like to address these misconceptions.

Revisit with me the account of Gethsemane: Jesus takes three of his disciples with him to the garden. He tells them how distressed he is and asks them to stay awake while he prays. Jesus prays three times and each time he returns to the disciples he finds them asleep. When Jesus prays, he asks for the cup to pass from him. We know this cup to be the coming crucifixion. Christ ends his prayer, “nevertheless not as I will but thy will be done.”

The word used for cup in these passages goes back to accounts in the Old Testament where cups of God’s wrath, anger, and justice is spoken of. In Jeremiah 49: 12, it talks about having to drink of something that’s not our fault, sometimes just the result of another’s sin, or just of life. It foreshadowed the idea of the perfect Messiah who knew no sin who would be bruised for our iniquities and drink of a cup he didn’t deserve.  

 As a child I heard Christ was in such agony in the garden that he literally sweated drops of blood. Some interpreted this as Satan’s last attempt to get to Christ before salvation was accomplished. This account is found in Luke’s gospel. It matches verses in Hebrews that talk about Jesus sweating blood. In these verses the angels come to minister to Christ. Whether you find this to be merely a metaphor showing the intensity of his emotional pain or a literal account, what is seen here is the total humanity of Christ complete with human emotion and blood.

When I first studied this passage, I was taken aback by the feelings of loneliness, even abandonment when the disciples don’t stay awake for him. It made me wonder about the emotions of the divine. We hear of God’s wrath and his jealousy, but God also created humans in God’s image –emotions and all to commune with God. Here in the garden then you have Christ asking the men who have been closest to him to be with him and to stay awake with him as the dreaded hour arrives, but as a preview of coming attractions, the disciples keep falling asleep.

Now in defense of these sleepy-eyed friends, I found Luke’s take on it interesting. He has the disciples “sleeping for sorrow.” Was it just merely physical fatigue their eyes were heavy with or was the heaviness coming from the emotion Jesus was going to leave them, not just in the garden but forever?

In the Matthew account in verse 42, Christ says “if this cannot pass, unless I drink it, thy will be done.” “Unless I drink it” are four important words.

You see there are times when we all revisit our own Garden of Gethsemane when we come to God in pain. When life hands us cups of sorrow, loss, and challenges - we find ourselves in some need, some situation, or some challenge we never thought would come our way – where we feel like we’d rather sweat literal drops of blood than to drink the cup we’ve been handed. We want it removed, and we want God to save us from it.

Yet the only way to get the cup to pass is to drink it.  Sometimes God sends angels in the form of friends and family who sit beside and minister to us in our pain.  The harsh reality, however, is only we alone can drink that cup of pain. It is in these times that we revisit the Garden of Gethsemane feeling distressed and deeply troubled with our souls, sometimes sorrowful to the point of death. We may fall flat on our face or to the ground or kneel to beg, negotiate, or try to cajole God to remove the cup of pain.  No matter what our approach, Christ who drank the cup before us is with us in our pain and loneliness since Christ has been there.

I read a book where someone was trying to explain to her Italian friend what the idiom, “I’ve been there” means when used to comfort someone. Her friend was confused – asking, “Is sorrow a place?”

I could tell this friend that it is truly a place. A place called Gethsemane. A place we may have to revisit off and on in our lives but never alone. Christ will keep watch with us and give us the strength to drink whatever cup may come our way.