A GREAT crisis was now reached in the life of the Lord Jesus. He had not separated Himself from His disciples in this way before, nor had they ever parted company with Him. They would not leave Him, for they could not do without Him. When others turned their backs upon Him, they said: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and so bound to Him had they been, that He had said to them, “Ye are they that have continued with Me in My temptation.” They were His lovers and friends, and though they did not understand the exceeding sorrow that filled His soul, yet there was the sympathy of love in their hearts towards Him, and this was very precious in that hour to Him.
But now the parting time had come, if He was to fulfill the will of God. They follow Him to Gethsemane; they had often done so before, for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with His disciples, and in the past they had watched with Him in the silence of the night beneath those olive trees while He held communion with His Father. But now it was different, and He says to them: “Sit ye here, while I go and pray YONDER” Who can tell what that “yonder” meant to Him? He was about to enter the great conflict, and He “looked for comforters,” and as Peter and the sons of Zebedee entered more fully into His thoughts than the other disciples, He takes them with Him. Surely these three could give Him what He longed for, and watch with Him through that terrible hour! But He must leave them, also. “He saith to them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with Me.” AND HE WENT A LITTLE FARTHER, or, as we read in Luke’s record, “He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast.” In Matthew’s Gospel, Emmanuel is the King, and it was the prerogative of David’s royal Son to act in His own right, so there “He went.” In Luke’s record, He is the obedient and dependent Man, filled and anointed by the Spirit to do His Father’s business; hence there He is “withdrawn from them” by the Father’s will and the Spirit’s power. His own voluntary act was in absolute unison with the Father’s will and the Spirit’s leading.
But though it was only a stone’s cast that He was withdrawn from them, as a man would measure distance, in reality the distance was immeasurable. He had started on a road now upon which His disciples could not travel; He must take it alone. It was a road that never had been or could-be traveled by any other human foot than His. And these disciples were never to be associated with Him in the old way again; that was a chapter which was closing; the links that bound Him to them as the Messiah of Israel were breaking now, and keenly He felt it.
Three times in the midst of His own great conflict He went back to them; for though they were unable to tread the road that He was treading, or watch with Him in it, yet His love towards them could not change; and they also were to pass through a stern sifting, and He wanted them for their own sakes to watch and pray. There was no response now to His earnest desire; the comforters He looked for failed Him, “He found them asleep.” Then, when they did awaken from that strange sleep, terror-stricken at the sight of His sorrow, “they all forsook Him and fled.”
Lover and friend were put far from Him; no mere human sympathy could help Him, for no human heart had ever suffered as His was to suffer. The cup from which He shrank was in His hand, and He must drink it until not a drop of its bitter contents remained; His Father’s will and His love to us conspired together to make Him take it without a murmur. But He must do it alone.
“Alone He bare the cross,
Alone its grief sustained.”
He had told His disciples that this break would be for “a little while.” As a tender mother on leaving her timid child assures it that she will “soon come back,” so He assured them that they should see Him again. “A little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again a little while, and ye shall see Me: because I go to the Father.” The “little while” passed, and the “little farther,” the distance “about a stone’s cast.” with all its accumulated sorrow that had separated Him from them for that little while, was removed out of the way. And in resurrection He went after His broken-hearted, despairing, and scattered sheep, and gathered them together into one flock, and associated them with Himself in new and heavenly relationships, the blessedness of which they could never have conceived. We look back to that little while when He went a little farther, with deepest gratitude of heart, for but for the sorrow that He passed through then, we never could have sung, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”