The darkness of night had set in, and the hour was at hand. The Supper (never to be forgotten) was ended, and a psalm had been sung. It was a profoundly awful moment, and all nature seemed breathless and silent. The betrayer in whom Satan had entered was near. The trampling of the feet of the multitude armed with swords and staves, headed by the traitor, to take the Lord, might almost be heard in the distance, while the light of their lanterns and torches might well-nigh be discerned; for that which had long been written concerning sacrifice and offering must soon be fulfilled.
The passover which Jesus had so lovingly desired to eat with His disciples had been kept, so that “the suffering of death “for which He had come into the world had been most pointedly before His tender heart. His deeply-felt utterance had been, “with desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” It must have been a most affecting time, for He knew that He Himself was the paschal Lamb, the Redeemer of His people Israel. And yet, after fulfilling the scripture in eating the passover, His death, “even the death of the cross,” was still more strikingly set forth in the institution of His own supper. How touching is the divine record! “The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread: and when he had given thanks, he brake it and said, Take, eat: this is my body which is for you: this do in remembrance of me.” Yes, those very hands which were so soon to be cruelly nailed to the tree by wicked men, took the loaf and brake it, to set forth the symbol of His own body which in a few hours would be actually offered to God as a sacrifice for sin. “After the same manner also, he took the cup when he had supped [after supper], saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” For this, Jesus, the Lamb of God, was about to offer Himself, and His blood would be shed for many for the remission of sins. How vividly and affectingly must this have brought before the Holy Sufferer the unutterable sorrow and pain so immediately before Him, when He would once suffer for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God! But what lessons of infinite love all this reads to our hearts!
Soon after this, Jesus and His disciples crossed the brook Cedron, and entered into the quiet garden of Gethsemane. This place was well known to Judas, for Jesus had ofttimes resorted thither with His disciples. There, after saying to them, “Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder,” He took Peter, and James, and John aside, and in sore amazement and trouble, saith unto them, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here, and watch with me.” Then withdrawing from them about a stone’s cast, “He fell on His face, and prayed, saying, Ο my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Again, He said, “Ο my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.’’ Again, He prayed “the third time, saying the same words.”
What human language could possibly portray the exceeding solemnity of this scene! When we think that this blessed One could have prayed to His Father, and He would have presently given Him twelve legions of angels, how it bows our hearts in worship, when, instead of asking deliverance for Himself, we hear Him saying, “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name!” And yet, with this most blessed and complete surrender of Himself to the Father’s will, what unutterable sorrow and agony pressed upon His heart! As man, which is the view Luke specially takes of our Lord, so terrible was the distress, that we are told “there appeared unto him an angel from heaven strengthening him. And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Can we conceive trouble and anguish more terrible, for the heart to be so sorrowful as to be connected with such effects? And yet, though the cup was before the Holy Sufferer, it was not to be drunk there. We find from the eighteenth chapter of John’s gospel that it was after the terrible conflict in the garden was over, after His betrayers and murderers had come upon Him, after Peter had cut off the ear of the high priests servant, that He had not then drunk the cup, for He said, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” If Luke’s line is to look at Jesus as man, John certainly speaks of Him especially as a divine Person, and therefore does not bring before us the Savior’s prayer and conflict in the garden.
But let us contemplate a little further this astounding scene in Gethsemane, in that dark and memorable night. Why is the Holy One prostrate on the ground? Why such agony? Why that sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground? Why those earnest prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears? Why the thrice repeated cry to the Father? Why such bitter grief? for neither the hand of God nor of man was upon Him. Was not Satan there? Was not the cup there presented to Him? What a cup! Who can describe its unmixed bitterness! And why did Jesus so dread the drinking of that cup? How could it be otherwise? Did not the Savior say to the cruel multitude, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness?” Yes, it was their hour; for those who had hated Jesus without a cause, and had sought to destroy Him, should no longer be restrained, but, according to the divine counsel, He would be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and the prince of this world, who had the power of death, would put forth his power against Him. In this way, Jesus, by wicked hands, would be crucified and slain. Again, it may be asked, Was not Satan there? Did not this wicked one seek to devour the man-child, soon after His birth in Bethlehem, through Herod’s sword? Afterward, did he not endeavor by repeated temptation to overcome, if possible, the blessed Lord on His entrance on His public ministry? And did not our Savior say almost immediately before He entered Gethsemane, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me”? No doubt he came, and pressed the weight and terror of death upon Him, but found in Him calm submission and perfect obedience to the Father’s will. As another has said, “For Him obedience, however terrible the sufferings, was the joy and breathing of His soul.” How the contemplation of Him bows our hearts in adoration! Did not the cup clearly set forth that the righteous Sufferer must be given into the hands of His betrayers; that He must bear our sins in His own body on the tree, and be made sin for us; that death, as Satan’s power, and God’s just judgment of sin, must be suffered by Him,—and, more than all, as suffering for our sins, He must be forsaken of God? Thus to be betrayed by one apostle, thrice denied by another, forsaken of all; to be the Sin-bearer, and made sin for us, to be forsaken of God, and given up to the death of the cross, were immediately before Him. Could it be otherwise then that He who was perfect in love, in holiness, and in every sensibility of purity and truth, should have earnestly cried, “Ο my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt”? According to the divine counsels and ways of grace to us, and the glory of God, it was not possible; we therefore, after the thrice repeated prayer, see Him rising up in perfect submission to the Father’s will, and looking away from secondary causes He goes forth in obedience to take the cup out of His Father’s hand, and at Calvary finish the work which the Father gave Him to do. He said, “Rise, let us be going, behold he is at hand that doth betray me. And while he yet spake, “Judas, one of the twelve came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.” Soon the traitor’s kiss with Satanic foulness was imprinted on the Savior’s cheek (how hateful and distressing to Jesus!), for the betrayer’s sign was, “Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; hold him fast!” How thoroughly Satanic is this work!
Thus we see the sufferings of the loving Savior in Gethsemane were great beyond the largest powers of our comprehension; but the sufferings there were not atoning. Jesus was not there bearing sins, consequently there was not suffering divine judgment for sin; He was not then forsaken of God, there was no death in the garden, the cup was not drunk then; how could there be therefore atonement? No doubt Gethsemane’s sufferings, though unutterably great, were from the anticipation of what He must so soon pass through. In the garden, instead of being forsaken of God, He was in uninterrupted communion with the Father; instead of having to say, “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me,” He had disciples with Him, and He said unto them, “Watch with me.” True, instead of watching, they slept; but they were companions with Him in the suffering. When on the cross making atonement for sins, He was alone, He did “by himself” purge our sins; but in the garden, in testimony of His perfect purity before God, an angel was sent to strengthen Him. The contrast, then, between the Savior’s sufferings in the garden and on the cross is very striking.
Among other precious lessons which we may learn from the contemplation of our Savior in Gethsemane, we may observe—1St. If the anticipation of the sufferings of Jesus in the garden produced such unutterable distress, what must have been the magnitude and the reality of His suffering on the cross, when He was bruised and put to grief, and His soul was made an offering for sin?
2nd. When we consider for a moment what drinking the cup involved, it becomes evident that only a person with divine capacities could have drunk it, and have risen triumphantly out of it all to the eternal praise and glory of God.
3rd. In the garden, as well as elsewhere, He has “left us an example that we should follow his steps.” And although He only could drink that cup, yet we may learn that earnest cryings and prayers, and supplications, and repeated, too, in time of trouble, are perfectly consistent with entire submission to our Fathers will, and desire for His glory. “Being in an agony he prayed more earnestly.” “Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” (Heb. 5:8.)
4th. That in time of distress and sorrow, whether, instrumentally, it come to us from Satan or man, or both, it becomes us to be so satisfied that it is His will, as to take the distress, whatever it may be, from His hands. Though Satan’s and man’s hatred, sin, the grave, death under judgment of sin, and forsaking, were involved in our Savior’s drinking the cup, yet He so discerned His Fathers will, as to rise above all secondary causes, and say, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? “To see God in everything is surely the activity of a divinely-wrought faith; but can this be till the soul has taken the ground before Him of “nevertheless, not what I will, but as thou wilt?”
5th. It is scarcely possible for us to meditate on the cup of unmingled sorrow which He drank for us, without a lively sense in our souls of divine grace, and the amazing contrast of it with the cup of perfect love and peace which He bids us drink in remembrance of Him.
6th. The more our spirits are in company with our adorable Lord in Gethsemane, the more the work of the cross will stand pre-eminently before our souls in its perfectness; the more, too, will the magnitude and value of the finished work take hold on us, and we shall enter increasingly into the solid and immoveable basis in divine righteousness on which all our hopes and blessings are eternally founded. Η. H. S.