A salesman said to me, “We all know you do not get something good for nothing.” It
turned out to be very true in regard to what he was selling. I began to think about this in
relationship to the Gospel and concluded that it is both true and false. Salvation by grace
through faith is the greatest gift man can receive, and he does nothing to deserve it. He
is getting something for nothing, but if you think a little deeper you see that someone had
to pay for that free gift. In fact, it was the most costly gift ever purchased, for it cost
Jesus unimaginable agony and His very life blood. In our text we see the beginning of the
payment for our redemption. There was a two-fold aspect of Christ’s payment for our
sin. There was one in Gethsemane, and the other on Golgotha. The first was mainly
mental suffering, and the second was mainly physical suffering. Before we enter the
garden we want to look first at-
I. THE SAVIOR’S SONG. v. 30.
We often think of Jesus as a man of sorrows, and that He was, but we more often fail
to see Him as a man of song as well. No religion has been such a religion of song as
Christianity. It began as such from the beginning. Even before His greatest sorrow we
see Jesus and His disciples singing. All were doing so except Judas who had lost the song
of his life when he left Jesus. He never sang another note.
What a delight it would be to hear this Apostolic choir singing. Do you wonder what
it was they sang? Scholars tell us it is likely that we have the words to their song. It was
the Passover season and the Jewish custom was to sing Psa. 113 to 118. It is likely then
that Psa. 118 was part of their hymn. A heart filled with song is better prepared to face
sorrow. As we see how rapidly Jesus went from singing to suffering, we see again how
Jesus experienced life just as we do. He knows from experience how life can have sudden
and sharp contrast. You can be happy in one moment and discouraged in the next. You
can be singing one minute and sobbing the next. Jesus had just spoken of His joy, and in
a matter of minutes He will be on His face with strong crying and tears.
Even in the darkest hours the Christian can sing, for God gives songs in the night.
The Apostle Paul and Silas were in a dark damp dungeon and they sang. The martyrs at
the stake often sang as they were perishing in the flames. The singing of the saints even
in times of great suffering and sorrow has led many an unbeliever to want to become a
follower of the Christ who sang just before His greatest suffering. If Jesus could sing
just before this, and knowing the cross was soon to follow, then we ought not to be
without a song. Next we see-
II. THE SAVIOR’S SORROW. v. 37-39
The hour which Jesus had so often spoken of was now approaching. He had always
escaped before because His hour had not yet come. Now it had come and He was
exceedingly sorrowful. The mental stress was so great that Dr. Luke says He sweat drops
of blood to indicate the intensity of it. There are several records of others who had this
experience. The question comes as to why Jesus was under such stress. What was this
cup that He had to drink that was so horrible to Him?
In verse 39 we see how earnest was His desire, for He fell on His face before God.
There are times when a man does not ask what is the proper position to pray, but he just
falls flat before God and pours out his heart. I remember the first time I felt this need to
cast myself down. I was in high school and a situation came about in which I thought my
father had drowned. It was near the raging falls and his car was near by but he was
nowhere around. In fear that he had fallen in I ran to the car, fell on the seat, and cried
out to God that my fears would prove to be false. Fortunately, they were.
If we have had this experience, it helps to understand Jesus, but His need was
infinitely greater than what any man has ever experienced. If your heart ever feels like
breaking with a burden to heavy to bear, remember that Jesus understands from
personal experience. When no one else can understand you know He does. We sing the
song No One Understands Like Jesus, and it is true, for no one has experienced sorrows
on such an infinite scale.
Was it only the death on the cross that He faced? No, for even though this was
cruelty at its worse, and even though all deserted Him, and He was hated and spat upon,
whipped and crowned with thorns, this was not what caused this great sorrow of Jesus.
His anguish in the garden was basically mental, and it arose out of the fact that He who
knew no sin was going to become sin for us. Can you begin to grasp what this meant to
the pure, holy and righteous soul of Jesus? To be sin is to be separated from God, and to
be separated from God is to be in hell. Jesus was going to endure hell for us that we
might escape it. It is difficult enough to be forsaken by friends, but to be forsaken of God
is the ultimate abandonment.
Other men have suffered as much as Jesus did physically. He did not come just to
bear our pain but to bear our sin, for on Him was laid the iniquity of us all. Strong men
have cracked under the burden of their own sin, but Jesus bore the sin of the whole
world. All the seething mass of wickedness from Adam to the day of judgment was
placed upon Him, for His pure soul this was infinitely greater burden than any physical
pain He suffered. What Jesus suffered in Gethsemane is beyond our comprehension, and
we can only say that Jesus bore hell for us.
Adding to His sorrows was the lack of support and sympathy on the part of His
disciples. Jesus, like all of us, found great comfort in the presence of those who care.
Jesus asked only one thing of His disciples, and that was that they pray with Him and
watch so that no one would intrude on Him as He prayed. He wanted to be ready and
composed when they came for Him. Here was man’s chance to really be of help to the
suffering humanity of Christ, but they failed. How alone Jesus must have felt when He
came and saw them sleeping.
Jesus had been surrounded by crowds most of His ministry, but few of them
understood Him, and so He had His chosen group and inner circle, and still He was not
understood. He had to often get alone and commune with His Father. Companionship
does not necessarily mean communion, and Jesus experienced what most of us do at
sometime, which is a sense of loneliness even with others around. The true picture of
loneliness is not a man on the desert alone, but a man in a crowded railroad station with
people bumping him on every side, but with no one there to meet him. Loneliness is not
just lack of people, but lack of concern and understanding in the midst of people. W. E.
Sangster told of how he was ordained in New York, and all the others had families and
friends around them and he had no one. He never felt so alone in his life. Jesus
understands for He became more and more alone as He neared the cross. Little did His
disciples know that the rest of history was going to be changed by what was happening.
They were as unaware of the revolutionary nature of that hour as Rip Van Winkle was of
the Revolution he slept through.
Just because we are blind to God’s working does not mean He is not working. God is
working out His plan of redemption even if we are asleep to what He is doing. When
Jesus came the third time He just told them to sleep on, for it was too late now to give
Him support. The battle is over and they did not support Him, but He does not scold for
He recognizes that the flesh is weak. They miss their chance to cooperate with God in
His great plan. They charged Jesus with not caring when the storm threatened to sink
their boat, but He did care and He awoke and saved them. Now it was their chance to
show they cared, but they slept through His stormy trial. So often we think God does not
care about our needs, but the fact is, we are the ones who do not care, and we miss
opportunities, like the disciples, to cooperate with God.
In verse 46 Jesus just told them to get up and they would go. They had missed their
opportunity, but Jesus did not reject them and let their present failure stop them from
being a part of His future plan. Jesus was sad that they let Him down, but He was not
going to let them down. In the midst of His sorrows He was still fully supportive of them.
Next we see-
III. THE SAVIOR’S SUBMISSION. v. 39, 42, 44
Here in a garden of beauty, like the first Adam, Jesus met the temptation to exercise
His own will contrary to that of the Father’s will. Great was the temptation to escape the
cross. He knew they were coming for Him, and He could have escaped as He did on
other occasions, but note His attitude: “If it is possible.” Jesus desired desperately that
He not have to become sin, but if it was the only way it was possible to save man, then He
would submit. Three times He prays the same way, just as Paul asked the Lord three
times to remove his thorn in the flesh. Both Jesus and Paul were denied their deepest
desires, but they did not rebel. They submitted to God’s will. Submission means to
continue in the way of God’s will even when God says no.
It was not possible that men could be saved by any other means than the cross. If it
were possible, God would certainly have granted His Son's earnest request. Any plan of
salvation that denies the necessity of the cross is a false plan. Jesus submitted to God’s
will and said, “If I must go through the dark to get to the light, then I will go.” He did
not try to bend God’s will to fit His, but submitted Himself to God’s will. Jesus
submitted to God’s plan in the garden, and this gained Him the victory which enabled
Him to lay down His life and go to the cross voluntarily in peace. Jesus had His mental
battle all won before He entered His work so that all would be voluntary and calmly
accepted. The real battles of life are spiritual, they are between serving our own will or
surrendering to God’s will. Jesus had conquered His will and surrendered to the will of
the Father in the garden, and so He could freely lay down His life. Finally we see-
IV. THE SAVIOR’S SURRENDER. v. 47-56
Why would they come with swords and staves? Jesus was someone to be reckoned
with, for only a few days before He drove men out of the temple single handed, and
escaped before they were able to arrest Him. John records that those coming to arrest
Him now were so amazed at His courage and calmness that they fell backwards when He
said, “I am He whom you seek.” They were not sure He would practice what He
preached in turning the other cheek and loving His enemies.
How Judas could betray Him with a kiss is beyond us. It was a common greeting, of
course, and it was easier to see him doing this in the dark than if he just pointed to Jesus.
What Judas did was terrible and yet Jesus called him friend in verse 50. Spurgeon says
that we might have excused Peter if he had struck Judas instead of the servant Malchus,
but Jesus not only taught us to love those who hate us, He practiced it. His last miracle
before the cross was for an enemy, as He healed the ear of Malchus. He gave practical
proof of the sincerity of His last word on the cross, which was “Father forgive them.”
Peter, as usual, tries to help out in a wrong way by striking Malchus. He showed his
desire to keep his boast of dying for Jesus, for by doing this he did risk his life. Jesus tells
him to put his weapon away and He heals Malchus. Tradition tells us that he became a
believer. If it was just a matter of power Jesus would not need His disciples to fight for
Him, for He had 12 legions of angels that would have rescued Him. That represents
about 72 thousand angels, and we know that it only took one to slay an army of 185
thousand in the Old Testament. There was no lack of power at the command of Jesus,
but power could not save man, only love could do that, and Jesus laid down His life in
love.
How anxious the angels must have been to see their Lord being treated by a mob as
if He were a common criminal. But Jesus did not call upon this power, for He must give
himself up or give us up. The disciples saw it later, and now we see it too. Let us thank
God that Jesus did not let the failure of His disciples lead Him to call it quits, or to call
upon the angels to deliver Him. Thank God for that victory He gained in Gethsemane
that led Him to go to the cross for our salvation.
The paradox here is that this place of terrible agony and pain became also a place of
comfort for our Lord as he headed for the cross. Gerald Kennedy says that in France at
one of the great healing shrines where thousands of people go each year they have a
number of hotels and motels to accommodate them. One hotel is called Gethsemane.
But the additional words on the sign made it seem anything but an appropriate name, for
underneath were the words, “With all modern comforts.” My first thought was of the
great contrast between Gethsemane and comfort. They did not fit together, but then as
you examine the record you realize this is not the case at all.
Jesus went to Gethsemane, not just on that Thursday night before the cross, but
often to be alone in the midst of its beauty to commune with His Father. And even this
last time, though it will be filled with an agony that is beyond our grasp, it ended with
Jesus being fully comforted and committed to the will of God, which meant the cross.
Gethsemane was both a place of trial and triumph. It was a place of comfort after all,
and because of the great victory Jesus won there, it is a place of modern comfort as we
who benefitted by that victory look back. It was a battleground, but also a victory
garden, for here Jesus conquered the last temptation to avoid the cross.
