Gethsemane

   We will never fully understand Christ’s sorrow in Gethsemane, but we can understand that there was never a battle like what happened there. What Jesus faced was not the ordinary experience of death by an ordinary (sinful) man, but rather the death of an innocent man who was suffering for the sin of the world and tasting death for every man.

“He who was the ‘true Light,’ and had always dwelt in the bosom of God, Who is Light, was about to plunge into the thick darkness. He Who is the ‘Prince of Life’ was also to go into the realm of death, in utter weakness and self-abandonment. He Who was holy and absolutely sinless was about to be “made sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21), as well as to have the sins of all His people laid upon Him (Isaiah 53:6; 1 Peter 2:24)” (Philip Mauro, The Prayer in Gethsemane).

Nowhere is Jesus’ humanity more clearly on display. Before He suffers outwardly, He trembles inwardly. He doesn’t want to die, and He asks to be exempted, but His request is denied. His culminating prayer then becomes: nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will. A man’s willingness to put himself absolutely into the hands of God, regardless of the consequences, is the highest act of moral courage. And this Jesus does.

Fighting against His emotions, the Lord sought through prayer the strength to be completely obedient to the will of God. And He found what He sought. Behind His restraint before Caiaphas, behind His calm before Pilate, and behind His trust on the cross lay His victory won in Gethsemane. The Garden is where the real struggle occurred and where the true course was settled

Kenny Chumbley