The Church of All Nations is a popular tourist spot for Christians who visit Jerusalem. It is located at the base of the Mount of Olives just a short walk from old Jerusalem’s St. Stephens Gate. The church is located in an olive tree grove many people believe was planted by Christian pilgrims, perhaps as early as the fourth century.
The Church of All Nations is one of the sites reputed to be the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed the night of His arrest. In the center of the church’s sanctuary is a large rock more than 10 feet in diameter. Guides say it is the rock on which Jesus sat as He prayed to His Heavenly Father that fateful night.
On the rear wall of the church is a huge mural painting of the event. Jesus is portrayed sitting on the edge of the rock looking serenely into the blue-black night with a ray of heavenly light illuminating His face and torso. Perhaps you have seen copies of this picture. It is a popular piece of religious art.
Unfortunately, the picture is not an accurate retelling of the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane was not a serene event. It was a soul-wrenching struggle that drained Jesus’ body and spirit.
Matthew and Mark indicate Jesus experienced a physical change that could be perceived by His inner circle of Peter, James and John. We are told He became “sorrowful,” “deeply distressed” and “troubled.” Jesus gave voice to these feelings when He said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow.” In today’s terms, what faced Jesus was so distressing He felt like He was going to die right there on the spot.
Luke says Jesus went about “a stone’s throw” away from the disciples and “knelt down.” Mark says He “fell to the ground.” Matthew is most descriptive. There Jesus fell with His “face in the ground.” So overcome is our Lord that the weight of what lies before Him forces Jesus to the ground with His face buried in the dirt.
His prayer is a pleading; His language, that of a child. “Abba,” the word used in Mark, is a family term equal to a child calling his father “Daddy.” That was Jesus’ relationship. He pled with His “Daddy” to take away the “cup.”
Jesus acknowledged that with God all things are possible, and they are. God is omnipotent, which means He is all powerful. But God is not arbitrary. What He does must be consistent with His nature and purpose. So it was with the “cup.”
What was the “cup?” It was not death, for Jesus knew on the other side of death lay the resurrection. He had said so clearly. The cup was not the pain of the cross. Jesus taught His followers faithfulness to God was more important than life itself.
The “cup” which Jesus asked to be removed was His becoming the essence of sin. The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus became God’s sacrificial Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. He made the “once for all” sacrifice for sin described in Hebrews.
Jesus’ prayer asked that if there were any other moral and ethical way of God offering salvation to mankind other than Jesus becoming the essence of sin, that the other way be followed. Jesus hated sin. It was foreign to Him. It repulsed Him. It was against His own divine nature. Is it any wonder Jesus struggled at becoming that which He despised, which He came to overcome?
So intense was the prayer struggle Luke says drops of blood oozed from Jesus’ pores and fell to the ground. Is this a reference to physical pressure caused by stress? Luke adds that angels had to come and help Jesus. The reference reminds us of the angels’ ministry to our Lord’s physical needs after his 40 days of temptations in the wilderness.
Throughout the prayer struggle, Jesus always prayed, “Not my will but thine be done.” Even though Jesus did not want to become the essence of sin, He was willing to do it to live out the nature and purpose of God, namely, to demonstrate God’s love and to provide opportunity for salvation.
In the end, Jesus picked up the “cup” and drank the last bitter dregs from it. He became obedient, even unto death on the cross. He endured the wrath of God against sin itself. He rose victoriously, taking sin and death captive and providing hope for you and me.
Jesus found His strength in the agonizing minutes, maybe hours, of prayer in Gethsemane. His struggle taxed His very being. Perhaps if we let Scripture shape our understanding of that event more than a picture, we would understand just how important and how difficult Gethsemane was for our Lord.
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