And they come to a place of which the name [is] Gethsemane, and he says to his disciples, Sit here while I shall pray.
Mark opens the Gethsemane scene with the plainest words: a place, and a word telling the disciples to sit and wait. In that garden the Lord faces, in prayer with His Father, what no one else can enter into.
The garden was a familiar place on the slope of the Mount of Olives, and its name carries its own message.
This is the garden somewhere on the Mount of Olives where the Lord often went with His disciples. Here He spent part of the night after the last Passover. Here He was in intense agony as He faced the cup of wrath due to sin. How significant is the name, which means "wine-press"! Angels came and ministered to Him. Here Judas also betrayed Him with a kiss, and He was arrested.
Commentators differ on how to translate the name. Others read it as "oil-press," and that reading marks the garden off from the cross.
Gethsemane, the "oil-press," answers to its name. In it we do not find the wine-press, the suffering that accomplished atonement. We do not find the bearing of sin itself. We find the pressure on Him of that supreme sorrow, as He now touched the very edge of it.
The disciples had walked this path before. What changed was not the place but the hour.
They follow Him to Gethsemane. They had done so many times before, for Jesus often went there with His disciples. 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.
The instruction to stay behind marks off ground the disciples were not able to enter. He moves away from them in stages, and the last stage He takes alone.
As we approach the mysterious suffering in Gethsemane, every circumstance warns us to move with reverent care — even the small number of these weighty words. Eight of the eleven disciples are left behind, and with Peter, James, and John He goes on further. Soon He tells these also to stay and watch with Him, but He Himself still goes on to what they cannot share with Him.
In the garden He does what He had done in every trial of His life.
In the presence of this great sorrow, as in all the other trials of His perfect life, He gave Himself to prayer. But whatever relief prayer may bring, its first effect is to make the trial felt more sharply. Prayer brings every circumstance into the presence of God, and there each one is felt in its true character.
Betrayal, denial and desertion were all near. But the weight in the garden went deeper than any of them.
He now reviews in spirit before God what He is about to suffer in drinking the cup of the wrath of God. Jesus was holy, and He had lived in the love of the Father. He alone understood what the holiness of God was, and what His love cost. So He was all the more able, as no one else was, to understand how horrible sin was, and how awful the wrath of God was.
In the garden He felt the judgment that was coming. What He bore at the cross was something else.
On the cross it was a question between God and Him alone. There, made sin, and recovering the glory of God that the whole world had compromised, He alone endured everything in His own person. This is the difference between the cross and Gethsemane.
The Lord comes back from prayer to the men He left behind.
When He comes to the disciples He finds them sleeping. Think of it! The Master praying, and the servants sleeping. In that moment of unmatched sorrow the Master is in agony before God, showing perfect human dependence, while the servant is sleeping. Such is human nature. Peter slept in the presence of the glory of the Lord, on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now he is sleeping in the presence of His sorrow.
- Press. Gethsemane means a press — wine-press or oil-press, depending on the reading. The name fits the pressure of sorrow that came on Him there.
- Place. It was ground He knew well and often visited with His disciples; the setting was familiar, but the hour was not.
- Parting. "Sit here" draws a boundary. Eight stay, three go further, and the last steps He takes alone into what none of them could share.
- Prayer. Prayer was His resource in every trial. It did not dull the trial. It brought the whole reality of it before God.
- Presence. The Master prayed in perfect dependence while the servants slept. The men who slept in the presence of His glory now slept in the presence of His sorrow.
And he takes with him Peter and James and John, and he began to be amazed and oppressed in spirit.
Mark moves quickly to a garden. There the One who had healed and taught with such calm takes three men aside, and sorrow breaks over Him. The verse raises two questions: what do these unusual words describe, and why did He want witnesses?
Mark uses two unusual Greek words here. The second one carries a note of homelessness, not just fear.
Here is another striking instance of Mark's vivid description: "He began to be greatly distressed and troubled," ekthambeisthai kai ademonein, in Mark 14:33... The word ademonein is a moving word. On one likely derivation, it means the homeless feeling of someone far from his country and his friends... Needless to say, the word is charged in the Gospels with a quite unique intensity of meaning: "Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow."
The cause was the cup He was about to drink. Only He could measure what it held.
He now reviews in spirit before God what He is about to suffer in drinking the cup of the wrath of God. Jesus was holy, and He had lived in the love of the Father. He alone understood what the holiness of God was, and what His love cost. He was therefore all the more able to understand, alone, how horrible sin was, and how awful the wrath of God was. Only those who are in sin are indifferent to this wrath. They do not know the holiness of God. They are strangers to Him and have never tasted His love. It is awful to see us calm, content with ourselves, and careless. We know the pangs that sin cost the Lord Jesus, and why He was greatly distressed and troubled.
The three He takes had already seen His glory on the mountain.
The men who had seen the glory of His transfiguration must also see the agony of His soul as He faced the greater agony of the cross. For He tells them His soul is very sorrowful, even to death, and asks that they watch. Why did His unusual words not have a more serious effect on them? Did they not realise this was no ordinary occasion?
One of the three had already failed in the same way once before.
Peter slept in the presence of the glory of the Lord, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and he is sleeping now in the presence of His sorrow.
The distress was not hidden. He spoke it out to men who were meant to feel it with Him.
He began to be greatly distressed and troubled. He felt as man what He had to go through — not mere pain or suffering. The power of death weighed on His spirit. It weighed on Him as man, yet with a weight no man could measure. Yet with what calm simplicity He tells it out!... His need was there, and told out to hearts that ought to have felt it and watched earnestly, occupied with Him. He looked for this, for someone to have compassion.
Some read His shrinking as weakness. Commentators say the opposite: to face that cup unmoved would have been hardness, not love.
At Gethsemane our Lord was, as it is written, "greatly distressed and troubled."... It would not have been perfection if He had not felt it this way. It was impossible that He who was life could desire such a death from His Father — from God in wrath against Him. It would have been hardness, not love. He felt it perfectly, in keeping with God His Father. Yet He fully submits His human will to the Father's.
This distress came before the cross. It was not itself the atonement.
Was propitiation accomplished by all this? No, my friends. Propitiation means meeting the righteous claims of God, glorifying Him about sin, and making atonement for it. It was not accomplished by the living agonies of Jesus, nor by the sorrows He tasted, nor by the tears He shed. In the garden you see our Lord calmly and quietly thinking through everything, facing everything, looking at everything, weighing everything. That is what produced this deep sorrow in His blessed soul. But Gethsemane was not Golgotha. In the garden He took the cup, if I may say it, and looked at what was in it. On the cross He drank it.
- Words — Mark's two words are strong ones. The second suggests the homeless feeling of someone far from country and friends.
- Cause — He was reviewing the cup of God's wrath. Only the Holy One who had lived in the Father's love could measure how horrible sin is.
- Witnesses — the three who saw His glory on the mountain also see His agony in the garden. Both times, Peter slept.
- Company — He told out His need and looked for someone to have compassion. The call to watch was real.
- Measure — the shrinking was perfection, not weakness. In the garden He weighed the cup. On the cross He drank it.
And he says to them, My soul is full of grief even unto death; abide here and watch.
He is in the garden with His disciples, hours before the cross, and He puts His anguish into words. The verse raises two questions at once: what was pressing on Him so heavily, and why did He ask men to stay near Him at all?
Scripture speaks of the Lord in the same terms it uses of us. It names His body, His soul and His spirit. This verse names His soul.
Christ is Man, and so in every detail Scripture speaks of Him in language it would use of a man — always apart from sin, and holy by His very nature. It speaks of His body, as in Matthew 26:12 and Hebrews 10:5. It speaks of His soul, as in Mark 14:34 and John 12:27. It speaks of His spirit too, as in Mark 2:8 and Luke 23:46. All these speak of Him in Manhood, the Son having become Man.
The weight was not the prospect of physical pain. It was the power of death itself.
There all that was before the blessed One came upon His spirit. He began to be sorrowful and very heavy. He felt as man what He had to undergo. It was not mere pain or suffering. The power of death weighed upon His spirit. It weighed on Him as man, yet with a weight no man could measure. Yet with what calm simplicity He tells it out! We ought to know it, though it may be beyond our knowledge.
Commentators name what the cup was, and rule out lesser answers.
He did not shrink from death. The agony was not because of the physical sufferings He knew He would face. Nor was Satan, as some foolishly teach, ready to kill Him. All such statements are dishonouring to Him. He was not in danger of death in Gethsemane. What was the cup He dreaded? The Sinless One, who knew no sin, would soon be made sin for us. God's face, on which He had always looked, would soon be hidden.
The sorrow here is anticipation, not the thing itself.
In Gethsemane, He was anticipating the cross; at Calvary, He was actually enduring it. In Gethsemane, "there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him"; at Calvary, He was forsaken by all. There was no angelic ministry there. In Gethsemane He addresses God as "Father," and so enjoys the full communion of that relationship. But at Calvary He cries, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Here He asks others to stay near Him in His suffering. He never asks it again.
When the cross came, there was no such call to disciples to watch with Him. He was alone, absolutely, essentially, for us — that is, for our sins — with none of men or angels in any way or measure near Him.
Note: Kelly follows Matthew's account of the same moment, which reads "watch with me." Mark records only "Remain here and watch."
The men He called to watch had already seen His glory before this night.
They had already been the chosen witnesses of His glories on the mountain. Now they are given the opportunity to share His sorrows in the garden. No one could share the actual forsaking on the cross. But in what He felt in His soul as the cross drew near, others can have a part, in their measure.
What He asked was small, and He did not get it.
When He comes to the disciples He finds them sleeping. Think of it! The Master praying, and the servants sleeping. In that moment of sorrow beyond compare, the Master is in agony before God, showing perfect human dependence. The servant is asleep. Such is human nature. Peter slept on the mountain where the Lord's glory shone out. Now he is sleeping in the presence of His sorrow.
He met death as our substitute, and the result reaches the believer's own dying.
For Him, as our holy substitute, death meant bearing the penalty of sin. That is why He can say, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death." He has borne that penalty, and so He has robbed death of its terrors for the believer. Stephen can rejoice in the prospect of death, and Paul can say it is far better to depart and be with Christ.
- Soul. The words are those of a real man; Scripture names His body, soul and spirit exactly as it names ours, sin apart.
- Sorrow. What crushed Him was not the pain ahead. It was the power of death pressing on His spirit, felt as man, with a weight no man can measure.
- Cup. He dreaded being made sin, and His Father's face hidden. He did not dread death, and Satan was not about to kill Him.
- Alone. In the garden He could still say "Father," an angel strengthened Him, and He could ask men to watch. At the cross He cried "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" with no one near.
- Result. He bore the penalty of death, and so took away its terror for the believer. Stephen could welcome death, and Paul could call departing far better.
And, going forward a little, he fell upon the earth; and he prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass away from him.
Gethsemane is the garden where Jesus prayed on the night He was arrested, and this verse gives the plainest picture of what He did there: He moved away from His closest disciples, went down on the ground, and prayed. The question it raises is why the One who came to die would ask that the hour pass from Him at all.
Many sorrows pressed on Him that night, but one stood behind them all.
It was a deep sorrow to the Lord that the nation were plotting to put Him to death. One of His twelve disciples was about to betray Him. Another was going to deny Him. All of them would fall away because of Him. But in Gethsemane the Lord faces a far deeper sorrow: what He was about to endure at the cross, when, made sin, He would be forsaken by God. Faced with this great sorrow, as in every other trial of His perfect life, He gave Himself to prayer. But whatever relief prayer may bring, its first effect is to make the trial felt more keenly. Prayer brings every circumstance into the presence of God, where each one is seen for what it truly is.
Mark alone records the posture, and the other accounts add what he leaves out.
Matthew has told us that He prayed three times in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:38-44). For His position, falling on the ground, Mark's statement is the plainest testimony (Mark 14:35). Luke alone tells us of His sweat like blood and of the angel who came to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43-44). He knew the power of darkness in all its might, so He can now fully enter into the trials of His people.
The contrast with His followers that night was stark.
The Master praying, and the servants sleeping! The Master is in agony before God, showing perfect human dependence, in that moment of sorrow beyond compare, while the servant sleeps.
The prayer has an "if" in it. He prays to a Father who can do anything — so why was the hour not taken away?
Face down on the ground, He prays in trusting faith to His Father, with whom all things are possible. Yet He adds that the Father's will, not His own, should be done. So what was possible did not decide the matter. Of course He could have avoided the cross. But then the solemn question of sin could never have been settled, and sinful people could never have been saved.
So what made this hour unlike every other suffering He had borne?
He prays that the hour may pass from Him, if it is possible. He had borne every cup of suffering from the hand of sinners without complaining. His Father's favour was enough for Him! But this cup was to be made a curse. The just One would be made sin. He who had always been in the Father's bosom, the object of an infinite love, would find Himself forsaken by God. Because He was devoted to God, He wished to draw back from this if He could. But if we were to escape the penalty of sin, He had to bear it for us.
The shrinking and the submission are not in tension. Both belong to who He is.
It was part of His perfection to shrink from the cross. So He can say to the Father, "All things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me." But it was just as much part of His perfection to submit to the cross and carry out the Father's will. So He can add, "Yet not what I will, but what you will."
That He could pray this way at all says something about His humanity.
It would not have been perfection if He had not felt it in this way. It was impossible that He who was life could desire such a death from His Father — from God in wrath against Him. That would have been hardness, not love. He had a real soul, a truly rational human soul, not just a spark of life. He could not have prayed this if it were true, as some have claimed, that the divine nature in our Lord took the place of a soul. He would not have been perfect man had He not taken a soul as well as a body.
- Sorrow. Betrayal, denial and desertion were real griefs. The far deeper one was being made sin and forsaken by God.
- Prayer. He met that sorrow with prayer. Prayer brings everything into God's presence, so it made the trial felt more, not less.
- Ground. Mark alone records Him falling on the ground. It is the plainest picture of a dependent Servant, while the disciples slept.
- Possible. All things were possible to the Father. But avoiding the cross would have left sin unsettled and sinners unsaved.
- Perfection. It was perfection to shrink from the cup, and perfection to drink it. That is the prayer of a real human soul, submitted to the Father's will.
And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee take away this cup from me; but not what *I* will, but what *thou* [wilt].
This is Gethsemane, with the cross still ahead. His words here hold two things together: complete confidence in His Father's power, and a plea that His Father would take away what is coming.
The first word is not Greek. "Abba" is Aramaic, the everyday language of the region, and it stands next to the Greek word for Father. One writer explains where these two words appear together:
'Abba' appears three times in the New Testament, and 'Father' always follows it. Translators copied 'Abba' over instead of translating it; a translation would read 'Father Father.' In the Greek, the 'Abba' is Aramaic and the 'Father' is Greek... The only place where the Lord Himself says it is Mark 14:36. And the Spirit in the hearts of believers puts the very words He used into their lips. Some suggest that in the two words the Jew and the Gentile each say 'Father' in his own language.
One writer points out who records this word, and where the Lord's service had brought Him:
It is Mark who tells us that He said, "Abba, Father." Mark writes of Him as the perfect Servant. His path of service had brought Him to this dark hour... To whom could He turn? Only to Him whom He served with that holy and perfect devotion and in whom was all His trust. He put the whole matter into His hands... It describes a relationship in which knowing a perfect love draws out perfect trust.
He had suffered from men before without once asking to be spared. This cup was different:
In His life of obedience Jesus suffered the hostility of sinners. He never turned away from them, and He never demanded that such a cup be taken away from Him. Why this one, then? Because this was not just the cup of the sin of men, or of Satan's malice, but the cup of the wrath of God. In what He had to suffer before from men, He had the joy of doing His Father's will. But in this cup, the cup of wrath, there was not one drop of sweetness... And why could the cup not pass? Here is the reason. God cannot bear with sin. And since Jesus Himself was made sin for us, God's wrath had to fall on sin.
Some read His shrinking as weakness. One writer says the opposite. Not feeling it would have been the flaw:
It would not have been perfection if He had not felt it this way. It was impossible that He who was life could desire such a death from His Father — from God in wrath against Him. It would have been hardness, not love. He felt it perfectly, as before God His Father, and still He gives up His human will completely to the Father's... He had a real soul, not just a spark of life.
He states His Father's power as fact, and then asks. What the Father could do was not the deciding question:
Face down on the ground, He prays in trusting faith to His Father, with whom all things are possible. Yet He adds that the Father's will, and not His own, should be done. So what was possible did not decide the matter. Of course He could have avoided the cross. But if He had, the solemn question of sin could never have been settled, and sinful creatures could never have been saved.
The closing words show that He had a will of His own. That is not a crack in His perfection:
He was not one who had no will of His own, as people sometimes say. He had a will as a true man, but He subjected His will to the will of the Father. He never exercised His will in independence. He would not have been a perfect man if He had had no will.
The same two words appear twice more — no longer on His lips:
But — wonderful thought — it is no longer our blessed Lord Jesus who uses this word of closeness. It is those whom His precious blood has redeemed. It is those who have received the adoption of sons.
That cry says something about the Spirit, and about the Lord in that hour:
This shows what the "Spirit of His Son" is. It also shows that the Lord at that moment was consciously enjoying His relationship with the Father, whatever agony He was passing through.
- The cry — "Abba" is Aramaic, "Father" is Greek; the Lord says it once, in the garden, and hands the whole matter to the One He served.
- The cup — not human hatred, which He never asked to escape, but the wrath of God, in which there was not one drop of sweetness.
- The shrinking — to take this cup without feeling it would have been hardness, not love; His recoil shows a real human soul, not a failing one.
- The limit — all things were possible to the Father, but if the cup had passed, sin could never be settled and no sinner saved.
- The gift — He held a real will and never used it apart from His Father; now the Spirit cries "Abba, Father" in the hearts of those His blood has redeemed.
And he comes and finds them sleeping. And he says to Peter, Simon, dost thou sleep? Hast thou not been able to watch one hour?
Jesus comes back from praying and finds the three men He had asked to keep watch fast asleep. He speaks to one of them only, and the name He uses carries the rebuke.
The Lord had given this disciple the new name Peter. Here He goes back to the old one.
He and his two companions were only asked to watch for an hour. They could not do it. Yet the Lord spoke His gentle words of reproof only to Peter, who had been so boastful, and He used his old name of Simon. This was fitting, for at that moment he was not true to his new name. He was showing the marks of the old nature that was still in him.
The same three had slept once before, on the mountain where they saw the Lord in glory. Here all three sleep again, yet the Lord's question falls on one man.
The sorrows of the Garden were too deep for poor weak human nature, just as before the glories of the Mount were too great. On both occasions the disciples find relief in sleep. Peter had gone beyond the others in boasting of his devotion to the Lord. So the Lord speaks to him in particular when He comes to these sleeping saints and asks, "Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour?" Prayer expresses our dependence on God, and prayer alone will prepare us for coming temptation. Too often our natural self-confidence leaves us with little fear of temptation, and so with little sense of our need of prayer.
The garden sets two figures side by side.
When He comes to the disciples He finds them sleeping. Think of it! The Master praying, and the servants sleeping. The Master is in agony before God in that moment of unequalled sorrow, showing perfect human dependence. The servant is sleeping. Such is human nature.
The Lord asked for little. Missing it exposed the heart, not tired eyes.
They slept. They had not enough affection for Him to watch one hour. Peter, who was willing to face prison or death, could not watch one hour. This uncovers the selfishness at the bottom of our hearts. That selfishness is a stranger to the affections that make our hearts enter into the glory of Jesus, and into His sufferings too.
One writer sets Peter's night beside the Lord's, step by step.
How solemn is Peter's course in these scenes. It is recorded not so that we should dwell on his failure and belittle a devoted servant of the Lord. It is recorded so that we may learn the evil of our own hearts and take heed to ourselves. When the Lord warns Peter of his coming denial, Peter, in self-confidence, contradicts the Lord and boasts of his devotion. When, a little later, the Lord is watching and praying, Peter is sleeping. When, in the presence of His enemies, the Lord is silent, like a lamb before her shearers, Peter is actually striking with a sword. When the Lord is making the good confession before the high priest, Peter is denying the Lord before a servant girl.
The rebuke does not end in rebuke. One writer traces the calm behind it to where the Lord had already taken His own sorrow.
With what touching grace He calls the strange inconsistency to view. Where was the strength that was going through everything just now? Yet with what grace He warns, with what grace He excuses: "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." … He was so perfectly with His Father about the depth of what lay before Him, and had taken it all to Him alone, that His free, unhindered grace could act in full liberty toward His poor, feeble, failing disciples. No weight lay on His spirit with them. He bore that with His Father.
Another writer adds that the disciples did not yet have the help that came later.
He sees these three disciples fast asleep. It is the very moment when He might have expected them to watch with Him in His sorrow, though they could not share it. He longed to have those He loved with Him. … And then He tenderly adds, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." The day of the Holy Spirit had not yet come. Later they would have strength to suffer for Him in every circumstance.
- Name — He says "Simon," the old name, because at that moment Peter was showing the old nature, not the new name.
- Boast — The Lord speaks to Peter alone, because Peter alone had boasted of more devotion than the rest. The loudest promise met the smallest test.
- Hour — One hour was all He asked. Failing it exposed not tired bodies but hearts with too little affection to stay awake with Him.
- Chain — Sleep instead of prayer was the middle link: boast, sleep, sword, denial.
- Grace — He had carried the whole weight to His Father. So He came back with room to warn and to excuse: the spirit willing, the flesh weak.
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed [is] willing, but the flesh weak.
The words come in Gethsemane. The Lord speaks them to three disciples who fell asleep while He prayed in deep sorrow. They are a command with a reason attached — and the reason is not an excuse.
The disciples were not indifferent to Christ. Sleep was their escape from a grief too heavy to carry. The same thing had happened once before, on the mountain where they saw His glory.
The sorrows of the Garden were too deep, as before the glories of the Mount were too great for poor weak human nature. On both occasions the disciples find relief in sleep… Prayer, which expresses our dependence upon God, will alone prepare us for coming temptation. Too often our natural self-confidence leaves us with little fear of temptation, and so with little sense of our need of prayer.
The Lord does not tell them to pray that trials will never come. He tells them to pray about one thing: not entering into temptation. One writer separates that from simply falling into it.
It is blessed to fall into temptation, but it is never blessed to enter into temptation. There is all the difference between entering into temptation and enduring temptation. And that was exactly what Peter had to learn most bitterly — to enter into temptation. Now the man that endures temptation is the man that prays before the temptation comes. He does not enter into it. When it comes he is blessed; he endures. Peter did not. Peter entered; that is to say, the entrance into temptation shows that there is a lack of any sense of danger — a lack of any sense that I need God, that I need God now.
The second half of the verse sounds like sympathy. One commentator says it is nothing of the kind. It is the ground of the command before it.
"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" is not given as a sympathetic remark about them, but as a reason for watching and prayer, and to mark its necessity. Do not rely on the readiness of your spirit. The flesh in which you walk is weak. So watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The Lord was also referring, with grace, to Peter's hasty promise to suffer with Him. Peter had not gone through it with God in spirit. So he would soon sink when he went through it with man.
Within hours Peter did the very thing the Lord warned against.
Peter was so confident of his own strength. He said, "Though I should die with you, I will not deny you." Yet he failed most strikingly. What brought him into the judgment hall? Why did he "enter into temptation" like this? — this was entering into temptation. He had not been told to do so… There he was at that moment. He had not judged the flesh but trusted it. Prayer and watchfulness were missing. A moral distance had come between him and Christ. He had entered into temptation and sought unholy companionship.
The Lord is not only warning others. He is walking the path Himself, and He treats every moment as one of two things.
But He can warn them, and warn them about what was just then going on. To Him it was now the path of obedience; but whatever was not that was temptation. So it is with everything: all we meet with is an occasion of temptation or of obedience… But this exchange with the disciples at this moment shows a depth and calmness in His path. That is divine perfection, though seen in man and in human ways. It is grace, and it calls for adoring recognition. We struggle or faint, or hide our sorrow in pride.
The verse is not left in the garden. One writer turns it on us.
In saying to Peter, "The spirit indeed is willing," the Lord acknowledged something in His disciples that He could appreciate and recognize. Yet "the flesh is weak," and Satan just then was terribly active, so that nothing but watchfulness and prayer would have met the situation. Let us take the word home to ourselves. As the end of the age approaches, Satan's activities are to become greater, not less. We need to be awake, with every spiritual faculty alert. We also need to be filled with the spirit of prayerful dependence upon God.
- Watch — sleep was the disciples' escape from sorrow. Self-confidence leaves us with little sense of danger, and so little sense of our need to pray.
- Pray — the one who endures temptation prays before it comes. Prayer is our dependence on God, and it alone prepares us.
- Enter — being tested is not the danger. Entering is, and it shows no sense that we need God. Peter entered, and fell.
- Weakness — a willing spirit is no cure for weak flesh. It is the very reason to watch and pray.
- Grace — the Lord's own path was calm and obedient, and out of it came a warning full of grace for the disciples who failed Him.
And going away, he prayed again, saying the same thing.
The Lord finds His closest disciples asleep, then goes back to the Father with nothing new to say. Why would the Son repeat Himself? And what does it mean that He brought the same prayer a second and a third time?
Jesus had warned against empty repetition in prayer. Yet here He asks the same thing three times over. So the warning must mean something narrower:
Our Lord does not forbid frequent repetition. What He forbids is "vain repetition." He Himself, blessed be His name, prayed the same thing three times over in His agony in the garden. That is enough to prove that repetition can be very far indeed from being "vain." A person praying alone, or many Christians gathered together, may press a matter earnestly, fervently and urgently, again and again, when it weighs heavily on the heart. No one can call that "vain repetition."
The "same words" are the ones recorded a few verses earlier. Both halves of that prayer belong to His perfection — the shrinking and the surrender:
He submitted completely to the Father, even in the bitterest trial anyone could imagine. This cup was the cup of wrath because of sin. If He had not said, "Remove this cup from Me," it would have shown that He did not feel what that cup was. But our Lord was perfect in everything. So He said: "Remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will."
He prayed the same prayer again because what He faced had not changed. He was going over before God what lay ahead:
He now reviews in spirit before God what He is to suffer in drinking the cup of the wrath of God. Jesus was holy, and He had lived in the love of the Father. He alone understood what the holiness of God was, and what His love cost. That is why He, more than anyone, could understand how horrible sin was, and how dreadful the wrath of God was.
Trouble usually pushes people away from prayer. In the garden it did the opposite:
The more He felt the depths of that dreadful cup which He was to drink, the more earnestly He prayed. With us, too often, the trouble that fills our minds turns us away from God; but "He prayed more earnestly." The agony brought Him to God, and that is just the right thing.
The disciples show the reverse. Their sleep came from a confidence in themselves that felt no need to pray:
Prayer expresses our dependence upon God, and prayer alone will prepare us for coming temptation. Our natural self-confidence too often leaves us with little dread of temptation. So we feel little need of prayer.
The cup did not pass from Him — yet God heard His prayers in the garden. The key is what He asked for:
The great moment came in the garden of Gethsemane. There He came face to face with the sorrows of death, and God heard His cries. He was heard "because of His reverence," or, "for His piety." His personal perfections as Man required that God hear Him. He asked to be saved out of death — the force of the word here is "out of" and not "from." Death did not pass Him by. God heard Him and brought Him out of death by resurrection.
The praying and the sleeping produce two different men when the betrayer arrives:
They had missed the chance to watch with the Lord, and they had proved their own weakness. So the Lord has to say, "It is enough." The time for watching and praying had passed. The time of trial had come. The betrayer was at hand, and the One who had watched and prayed can now say, in confidence and dependence upon God, "Rise, let us be going."
- Again, not vain. Jesus never condemned repeating a prayer. He asked the same thing three times. A heavy matter may be pressed again and again when the heart is in it.
- Again, the same cup. The same words held two things: a shrinking from the cup of wrath, and full surrender to the Father's will. Feeling its horror was as perfect as accepting it.
- Again, toward God. The deeper He felt that cup, the more earnestly He prayed. Trouble turns us away from God. It drove Him toward God.
- Again, while they slept. Prayer is dependence. Self-confidence sees no danger, so it feels no need to pray. That is why the disciples slept, and then failed.
- Again, and heard. God did not spare Him death, but brought Him out of it by resurrection. The One who had watched and prayed rose from the garden and walked straight into the hands of sinners.
And returning, he found them again sleeping, for their eyes were heavy; and they knew not what they should answer him.
In the garden, Jesus comes back a second time and finds the three disciples asleep, with heavy eyes and no answer for Him. What does that silence show about them, and what does it show about Him?
This was not their first sleep at a moment that mattered. One writer sets this night beside another, when the same men slept while Christ's glory shone:
They slept in the garden while Christ went through His agony. They were heavy with sleep when Christ's glory shone out. So man is utterly worthless for communion, whether with suffering or glory. And this is not man without life from God. It is the chosen disciples, the future pillars of the work, the most worthy and excellent of the earth.
Why were their eyes so heavy? One writer thinks an enemy was at work in the garden that night:
It seems certain, though Mark does not mention it, that the power of Satan was also present in Gethsemane. That helps to account for the extraordinary sleepiness of the disciples. The power of darkness was too great for them, as it always is for us, unless divine power actively supports us. Let us note that the power of Satan does not only sometimes rouse believers to wrongful actions — it sometimes just sends them to sleep.
The Lord had already told them to watch and pray. He comes back to the same sight, and the time to obey is running out:
The Lord's warnings had been unheeded, for their eyes were heavy with sleep. They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and proved their own weakness.
The problem was not that they could not stay awake. One writer shows this by looking a few minutes ahead:
Now the Lord asks them to watch with Him that short time. Do you think their eyes were heavy when the armed crowd came, and afterwards? No; but the flesh was weak here. Had there been enough interest in what the Lord asked, there would not have been this display. They miss the opportunity of pleasing the Lord. And have we not often done the same, and been made to feel it keenly?
A verse earlier the Lord explained their failure, and commentators read His words in two ways. One insists that "flesh" here means bodily weakness, not the sinful nature, and that people often misuse the line:
Take a passage that is often quoted in another way, and very wrongly applied. It is the Lord's tender defence of His disciples for sleeping in the garden: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Here the "weak" flesh is clearly not the old nature at all. It is bodily weakness, which stops the flesh from yielding to the will of the spirit.
Another writer looks at Peter — asleep on the mountain where Christ's glory shone, asleep again here — and finds something deeper than tired eyes:
They had not enough affection for Him to watch one hour. Peter, who was willing to face prison or death, could not watch one hour. He had slept on the mountain during the transfiguration, and he sleeps in Gethsemane. This uncovers the selfishness at the bottom of our hearts. That selfishness is a stranger to the affections which make our hearts enter into the glory of Jesus, as well as into His sufferings.
They had no help to give Him. He went back to pray alone:
He at least watched with His Father; for after all, dependent as He was by grace, what could man do for Him? Completely man as He was, He had to lean on One alone, and so was the perfect man. Going away again to pray, He returns to find them sleeping again, and again presents the case to His Father.
- Watch refused. They slept when His glory shone and slept again in His agony. Man is worthless for communion with Christ in either.
- Watch prevented. Their heavy eyes were more than tiredness. One writer sees the power of darkness at work, and it can send believers to sleep as easily as it stirs them to wrong acts.
- Watch wasted. They were wide awake when the armed crowd arrived. The failure was lack of interest, not lack of strength, and the chance to please the Lord was gone.
- Watch excused. The Lord Himself defended them, but commentators read His words in two ways: bodily weakness for one writer, selfishness of heart for another.
- Watch kept. Where they had no answer, He had a Father. He leaned on One alone, and so was the perfect man.
And he comes the third time and says to them, Sleep on now, and take your rest. It is enough; the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is delivered up into the hands of sinners.
Jesus comes back to the sleeping disciples a third time. The time for watching with Him is over, and the betrayer is already near. His words hold two things at once. He speaks with grace to three men who failed, and He calmly announces what is about to happen to the Son of man.
"It is enough" marks the end of an opportunity, not just the end of a night. Jesus had asked three of them to stay awake with Him, and they slept instead. A note on wording: the writers quote an older translation. It reads "Sleep on now and take your rest" where the ESV asks, "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?" It also says "delivered up" where the ESV says "betrayed."
The third time the Lord returns to the disciples, He has to say, "Sleep on now and take your rest." They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and had proved their own weakness. So the Lord has to say, "It is enough." The time for watching and praying had passed. The time of trial had come. The betrayer was at hand. And the One who had watched and prayed can now say, in confidence and dependence upon God, "Rise up, let us go."
There is no bitterness in telling them to sleep. What they failed to give Him was never what their safety rested on.
Thank God the victory over sin and Satan does not depend on them! They may sleep on now, resting on their Lord's triumph over every enemy, which is perfect and enough. In spirit He had already gone through the conflict. No doubt remained that He would fully finish the work of redemption on the cross. Now He tells them that the hour has come. He will face it with no hesitation.
"The hour is come" is not a comment on the clock. Until that moment, hostility toward Jesus had never been able to reach Him.
The New Testament is completely clear here. We read, "No one laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come." From His own lips, "Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour has not yet come." He tells them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and that the elders, chief priests and scribes will reject Him … the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of men. Until His hour came, they could not do this, however hostile they were.
He speaks as one already handed over. From the last Passover meal He had just eaten with them, His hour had come.
He was as one given up to be cut off from the last Passover. From that moment the hour had come. "Arise, let us go; see, the one who delivers Me up is at hand." It was not atonement only: the Shepherd was about to be struck, and the sheep felt it, and shrank away before the blow actually fell.
Notice the tone, not just the content. He speaks to men who have just failed Him, about the men coming to seize Him.
These are marvellous words of grace, calmness and dignity. The Shepherd is ready to give His life for the sheep, so that they might have life and rest. The sword will soon be drawn and fall upon the Shepherd, the man God calls "my fellow" (Zech. 13:7).
The calm in these words comes from what has just happened in His prayer. He had asked that the cup pass from Him. He had found that it could not.
Was the love of Jesus discouraged or worn out by all that? No. He must, and He would, glorify His Father and save His own, and no difficulty stops Him. We could not be saved if He did not drink the cup, and He takes it. His love is mightier than death. He presents everything to God. And from the moment He found it impossible for this cup to pass without His drinking it, calm again fills His soul, and He takes it.
- Enough — the call to watch had a time limit. When the Lord says "it is enough," their hour of opportunity has closed and the hour of trial has opened.
- Hour — nothing could touch Jesus before this point. His enemies seize Him now because His hour has come, not because they grew strong.
- Delivered — the Son of man goes into the hands of sinners. He speaks as one already given up, from the last Passover on.
- Shepherd — the One handed over is the Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep. The sword that falls on Him falls by God's own word.
- Rest — the sleepers may rest. Their safety never depended on their watching, but on His triumph. The calm in His voice is the calm of a will that has already taken the cup.
Arise, let us go; behold, he that delivers me up has drawn nigh.
The night of prayer in the garden of Gethsemane is over, and the disciples are awake. Instead of slipping away into the dark, the Lord turns to face the man coming to hand Him over — and He says "let us," not "I."
The words come at the end of a long night of watching. Three times the Lord went away to pray. Three times He came back to sleeping men. Only then does He wake them and move. One commentator links His confidence here to the praying that came before:
They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and had proved their own weakness. So the Lord has to say, "It is enough." The time for watching and praying had passed. The time of trial had come. The betrayer was at hand. And the One who had watched and prayed can now say, in confidence and dependence upon God, "Rise, let us be going."
"Rise, let us be going" sounds at first like an escape. It is the opposite. He moves straight toward the crowd coming for Him, and one writer reads this as the mark of the true Servant of God:
In calm firmness of faith the Lord Jesus says, "Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." As the true Servant of God He will face the enemy. Immediately Judas comes with a great crowd of armed men sent by the chief priests, scribes and elders.
Judas arrives at once. There is no pause between these words and the arrest.
The Lord does not say "I am going." He draws the eleven into the movement. One commentator notes the same "let us" in John 14:31, and reads both the same way:
John 14:31: "Let us go from here." The Saviour here associates His disciples with Him in His conflict: Satan is their foe as well as His. Compare Mark 14:42.
Being drawn in costs them. They will fail within the hour, yet He keeps them at His side instead of sending them away:
His words were tender, yet they showed the disciples that their service was over, and that He had been alone. He says, "Sleep on now [the time for watching is finished, the power of evil in action is here]. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." But they must be fully proved, He does not send them away. They must be with Him to the end, and learn the lesson, however gently they may learn it. There was over-confidence, as in Peter. Even so, it fitted him to strengthen his brothers once he was restored, by giving him a deeper knowledge of what human strength comes to in the things of God.
The "us" is real, yet it does not end His isolation. The men He wakes had slept through the hour of watching:
He had to go through the moral solitude He found among men, even among His own disciples. There is a solitude in which one is quite alone morally, although others are there. The traitor was coming near. "Sleep on now," says the Lord. "Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." The Lord must receive the last witness to the weakness of man's heart, left to itself and hardened by Satan.
One writer draws out what those three prayers mean for anyone who follows Him:
The Lord prayed on three distinct occasions in Gethsemane, and then He went forth, strong to meet His foes. Here then is the secret. We must follow the Lord into the place of prayer so that we can stand for Him in the place of testimony. When the Lord was alone praying on the mountain, the glory-light shone in His face. Those who come out of the place of private prayer will be clothed with the armour of light.
- Prayer first. The calm of "Rise, let us be going" is not nerve. It is the fruit of the hours He had just spent watching and praying.
- Forward, not away. The Lord moves toward the betrayer, because as the true Servant of God He will face the enemy instead of avoiding him.
- "Let us," not "I." He ties the disciples into the conflict, since Satan is their foe as well as His.
- Kept, not dismissed. He does not send the failing men away. They must be with Him to the end. Peter's own failure, once he was restored, became his strength for steadying others.
- Alone in the middle of them. He goes out surrounded by His own and still morally alone — the last proof of what the human heart is when left to itself.