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.
And immediately, while he was yet speaking, Judas comes up, [being] one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd, with swords and sticks, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.
The arrest comes the moment the Lord stops speaking, and one of His own twelve apostles leads it. The crowd carries swords and clubs, and the nation's religious leaders sent it.
The Lord had just told the disciples that His betrayer was near. One writer sets His calm beside Judas's pretence of innocence:
In calm firmness of faith the Lord Jesus says, "Rise, let us go; 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. Yet it seems that Judas was still acting in foolish deceit. He wanted to give the impression that he was not connected with these temple soldiers. So he goes ahead of them with the signal they had agreed on: his kiss for the Lord.
Mark does not just name Judas. He adds his position, and that title holds the whole tragedy: a man given every advantage.
It was a trial of man under new circumstances. He was a "familiar friend" (Ps. 41:9) of the Lord Jesus. He heard His gracious words and saw His miracles, and was probably allowed to work miracles himself in His name. And yet, as in every other trial of man, he fell. Judas is a solemn instance of how far a person may be under the influence and power of Christianity, and yet become an apostate.
What did Judas expect to happen? One writer thinks he was counting on another escape, and on keeping the money:
It seems he had counted on the Lord passing through the middle of His enemies, as on earlier occasions. The Lord would then deliver Himself from His enemies, and Judas would keep the money he wanted so badly. Judas knew nothing of the counsels of God or of the perfect obedience of the Lord. So he was not ready to see the Lord submit to His enemies to carry out the will of the Father.
One writer identifies the men who came:
Verses 42 - 52 occupy us with His arrest by the rabble sent by the chief priests under the leadership of Judas. They were, of course, not Roman soldiers but servants of the temple and of the ruling classes among the Jews.
The size of the force is out of all proportion to the man they came for:
But why such a great multitude and such precaution to capture one man, who was "gentle and lowly in heart"? What a testimony after all to His power, which they feared — and yet what blindness.
These three groups were not a street mob. They were the nation's recognised religious leaders:
Here you have religion in a very imposing form. Remember how the professed people of God saw these priests, scribes and elders. They looked up to them as the great storehouses of sacred learning and as the only authority in all matters of religion. They held office under God in the system God had set up in the days of Moses.
One writer notes what Mark leaves out of the scene, and why:
The healing of the servant's ear is not mentioned in this Gospel. Here the Lord is simply the suffering Son of man, the rejected Prophet of Israel, the smitten Shepherd. The point here is not the proof of His undiminished power, but His bowing to all shame. The key is, "the Scripture must be fulfilled." He had never given them cause to treat Him like this — coming out against Him as against a thief. But the Scripture must be fulfilled.
The scene is not only history. It is a portrait of what we are when left to ourselves:
The crowd showed their violence with swords and clubs. Judas showed the lowest treachery, betraying the Lord with a kiss. Peter sprang into sudden action in the energy of the flesh. All the disciples abandoned Him and fled... violence, treachery, false and mistaken activity, fear and shame. Again we say, What a story! And such are we when brought face to face with the power of darkness, and out of communion with God.
- Timing. The betrayer arrives the instant the Lord stops speaking. Nothing catches Him off guard, and He walks out to meet it.
- Nearness. Mark labels Judas by his privilege, not his crime. A man can stand that close to Christ and still fall away.
- Numbers. The crowd is far larger than one gentle man needs. Their fear of His power is a witness they never meant to give.
- Names. The order came from the priests, scribes and elders — religion at its most respectable, organising the arrest of the Lord.
- Silence. Mark drops every display of power. Only the submitting Shepherd is left, bowing to shame because Scripture must be fulfilled.