How does a holy being who has known no sin and no guilt – ever, respond to suddenly being held culpable for every sin that has ever happened? I cannot answer that question from experience because I am not sinless as a result of my own efforts. Neither can you answer it for the same reason. Yet while we cannot answer it ourselves, we can comprehend, perhaps the fact that it happened and that it may well have been the worst thing the Son of God suffered during the whole ordeal of His passion.

Many Christians are unfamiliar with the level of mental anguish that Jesus experienced in the garden of Gethsemane on the night he was betrayed. Don’t get me wrong. Even a casual student of the scripture knows that the Lord had a tough time there. Yet perhaps we look upon the events of Gethsemane as a mere prelude to His passion, and not the actual thing. After all, not a single blow was struck there, nor was there any physical violence until His arrest. Yet Matthew records Jesus’ words in Gethsemane, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death." I confess that for me, it has taken a recent and fresh study of Gethsemane’s events to teach me the depth of the suffering our Lord endured while He was in that place. In this message I want to acquaint you (or reacquaint you) with The Passion of Christ in Gethsemane.

The word Gethsemane appears only two times in the Bible, though mentions of the events that transpired there are recorded in all four gospels.(1) Gethsemane is an Aramaic word that means "oil press." It is John who tells us that there was a garden there,(2) and Luke who mentions that the place was frequented by Jesus and the twelve during His ministry.(3) The garden was situated on the Mount of Olives,(4) just across the Kidron Valley,(5) probably less than a half mile from the east wall of the Temple. At some time in the past, Gethsemane had been the site of a working olive oil press – a large timber and stone device(6) used to crush and press the oil out of freshly picked olives. As we shall soon see, it was an appropriate name for the place(7) where Jesus would be pressed with the massive mental anguish of his approaching crucifixion and some of the devil’s last efforts to thwart His plans.

Jesus probably entered Gethsemane not long before midnight on the Thursday of the Passover week in 33 (or perhaps 30) AD. His three year ministry was behind Him. He had preached His last sermon. He had eaten His last Passover meal with the twelve and instituted the Lord’s Supper. Judas had left the last supper and gone out into the night to betray Him. Ahead of Jesus yet were the arrest, desertion by His disciples, the pseudo trials, the mocking, scourging, crucifixion, and His agony and death on the cross. The Garden of Gethsemane provided a last opportunity to fortify Himself with prayer(8) and fellowship with His Father(9) before He would go forth alone to face the hideous baptism of suffering(10) that would come upon Him.

Let me say going into this account that no one, save our Lord Jesus Himself, His Father, and the Holy Spirit, can comprehend all that God the Son suffered that night in the Garden. The Biblical record of Gethsemane is surprisingly brief. Yet there are some hints of some of His anguish, which perhaps we can reverently and discreetly consider today with the aim of better understanding our Lord and the price He paid to redeem us.

After spending most of this past week meditating on this passage and its parallels in the gospels, I almost feel as though I should speak to you in hushed tones because the scene there in the Garden is so solemn and sacred. Notice with me several things that were there in Gethsemane that contributed to the intense anguish of those final hours before our Lord’s arrest.

Verse 37 says, "He… began to be grieved and distressed."

Verse 38 says, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death."

Thinking and reading ahead in the gospels, we can surely understand that the things Jesus faced were distressing. But reading of the events of those final 12 hours of Jesus’ earthly life and experiencing them ourselves, in the first person, would be two entirely different things. Impending death is distressing enough for anyone who wears human flesh. Just ask someone who has had a cancer scare or some other close brush with death. Because we don’t know the exact future however, we are shielded from at least some such anxiety. John 18:4 clearly tells us that Jesus knew everything that was going to come upon Him. That’s distress!

But what of this grief that Matthew mentions? The KJV uses the word "sorrow" instead of "grief." What was it that would cause such sorrow or grief? Amazingly, Jesus doesn’t say here. In fact, He didn’t even say what it was to His disciples. Perhaps He could have said to his closest men, "Don’t you know what is about to happen? Doesn’t it grieve you to think about it?" But He said no such thing. Yet it isn’t hard for us to figure out at least part of the reason for Jesus’ great sorrow, since we can look back and study it after the fact.

There would be the perversity of the Jews in rejecting the One who came to save them. There would be the grievous wickedness that brought about His death, the treachery of Judas, the desertion of his friends, and the denial of Peter. There would be His unjust condemnation at the hands of the rulers of the chosen nation, the cowardice of Pilate in giving in to the political pressures of those he governed. There would be the guilt of all the players in this tragedy, the willful sin of those whom He came to redeem, the ruin, which they were about to bring upon themselves and their city and their nation.(11) All of these combined to make up the bitter cup, which Jesus would soon have to drain for the sake of those He would die to save.

Philip P. Bliss took the theme of his famous hymn from Isaiah 53:

Jesus wasn’t just grieving for Himself. He grieved for the condition of others He came to save. It was "our sorrows He carried." He grieved for the guilt that would accrue to the whole world in what was about happen.

Just how deep was His grief? Luke 22:44 says, "And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground."

Grief and distress were there in the Garden.

In all of Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, note that He was still concerned for His disciples. "Keep alert and pray," He says to them, "that you may not enter in to temptation." He was praying to prepare Himself for what was coming. They ought to have been doing the same! Instead they were sleeping.

What temptations was Jesus referring to that they faced there in Gethsemane and after?

Perhaps had these disciples heeded Jesus’ warning to "keep watching and praying," things might have been different.

Yet I don’t think it was only the disciples who were being tempted that night in Gethsemane. I think temptation was stalking Jesus as well. Three times, the Master prayed to His father that, if it could be possible, this whole bitter cup of suffering might be taken away from Him. Yes, just as quickly He declared His willingness to override that request with the will of His father. But what do you suppose was behind that request? Surely it wasn’t said for its theatrical effect. I believe that Jesus, in the limitations of His humanity while on earth, actually had to consider the possibility, the temptation if you will, of shrinking back from what was about to happen – of abandoning His purpose. The temptation was real.

In the wilderness, when Satan came to Him to suggest that He turn stones into bread, did not Jesus at least have to consider the possibility that He could perform such a miracle before He refused Satan’s suggestion? Surely He did, or it would not have been temptation. In fact, I find it no small coincidence that Jesus was tempted three times in the wilderness by Satan and He also endured what looks like three waves of concentrated temptation here. Verse 44 says, "And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying, the same thing once more." That "same thing" was the request that if there was any other way, God would take away what Jesus was about endure. I believe there was a real struggle here – a struggle with the possibility of calling this whole thing off.

Of course, Jesus overcame the temptation, just as He did in every other case in His life on earth. But the struggle was not theater. It was real. The pressure was real. The bloody sweat that fell from his forehead is telling evidence that on this night in the "oil press" Jesus was resisting a crushing load of temptation.

Understanding the strain of Gethsemane helps us realize more fully the words of the writer of Hebrews: "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin."(14)

And this temptation in the Garden brings me to my next point:

In his depiction of Gethsemane, Mel Gibson pictured Satan as being right there in the Garden with Jesus, quietly badgering Him, questioning Him about the certainty of His identity and mission, and taunting Him. Since I saw the movie I’ve been asked more than once whether I think that Satan was actually there since he is not mentioned as being present in any of the gospel accounts of Gethsemane. I believe He was there. Let me tell you why.

Where there is smoke, there is fire. Where there is temptation, there is, in some form or other, the Tempter. Either he is there in person or he is represented by one or more of his demonic emissaries.

This issue of Jesus’ passion was the central focus of all that God had been doing since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden.(15) From "garden to garden" we could say, Satan was present, trying to thwart God’s plan to redeem the world. I find it very difficult to believe that Satan would not have been in Gethsemane in person. Surely for such an event He would not have sent some lesser emissary to represent him and do his bidding.

Satan, the Tempter, was there in the garden. What was his strategy? We can only guess, but think about it for a moment or two. Perhaps Satan would have suggested one or more of the following:

Please remember that I’m speculating here, but I cannot imagine that my speculation is too far off.

Grief and distress were there. Temptation was there. Satan was there.

It is likely that there was something else in Gethsemane that none of us can possibly understand by experience. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf…." Isaiah 53:12 says that Jesus "poured out Himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors." Galatians 3:13 says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us…."

All of these verses say basically the same thing. Jesus was totally sinless. He never sinned. He always did what was right. Yet in order to redeem us, God placed all of the sin of every human being who has ever lived, or ever will live, upon Him. Every nauseous wrong and injustice and infraction that has ever occurred or ever will occur, from the tiny "half truths" that people tell for convenience to the massive genocides of the 20^th century, was placed upon Jesus Christ Who, up to that point had not known a single sin by experience.

How does a holy being who has known no sin and no guilt – ever, respond to suddenly being held culpable for every sin that has ever happened? I cannot answer that question from experience because I am not sinless as a result of my own efforts. Neither can you answer it for the same reason. Yet while we cannot answer it ourselves, we can comprehend, perhaps the fact that it happened and that it may well have been the worst thing the Son of God suffered during the whole ordeal of His passion.

I don’t know exactly when all of that sin was loaded onto Jesus. Was it while He was in Gethsemane? Was it later, when He was on the cross? Some think it was at the point when Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"(16) But whether Jesus was experiencing it in Gethsemane or was simply contemplating it as something soon to be, surely it had crushing effect upon such a holy being as He.

To what can we compare it that will help us understand? Perhaps this: Imagine the most nauseous, ugly, foul smelling mixture that you have ever seen or heard of - perhaps a large vat of human vomit, mingled with human feces. Then imagine willingly standing still while someone pours it over your body, into your eyes and nostrils and ears and mouth. The revulsion that we would feel at such a nasty thing is probably only the slightest hint at the revulsion the Holy Son of God felt when He became "a curse" for us and "became sin on our behalf."

Grief and distress were there. Temptation was there. Satan was there. Revulsion was there.

In His great hour of need, where were His disciples? They were sleeping. I won’t take the time to read it again, but three times He returned from His prayers to find them sleeping. To be fair about it, Luke tells us that they were sleeping "from sorrow."(17) Nonetheless, His three requests for them to "keep watching and praying" fell on deaf ears.

The 22^nd Psalm described Jesus crucifixion a thousand years before I happened. Verse one of that famous Psalm foretold His words on the cross: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Verse 11 of the same Psalm speaks of His isolation from the help of others: "For there is none to help." Image how Satan could use such isolation against the Lord:

Grief and distress were there. Temptation was there. Satan was there. Revulsion was there. Loneliness was there. All of these things were there that night in Gethsemane – the oil press – when the Son of God agonized over the flood of suffering that was about to come upon Him. Can we possibly wonder at the three times that He, in the limits of human flesh, considered asking His Father to take it all away?

But of course, He didn’t abandon His plan to offer Himself for the sins of the world. He stayed the course. "Not My will, but Thine be done."

His steadfastness, of course, tells us that there was one more thing there in the Garden that we should note, and because of it, you and I can look forward to eternity with God.

Verse 46 says, "Arise, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand."

Despite all of the horror He faced, after this period of prayer in Gethsemane, wrestling with temptation in agony so deep that He ruptured blood vessels in His face, Jesus gathered His strength and went forth to face, head on, the agony of the cross.

Who among us would have stepped forward into that terror? Which of us would not have, as the disciples did, run away instead? Yet Jesus faced it willingly. John 10:17-18 says, "…I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative."

Three times in prophetic scripture, Jesus is referred to as the Lion of the tribe of Judah.(19) This is no empty metaphor. We see here Jesus earning that title for His great courage in facing the most extreme horror ever piled upon any individual. He could have walked away from Gethsemane. He could have left us all sleeping with His disciples, unaware of the fate that awaits us because of our sin. Instead, as Peter said in 1 Peter 3:18: "Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God…."

My friends, He did this for us – for you and for me. The Holy, Only Begotten Son of God offered up His own life as a sacrifice so that He could call a people out of this world who are willing to accept His great gift of love and choose Him above all else. I hope you have made that choice. If not, why not consider it now?

Footnotes: User your back button to return to your place

1. Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46; John 18:1
2. John 18:1
3. Luke 22:39
4. Ibid.
5. John 18:1
6. http://www.digbible.org/tour/images/is90r202.jpg
7. There is some disagreement in modern times about the precise location of Gethsemane. We know the area – just not the exact spot. A lot of contemporary speculation about its location is driven by financial considerations emanating from the various religious shrines now found there. The same is true of modern assertions that some of the large olive trees that exist in the area were alive in Jesus’ day. This is false for two reasons: 1) Olive trees don’t live that long and 2) According to Josephus, the Roman General Titus destroyed all the trees in and around Jerusalem when he sacked the city in 70 AD.
8. Matthew 26:36
9. Matthew 26:39, 42, 44
10. Luke 12:50
11. Matthew 23:37-39
12. Isaiah 53:3-4
13. Matthew 26:70, 72, 74
14. Hebrews 4:15
15. Genesis 3:15
16. Matthew 26:46
17. Luke 22:45
18. Psalm  41:9
19. Genesis 49:9-10; Numbers 24:9; Revelation 5:5

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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