As the betrayal of Jesus was at hand, He took Peter and James and John with Him and went to pray. Matthew 26:36-40 records the event; Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with Me.” And going a little farther He fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And He said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with Me one hour?

This is a sad moment in the Bible. Jesus tells them His heart is aching. He asks them to 'watch' with Him. The word 'watch' simply means to stay awake. It was night, the men were tired and, although we only have a short snippet of His prayer, He chides Peter for not being able to make the hour. So, Jesus is in emotional agony and is praying alone for at least an hour, and all He wanted His friends to do was wait for Him, maybe stand guard, and they couldn't do it. Mercy, there are several sermons right there! But that is not the point to this blog.

Jesus was in so much grief it was about to kill Him. He asks His Father to remove the cup from Him. He goes on and assures His Father that He will do the will of His Father. The troubled soul of our Savior is on full display. But what was troubling Him so?

The easy answer, and perhaps the most considered, is that Jesus was both God and man. Because of this, He fully knew of the suffering that awaited Him. He fully knew that at some point He was going to take on the sins of the world. He knew that at some point He would cease to be covered by hand of God. (Remember, He called out asking His Father why He had been forsaken.) He knew the pain that was coming. This is what we usually see.

But we are just human. We look at things only as we see them. I have never understood how a woman can have a baby and go through that intense pain and agony and then want another. They know the pain because they have experienced it, yet they want to go through it again. It is because they have never known such love as when they hold that newborn in their arms. Jesus, the great God/man, fully understood what He would experience. However, He also knew what was on the other side of that torment. Reunion with His Father. The beauty of His home, heaven. Hearing the angel chorus. All the pleasure of being in His realm again. I had always wondered about the agony in the Garden.

And I believe there is another explanation.

Jesus was close with His disciples. He loved them. He called them friends. And He would have understood exactly what was about to happen to them. I think (and this is just me, if you feel different, I am not saying you are wrong) that the agony was for His disciples first and also for those who would be real followers later. 

There is a whole branch of Christianity that says if you really believe, your life will be one of joy and wealth. Just so you know, Biblically speaking, that is Satanic. Who in the Bible, those men and women of great faith, does that apply too? Paul, Peter, Daniel? No, suffering is a part of Christian life just as it is in worldly life. Grow up.

I think Jesus knew what was to happen to His friends. He was God, after all. And He knew that what was to happen to them was because of their extreme faith and obedience to Him. I think that His agony was for all the true faithful and the trials they would face. Being human, those faithful could never really understand the reward because they had never experienced it, yet they would be faithful.

I believe Jesus was grieved because Judas was a betrayer. I believe He knew Peter would deny Him and would later deeply regret that denial. I believe His heart was breaking because He knew James would be horribly killed for his faith. This we know from the Bible, but the deaths of the other disciples we know from records. We know that John, the favorite of Jesus' disciple band, died a relatively peaceful death, but before that he was placed in a vat of boiling oil and lived. The Romans, impressed because he lived, then sentenced him to exile on an island. Think of the burns and then the scars. Did his ears and nose burn away? Was he blind? I read one writer who detailed the result of the botched execution, and then said that John's writing of the Book of the Revelation was after that and therefore should be considered to be the writing of a crazy man. But he didn't seem crazy in the Book of John or in First and Second and Third John, and he wrote them during the same period. Jesus would have known of the coming suffering of John. Jesus would have known that Peter and Nathaniel and Phillip and Andrew would all be crucified, and He would have known that before he was crucified, Nathanel would have skinned alive. He would have known that Thomas would be sold into slavery, been faithful in his witness and would have died in India, of all places. Jesus would have had on His heart the knowledge that Matthew would be stabbed to death in the house of worship he started in Ethiopia. Jesus would have been able to see in His mind that the other Judas and Simon Zeolotes would be beaten to death by angry crowds, Judas in Edessa and Simon in Babylon. And He would have seen each stone hurled at James the Lesser as he was stoned to death on a street in Jerusalem. And for Jesus, it would not have stopped there. All those that were to put Him first, He would know their sufferings. And He would also know and see those who would back down in the face of persecution. 

And so, Jesus said to His friends, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death;" And He says that to us now. Watch and pray and be strong.

Blessings.