THEY WENT TO a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”
35Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
37Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 38Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
39Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. 40When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.
41Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
43Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.
44Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” 45Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. 46The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
48“Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled. 50Then everyone deserted him and fled. 51A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, 52he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.
Original Meaning
JESUS RETIRES AFTER the Last Supper to a place on the Mount of Olives identified as Gethsemane, a word that word means “oil press.”1 Jesus separates Peter, James, and John from the rest of the group to go with him as he prays. Peter has just boasted that he would stand firm with Jesus through his trials even if they lead to death (14:29). James and John promised that they could be baptized with his baptism and could drink his cup (10:39). Jesus gives them a chance to back up their words. These three disciples have witnessed his raising of Jairus’s daughter and his glorious transfiguration (5:37; 9:2). Now they must witness his agony. Jesus’ suffering is as important as these other two events.2 One can divide the treatment of this incident into two parts: the Gethsemane experience of Jesus and the Gethsemane experience of the disciples. From there we will discuss Jesus’ arrest.
The Gethsemane of Jesus (14:32–36)
ALTHOUGH JESUS WANTS the support and prayer of Peter, James, and John, he knows that even these three disciples will be of no help to him now and goes off a little farther alone. Mark uses a word to suggest the greatest possible degree of horror and suffering (ekthambeo) in 14:33. He boldly allows us to see Jesus suffering psychological anguish before his physical suffering. Jesus is in the grip of a shuddering horror as he faces the dreadful prospect before him.3
Jesus tells the disciples that he is grieved with a sorrow unto death, a phrase describing the extent of his sorrow.4 It drives him to prayer. The prayer is also startling. Jesus does not enter his suffering stoically but biblically, with loud lament.5 Mark also reports that Jesus falls on the ground (14:35). Normally, one lifted one’s hands toward heaven and prayed aloud in a standing posture. But if a person was in particular distress, he might lie prostrate and pray face down (see 2 Sam. 12:16).
Jesus’ prayer of lament follows a well-known pattern of lament found in the Psalms (see Pss. 13:1–3; 22:1–21; 31:1–24; 40:11–13; 42:5, 9–11; 43:1–2, 5; 55:4–8; 61:1–3; 116:3–4). In the Jewish lament, Senior notes that one’s prayer is not “fully controlled, or strained with politeness. In a rush of emotion, complaint, and even recrimination, the believers pour out their hearts to God.”6 Prayers asking God to have a change of mind are not considered insubordinate but actually exude trust that God listens to prayer and grants requests that can be reconciled “with overall Providence.”7
This trusting relationship is reflected in Jesus’ familiar address of God as Abba. Jews addressed God as “Father” in prayer. Years ago, Gustav Dalman declared that the view that the Jews did not understand God as Father and that an intimate relationship with him was unknown until the revelation of the New Testament is incorrect. He wrote: “It was therefore nothing novel when the Fatherly relation of God was also applied within the Jewish community to the individual.”8 One prayed to a loving parent eager to listen. But no Jew used this familiar address (Abba) in prayer. Jesus shatters pious custom with this childlike address of “Daddy.”9 He expresses his intimacy with his Father as well as his confidence in his nearness and loving care.
Jesus knows God as Father in ways that others do not and cannot. One should not forget, however, that “to the Jew the first connotation of the fatherhood of God is the right to obedience.”10 Jesus trusts completely in God as his Father and is completely obedient. He also confesses God’s omnipotence in his prayer to be spared suffering. His prayer does not try to run counter to the Father’s purpose but explores the limits of the purpose without trying to burst its bounds.11 Might there be another way? Might he escape the horrifying cup?
The cup may represent God’s wrathful judgment, the awful consequences of God’s judgment on sinful humanity (Pss. 11:6; 16:5; 23:5; 75:8–9; 116:13; Isa. 51:17–23; Jer. 16:7; 25:15–18; 27:46, 51; 49:12; 51:7; Ezek. 23:31–34; Lam. 2:13; 4:21; Hab. 2:15–16; Zech. 12:2; Rev. 14:10; 16:19; 17:4; 18:3, 6). On the other hand, the cup may simply refer to Jesus’ death and the suffering he must endure. Jesus uses the cup and baptism as symbols of his redemptive death (Mark 10:38, 45). He connects the cup to the hour in 14:35; and in 14:41, Jesus says that the hour has come when he is handed over to sinners. Jesus prays to be delivered from death; instead, he will be delivered through death and glorified by the resurrection.12
In Gethsemane, Jesus meets the dreadful silence of heaven. There is no reassuring voice from heaven proclaiming, “This is my Son, whom I love.” No dove descends; no ministering angels come to serve him. God has already spoken, and his Son must obey. Jesus overcomes the silence, fights off the human temptation to do as he wills, and through prayer acquiesces to God’s will. He will not try to evade the cup either by slipping away in the dark or by resorting to violence. He will accept the nails of the cross as he accepted the stones of the desert.
The Gethsemane of the Disciples (14:37–42)
MARK SHOWS JESUS in three moments of prayer. This does not indicate an evolving process of struggle as he finally makes the supreme decision to accept the will of God. Since Jesus comes three times to find drowsy disciples, his own wrestling with God’s will is then only one dimension of the story. Mark reports the content of Jesus’ prayer only once but reports what Jesus says to his disciples when he finds them asleep each time (14:37–38, 40, 41). The emphasis therefore falls on the return to the disciples (14:37, 40, 41), not his return to prayer.
One can interpret his checking on the disciples both positively and negatively. On the one hand, Jesus returns to them as the Good Shepherd (14:27), who, confronted with the threat of the destruction of the flock, returns repeatedly to look after it (see 6:34).13 On the other hand, Mark underscores the failure of the disciples at this most crucial point. Jesus initially tells the disciples, “Stay here and keep watch” (14:34; gregoreite; a present imperative and stronger than “keep awake”). He is not telling them to scout out the enemy or to post lookouts to sound the alarm if any of the enemy approach. It recalls Jesus’ last warning to them when they were with him on the Mount of Olives (13:36).
Three times, however, Jesus discovers them sleeping after strongly bidding them to keep watch (14:37–41). Jesus had slept through their crisis during the storm at sea, which was no real crisis (4:37–41); they sleep through his crisis, which is a real crisis. Their drowsiness at this crucial moment is due to their failure to realize how crucial this moment is.
In Gethsemane, the hour has come (14:35, 41)—not the last hour, but the hour of the Son of Man—and the disciples are caught napping (14:37, 40, 41). Jesus’ admonitions emphasize their grave failure at this momentous hour and foreshadow Peter’s three denials. (1) When he first finds them sleeping, he addresses Peter as “Simon” (14:37). Simon is not his apostolic name (3:16). He is identified as Peter everywhere in Mark except in 1:16, 29, 30, 36 (before his nickname is mentioned in 3:16), and here in Gethsemane. Peter is not strong enough to watch even one hour. But those who are strong have no need of a physician (2:17).
(2) On his second trip Jesus finds them again sleeping (14:40). Mark adds the explanation that “their eyes were heavy” and “they did not know what to say to him.” Heavy eyes are tokens of the frailty of the flesh (compare Jacob’s eyes, heavy with age, Gen. 48:10). On a literal level, their sleep may be caused by physical exhaustion. On a spiritual level, however, they have had a bad case of heavy eyes, along with hardened hearts for some time. Jesus has already accused them of having eyes that do not see (8:18). The disciples do not know how to respond to this chastisement. Not knowing what to say is how Mark has described Peter’s reaction to the Transfiguration (9:6). These disciples were dumb in the face of Jesus’ glory and now are numb in the face of his anguish. It reflects their complete lack of understanding about him.
By contrast, Jesus goes into his Passion with his eyes open. His disciples have closed their eyes to what is happening, and they let it slip by and would have failed even if they had had forty cups of coffee instead of four cups of wine (if it was a Passover meal). They were not watching spiritually, the kind of watching that can spy buds sprouting on a fig tree. These disciples have been looking at the wrong things. They have not prayed, the kind of praying that can exorcise the demonic (see 9:28–29) and shield the flesh from Satan’s onslaughts.
(3) Jesus catches them asleep a third time and gives them one last sad reproach, “Are you still sleeping and resting?” (14:41). Their sleep during Jesus’ struggle reveals, as Juel puts it, that watching and praying lies “beyond their strength.” “The disciples, like others, require redemption and liberation.”14
Jesus’ agonizing lament and submission to God’s will contrast sharply with the oblivious stupor of his three disciples. Despite his predicting his own suffering and death, the betrayal by one of the Twelve, the desertion of the disciples, and the denials by Peter, the disciples take no heed and are led astray. While Jesus prays fervently in trembling horror, the weakness of the “flesh” (sarx; NIV, “body,” 14:38) overtakes them, and they slumber peacefully. The flesh is the bridgehead “through which Satan moves to distract people from God’s plan; it represents the vulnerability of the human being.”15 The weak flesh is up against the Strong Man. It requires constant vigilance and prayer for fortification.
Jesus’ reproach should remind the reader of the closing words of his last discourse on the Mount of Olives (13:35–37):
Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: “Watch!”
The hour has come, and the disciples are found snoozing. They fail miserably in their responsibilities. A nameless woman anoints Jesus for his burial over the objections of his friends. A bystander carries his cross. A pagan centurion who supervises his execution makes the public confession that he is the Son of God. A council member who probably participated in his condemnation obtains the body and buries it in his tomb. Women followers watch him die on the cross and go later to anoint the body. By contrast, the male disciples doze while he shudders in horror, betray him, flee for their lives when he is hauled away, and deny him while he is being condemned to death. They do not keep watch but fall asleep.
Summing up the connection to 13:35, in the evening, when the Lord comes with his disciples for what will be his Last Supper with them, one of the Twelve at his table chooses to play into the hands of his enemies and betray him. At midnight, all the disciples flee into the darkness—one stark naked and each deserting his Lord to the enemy. At cockcrow, Peter disowns his Lord three times with curses. In the morning, Jesus is left alone—abandoned by all, condemned to death, and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, just as he prophesied.
Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane ends when he senses that the hour has come. The verb translated, “Enough!” (apechei, 14:41) is difficult. Jesus seems to refer to the disciples’ sleep, but little evidence supports this usage of apechei. More frequently, the verb is used in a commercial sense, to mean “paid in full,” “the account is closed” (see Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; Luke 6:24; Phil. 4:18). Some therefore argue that Judas is the verb’s subject, and Jesus announces that he has his money (14:9) and comes to fulfill his part of the bargain.16
The immediate context, however, should govern how one interprets apechei. The disciples know nothing about what Judas is doing or his devilish pact with the high priests. If Jesus is referring to Judas’s receiving his payoff, he is speaking aloud to himself. Yet Jesus is speaking to his disciples; and, in the context, he has found them dozing three times after imploring them to watch. The hour has come when they must rise from sleep and go. The context therefore suggests that Jesus responds to the disciples with exasperation: “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come.”The hour for prayer (or sleep) has ended; the hour of the power of darkness (Luke 23:53) has begun.
Jesus knows that he will not be delivered from the cup but will be delivered into the hands of sinners. He has freely accepted God’s will for himself and through prayer has steeled himself for what lies ahead. By contrast, the disciples have squandered the opportunity for prayer by sleeping. Consequently, they will fold under pressure. Jesus then gives two sharp commands to rouse them from sleep and to get them ready to encounter the hour that comes with the traitor and the thugs: “Rise! Let us go!” The command echoes the first words Jesus spoke to them, “Come, follow me!” (1:17). It also recalls the words he spoke to them during the halcyon days of his first great success in Galilee, “Let us go.… That is why I have come” (1:38).
These are the last words Jesus speaks directly to his disciples in the Gospel of Mark, but they will hear the same command again after his resurrection. The angel at the tomb instructs the women to tell the disciples that they must go on to Galilee, where Jesus goes before them (16:7). The Gethsemane scene clarifies that when the time comes for going, only prayer enables one to answer the call. The disciples slept instead of praying; and when they finally rise, they go off in every direction but the one that Jesus leads, trying to save their own lives.
Jesus’ Arrest (14:43–50)
A GRIM REALISM stamps Mark’s account of Jesus’ arrest. A misguided rabble, deputized by the temple officials, invades Gethsemane with swords and clubs (14:43). They come out armed to the teeth, as if Jesus were some terrorist bandit bent on revolutionary upheaval. To them, it might have seemed a wise precaution. To the reader, they only look foolish. Jesus is a nonviolent teacher with no weapons and nothing to hide. He has taught daily in the temple under their noses, hardly the activity of someone bent on fomenting revolution. Justifiably, he condemns their violent ways (14:48). Ironically, Jesus castigated the temple for being a robber’s den instead of a house of prayer for all nations (11:17). Now temple goons arrest him in the middle of his prayer, as if he is a robber.
The sad performance of Jesus’ disciples in this crucial moment dominates this scene. First, Judas, one of the Twelve, leads the posse to Jesus’ secluded place of prayer, where the temple representatives can arrest him with the least amount of commotion. Judas has given the armed band an agreed-upon sign, “The one I kiss is the man, arrest him and lead him away under guard [lit., securely].” Judas wants them to make sure that they place Jesus under tight restraint. Did he so misunderstand Jesus to think that his former Master would try to escape? Jesus’ willing submission shows all human devices and intrigues to be ridiculous.17
The sign of the kiss reflects the normal greeting one gave a respected teacher. One kissed the hand out of deference or the cheek if one considered oneself an equal (see Luke 7:45, “You did not give me a kiss”). Judas addresses Jesus with the honorific title, “Rabbi,” and kisses him. The word Mark uses (kataphileo) can picture Judas kissing him affectionately (see Luke 15:20, where the father kisses his returning prodigal son as a sign of reconciliation; Acts 20:37, where the Ephesian elders give a kiss to the departing Paul). Or it can indicate that he kisses him deferentially on the hand or even the foot (see Luke 7:38, 45). Whichever it is, Judas gives Jesus no sign that their fellowship has been broken. He wants everything to appear normal up to the last second, when guards rush to capture him. He turns him over to a certain death with a warm gesture of love or the customary greeting of respect, turning a sign of intimacy and goodwill into a sign of infamy and death. Note the biblical precedent for this treachery in 2 Samuel 20:9–10:
Joab said to Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” Then Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. Amasa was not on his guard against the dagger in Joab’s hand, and Joab plunged it into his belly, and his intestines spilled out on the ground. Without being stabbed again, Amasa died.
Mark does not record any response from Jesus; Judas vanishes from the story, though not from memory as the one guilty of vile treachery.
In spite of the well-laid plans to avoid any ruckus, “one of those standing near” drew his sword and struck. Mark does not identify the individual. If we ignore the accounts from the other Gospels—which specifically identify the culprit as “one of Jesus’ companions” (Matt. 26:51), as “one of them” (Luke 22:49–50), and as “Peter” (John 18:10)—Mark may intend to picture a violent mob scene. An edgy member of the gang of rowdies who rush in with swords and clubs to arrest Jesus could have struck in the passion of the moment. The scene’s structure suggests the swashbuckler to be one from the crowd of ruffians. It begins with the action of Judas (Mark 14:43–45), then shifts to the arresting mob (vv. 46–47), then focuses on the response of Jesus (vv. 48–49), and closes with the scattering of the disciples (vv. 50–52). One can imagine swordplay on both sides in the midst of the bedlam.
Whether by accident or intentionally, the high priest’s servant has his ear cut off.18 In Matthew, Jesus utters an aphorism renouncing violence, that “all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). In Luke, Jesus condemns even more strongly the violent ways of his sympathizers, and he heals the slave’s ear, the only miracle recorded in the Passion narrative (Luke 22:51). Jesus condemns only the violent demeanor of the arresting party in Mark’s account and then announces that the Scriptures are being fulfilled (Mark 14:49).
The disciples have awakened sufficiently by this time to make their shameless getaway. They all forsake him (aphiemi) and flee (14:50), but not before the announcement about the fulfillment of the Scriptures. The reference to the Scriptures undoubtedly refers to Jesus’ citation of Zechariah 13:7 as the group made their way to the Mount of Olives: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (14:27). Jesus’ arrest, however, sets in motion a whole range of Scriptures that will be fulfilled. This explains why the one who has exhibited so much power throughout the Gospel willingly submits to this mob. The Son of Man is handed over in accordance with God’s will as attested by Scripture.
This mob, however, does not understand the Scriptures and has no inkling of the significance of what is about to happen. The high priests have fooled themselves into thinking that they are cleverly accomplishing their purposes with their covert plots, secret signs, and high-powered weaponry to ensure that they can lead him away securely (14:44). Jesus, however, affirms that God’s purposes are being accomplished, and God does not use swords and clubs. God’s power is made manifest through weakness. Jesus has eaten with sinners, extending God’s mercy and forgiveness to them (2:15–17); now he will be killed by sinners. His death, however, again presents God’s offer of mercy and forgiveness to sinners.
Previously, Peter reminded Jesus that they had forsaken family, livelihood, and all things that they might follow Jesus (1:18, 20; 10:28–30). Now, they disavow their discipleship as they beat a hasty retreat. In the last scene where they appear together as a group, they break up and flee in every direction. The future spread of the gospel depends on them, and things look hopeless. But Mark reminds us that, in spite of appearances, God’s will is being fulfilled, and the reader should remember Jesus’ promise that they are to rendezvous with Jesus in Galilee after the resurrection (14:28).
The Young Man’s Flight (14:51–52)
MARK ALONE INCLUDES the account of a young man, identified only as one who was following Jesus, being grabbed by the arresting party and wriggling free from their grasp. He runs away into the darkness naked (14:51–52). Taylor asks, “Why insert so trivial a detail into so solemn a narrative?”19 This incident fascinates many, but what is it intended to convey?
Since only Mark records it, many have speculated that the Evangelist injects his own intimate memory of the scene. Some regard it as Mark’s remorseful signature, akin to Alfred Hitchcock’s fleeting appearances in his own films.20 On the other hand, the desperate flight may allude to Amos 2:16, which refers to flight on the Day of the Lord: “‘Even the bravest warriors will flee naked on that day,’ declares the LORD.” If the bravest warrior will turn tail and run, what will happen to those less stout of heart? Jesus did warn that when people saw the desolating sacrilege, those in Judea were to flee to the mountains. They were not go back into the house, and those in the fields were not to fetch their mantle (13:14–16). This man, however, has fled at the wrong time.
Another interpretation attaches significance to the linen garment (sindon) the man leaves behind. Jesus’ body was wrapped for burial in a linen cloth (sindon, 15:46), and a “young man” clothed in a white robe greets the women at the tomb and relays the message about the resurrection (16:5). From these slender connections, some interpreters contend that this young man’s flight symbolizes the resurrection. As this young man escapes the clutches of his would-be captors in the garden, leaving behind his linen garment, so Jesus escapes the clutches of his would-be captor, death, leaving behind his linen burial cloth (cf. John 20:6).
A similar interpretation suggests that this scene reflects the later baptismal practice of taking off one’s garment before immersion and putting on a white one afterward. This interpretation comes to grief over two details. First, the young man sheds his garment at the point of failure, not upon his confession, and he does not die with Jesus. Second, Jesus is the one who is wrapped in a linen cloth (15:46).
One recent scholar labels such allegorization as “imaginative flights of fancy,”21 which miss the obvious emphasis on cowardly flight. The young man’s escape reflects the “every man for himself, save yourself if you can” mindset that swept through the followers of Jesus (cf. Acts 19:16). The disciples had the chance to make good their boasts: James and John to drink the cup with Jesus (Mark 10:38–39), and Peter and the others to die with Jesus (14:31). They break down completely, just as Jesus had prophesied they would (14:28). The arresting party strips away their last shred of resolve to follow Jesus. Their mad dash to safety consequently exposes the nakedness of their empty pledges. Leviticus 26:36–37 is apropos:
As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies.
The disciples’ panicked flight sharply contrasts with the quiet dignity of Jesus, who has kept watch and is ready. Jesus now will become increasingly alone and must face the horror of his death without any human support. The craven fear of this young man who is seized and stripped and escapes into the darkness compares badly with the courage of Jesus, who is seized and stripped and does not escape but is crucified in the darkness.
Bridging Contexts
MARK’S GETHSEMANE SCENE is darkest of the four Gospels. He boldly presents Jesus’ emotion; some have said so boldly that it could come only from the recollection of an eyewitness. Some have thought it too bold. Watson points out that “Christian piety, both ancient and modern, has tended to find these passages offensive and distasteful.”22 The grim picture of Jesus’ mental state has been attenuated somewhat by Matthew, who simply describes Jesus as grieving (lypeo, Matt. 26:37) rather than as being deeply distressed (ekthambeo). Luke omits all reference to Jesus’ grief (cf. John 12:27).
Jesus’ suffering was even more of an embarrassment to a later theology that believed Jesus must have been free from any internal turmoil (see Ignatius, Polycarp 3:2, who describes Jesus as one “who cannot suffer”). Modern readers might also worry that Jesus suffered from a shameful eleventh hour failure of nerve. Did he grovel before God in tears and lamentations? Watson declares, “Mark’s account is utterly stark and comfortless, and we should not allow its impact to be blunted by the modifications of it in other gospels.”23 If one does try to relieve the scandalous impact of this scene, one is preaching something different from Mark’s text.
Mark’s bleak presentation of Jesus’ mental anguish cries for an explanation. Jesus’ mental anguish during the period of waiting presented a real test. The flogging, the nails, the fire, or whatever it might be are only a physical ordeal. The anxiety of waiting can make one fall to pieces. Jesus’ distress drove him from his disciples to pray and to seek peace from his Father. Celsus fastened on almost every word in the Gethsemane incident to discredit Christian claims about Jesus’ divinity. Why did Jesus challenge James and John to drink his cup (10:38) when he now shrinks from it himself? Could even the Son of God experience the dread of suffering?
The answer is yes. Orthodox Christians confess Jesus to be fully human and fully divine. Mark’s scene makes it clear that Jesus experienced a full range of human emotions. The author of Hebrews states it just as boldly, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Heb. 5:7). Swete comments that Jesus’ human soul shrank from the cross, and that fact adds to the sense of greatness of his sacrifice.24
But modern readers want to know what it was that caused him to shrink from death. Kelber has warned, “The exegesis of Jesus’ state at Gethsemane is habitually attended with the danger of being seduced into a psychological reading of the mind of Jesus.”25 Many explanations have been offered to try to explain exactly what was going on in Jesus’ mind to explain such trembling horror. Some argue that Jesus thought of all the sins of the world that would be laid upon him (2 Cor. 5:21), but Mark does not hint of this in the text.
Others argue that knowing that he would die an accursed death, hanging on a tree (Gal. 3:13), may have afflicted his soul.
Still others contend that Jesus shuddered at the thought that his suffering and death would cause his disciples to lose faith and to scatter, just as he predicted. This last fragment of his public ministry’s success would be destroyed. Jesus was willing to accept God’s will for himself, but he recoiled at the prospect of the dissolution of the little band of believers. The very thought of his disciples denying him and being scattered was enough to kill him. He did not wish to acquiesce in the complete failure of his ministry. But note that the prediction of their failure was counterbalanced by the prediction that they would be regathered (14:28). Jesus exuded optimism about the disciples’ restoration.
Others have suggested that Jesus was plagued by a fear that his disciples were too ill-prepared to assume responsibility for preaching the kingdom of God. They did not understand and might never understand. Jesus may also have quaked at the thought that God might foreclose upon the spiritual bankruptcy of Israel’s leaders.
Hypothetical psychologizing about what might have been passing through Jesus’ mind is presumptuous on our part. All we can safely say is that in Gethsemane Jesus was following his own teaching. He taught the disciples to pray, “Lead us not into temptation [testing], but deliver us from the evil one” (Matt. 6:13), and he practiced what he taught. When the text is silent on such matters, it is best that we admit our ignorance and ask what we can learn from this. What does Mark want to teach in this scene?
Looking at the significance of an interior monologue in other ancient literature helps shed some light on how Mark’s first readers would have understood the scene. Tolbert notes that monologues in ancient literature “are not basically psychological but rather rhetorical.”26 The monologues typically occur at crucial points, such as when a character is on the verge of battle or some other risky venture: “Why does my own heart dispute with me thus?” (see Homer, Iliad 11.402 [Odysseus]; 17.97 [Menials]; 21.562 [Agenor]; 22.122 [Hector]). Tolbert observes that monologues appear in those critical moments when “a character seems to be giving way to the promptings of his thymos [heart or mind] but pulls himself together in the formulaic mind … and proceeds to do the right thing.” 27
Thus, when Mark allows the reader to hear Jesus’ prayer at a moment of great crisis when the hour has come upon him, it strikes a chord in his audience. They can identify with Jesus’ pain, which makes him an example. Jesus could hardly be an example if he were above temptation and above the fray. Satan battles for the heart of every human, and all humans are hard-wired to try to save their own lives. The disciples serve as a negative example of this instinct. Judas switches allegiance to what he believes is the winning side. The others run for their lives. Another, under pressure, denies any association with his Master. Jesus, however, heroically resolves the struggle over the great sacrifice God requires of him and obediently submits to God’s will.
What does the reader then learn from this struggle? (1) Jesus’ grappling with God’s will reveals that he is not “a joyful martyr bent on self destruction, not an unwilling pawn forced into sacrifice … he is a courageous hero who knows what dangers lie ahead and resolves to do the will of God (see 3:35).”28 The cross is God’s decision for him. It comes to him as a cup that needs to be drunk. He must be obedient, but he does not relish the conflict or the prospect of death. Jesus does not eagerly embrace suffering but accepts it under a sense of ought. Jesus has told his disciples to take up their crosses and follow him, but he does not exalt martyrdom. Death is not something that one should eagerly seek out. One can and should pray for release. One should know, however, that some things that one prays and asks for with faith (11:22–24) cannot be given. If it is not in God’s will, then one must accept what comes with prayer and courage. As Dowd states it, one prays “expecting power, accepting suffering.”29
(2) Jesus’ intense distress is overcome by intense prayer. Jesus accepts God’s will the same way we must—through prayer. James Montgomery’s hymn captures this idea:
Go to Dark Gethsemane,
Ye who feel the tempter’s pow’r;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see;
Watch with him one bitter hour;
Turn not from his griefs away;
Learn of Jesus Christ to pray.
We learn how to pray from his intimate address to God, from his confidence in God’s omnipotence, from his plea to be spared testing, and from his obedient submission to God’s will. Jesus came to terms with the necessity of drinking the cup through painful lament. Brown comments:
As Mark’s readers face their trial and find it too much, emboldened by knowing that all things are possible with God, they may find themselves, despite all their previous commitments, asking that this cup be taken away. And they can do that in Jesus’ name provided that they add as he did, “But not what I will but what you (will).”30
Because David prayed: “Test me, O LORD, and try me; examine my heart and my mind” (Ps. 26:2), some rabbis thought it was proper to place oneself in temptation, where our faith and obedience are put to the test, in order to overcome it (b. Abod Zar 17ab). Temptations were viewed as spiritual muscle-builders for the faithful. Jesus does not take this view. We should pray, ever mindful of the weakness of the flesh, for the cup to be removed. We are weak; and if we are not strengthened by God’s power, we will always fail.
The flight of the disciples exposes their grave failure. Mark’s vivid portrayal of it helped his first readers to understand “its own lapses in following Jesus during periods of suffering (and perhaps persecution), especially since there was also the implicit promise that those who failed could be gathered once more into the flock of Jesus (Mark 14:28; 16:7).”31 To get sidetracked by curiosity over the identity of the young man who streaks into the darkness naked prevents the interpreter from wrestling with the issue that is so central to Mark. Followers of Jesus who do not pray and try to follow on their own power will collapse. The scene should compel readers to imagine what they would have done under the circumstances. It compels each one “to ponder the tenacity of his or her own commitment.”32 One person lingers, but when he too is seized, he fails the test and hightails it out of there. Trying to identify who this young man is diverts us from asking the more important question, Why does he flee? It keeps us from asking ourselves, What would we do when angry mobs wave swords or guns in our faces? Would we flee?
Contemporary Significance
FREDERIC L. KNOWLES’S poem “Grief and Joy” captures the poignancy of Mark’s Gethsemane scene:
Joy is a partnership,
Grief weeps alone;
Many guests had Cana
Gethsemane had one.
Jesus is alone and grieving over what confronts him and his disciples, but through prayer he comes to a resolution. Peck writes, “Once suffering is completely accepted, it ceases in a sense to be suffering.”33 It is the time of waiting that can do us in.
Vanstone perceptively observes:
Waiting can be the most intense and poignant of all human experiences—the experiences which, above all others, strips us of affectation and self-deception and reveals to us the reality of our needs, our values and ourselves. Waiting is at its most intense and wearing when it takes one or other of two particular forms. Sometimes we wait with dread for the onset of or occurrence of something which, with our rational faculties, we know to be necessary or appropriate or even beneficial to ourselves. So a nervous actor may wait for the curtain to rise or a paratrooper for the moment when he must make his first jump: so many of us wait in the dentist’s room. We dread the imminent onset of strain or danger or pain, but we know with our rational faculties that what lies ahead is “for the best.” Usually rational considerations overcome dread and we do not “run away.” We count it weakness or cowardice if we do; and we also count it weakness if, as we wait, we find ourselves hoping or praying that which lies ahead—that which is “for the best”—may not happen: that the performance on the stage may be cancelled, that bad weather may prevent the parachute jump, that the dentist may find himself too busy to see us. There is weakness—pardonable weakness but nevertheless weakness—in hoping or praying to be “spared” that which we know to be for the best. Air-crews about to embark on a particularly dangerous mission in war-time may sometimes hope or pray that their allotted aircraft may prove unserviceable; but few if any would admit at the time to doing so.34
In Gethsemane Jesus must wait. Wait for the hour to come upon him, wait for the betrayer to come at any moment. Some interpretations of Jesus’ struggle in Gethsemane claim that he shows a flash of weakness while he is waiting. He knows what God’s purpose is and what is necessary, and he prays to escape. But Vanstone shows that “there is another form of peculiarly intense and poignant waiting.”
It is the manner of waiting in which the prisoner in the dock—or the prisoner’s wife or mother—waits for the jury to announce their verdict; the manner in which an intelligent man waits for the surgeon’s report on a biopsy of his liver; the manner in which, after an explosion in a coalmine, a wife waits at the pit-head to hear if her own man is safe. One waits at such moments in an agonizing tension between hope and dread, stretched and almost torn apart between two dramatically different anticipations. A wise person will then steel and prepare himself for the worst; but the very tension in which he waits shows that hope is still present, and that hope will often express itself in unbelievers, in the urgent and secret prayer, “O God, let it be all right.” In such hope and prayer there is no weakness, no failure of nerve: torn between rational hope and rational dread one may properly pray for the best while still prepared for the worst.35
Vanstone suggests, I think correctly, that Jesus waited and prayed in such a way. He had already handed himself over to death when he acted and taught as he did in the temple. He had brought his proclamation of God’s reign to the seat of human power. Now he must change from the one who acts to the one who waits and is acted upon. This change is one of the hardest things to accept in life—to become passive after a life of active involvement, to be at the mercy of others. Mark’s readers need not shy from crying to God to be spared from their own cross that they must bear, but they can learn from Jesus to accept God’s plan through prayer.
“That Jesus went through pain is a continuing source of comfort and courage to pain-stricken people.”36 We can learn to handle pain and suffering from Jesus. Many blanche at Jesus’ boldness in addressing God in such familiar terms as “Daddy.” If a person prayed to God this way in church, the majority would think that proper religious decorum had been overstepped. If one complained loudly to God in lament as the psalmist and Jesus do, again the majority would think it too brazen. Our hesitancy to do anything like this perhaps reflects our distance from God. Jesus was on such intimate terms with God that he did not shy away from vociferously laying bare his thoughts—like a hurting child crying to a loving parent. His prayer shows that we can express our feelings honestly to God.
Jesus models what he means when he tells disciples to watch in 13:33–37. Watching is not what we might first think it is. Jesus does not tell them to watch for the end of all things. Geddert writes, “Because Jesus had modelled faithful ‘watching,’ he was prepared for the arrival of The Hour, and therefore recognized its advent.”37 The disciples expected cosmic upheaval that would come with plenty of warning, with sirens blaring, swords flashing, and angels descending. They did not recognize that we fight against demonic powers and not just the powers of flesh and blood (Eph. 6:10–18). Watching has nothing to do with scouting out the enemy or watching for portents but “with faithful discipleship in a time of crisis.”38 The trouble is that we never know when the crisis will come. Minear writes, “No one set of actions can be objectively labeled as watching, because it refers to the internal orientation of servants of their absent and returning Lord.”39 It has to do with their present state.
The disciples serve as negative examples because they sleep, a basic Christian term for infidelity.40 In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, when Pilgrim finally releases his burden at the foot of the cross and goes a little further, he finds three men fast asleep with fetters on their legs. The name of one was Simple, the second Sloth, and the third Presumption. He awoke them and they spoke. Simple said, “I see no danger”; Sloth said, “Yet a little more sleep”; and Presumption said, “Every tub must stand on its own bottom.” Spiritual drowsiness is dangerous and will prove the Christian’s undoing.
(1) To sleep is to stop praying. We often do not pray because we are unaware that we are in the midst of trial. Although the disciples have been explicitly warned (13:23), they remain spiritually groggy. To watch and be prepared, we must pray continually. When crunch time comes, Jesus tells disciples to rise and go. They go, but they go in the wrong direction. Disciples must first learn how to remain in prayer (14:34, “Stay here and keep watch”) before they can ever get up and go the way Jesus leads. Adversity brings out the worst in us while requiring the most of us. The only way we can ready ourselves to bear up under pressure is through fervent prayer.
(2) To sleep is to be unable to recognize the onset of trial or to accept it as God’s will. The disciples heard only what they wanted to hear and tuned out Jesus’ teaching on the necessity of suffering and the requirement of taking up a cross. They are like bad students who intend to quiz the professor about what is going to be on the exam and plan to study only the night before the exam. They are totally unprepared for the pop quiz.
(3) To sleep is to presume that the Spirit is willing without being mindful of the weakness of the flesh. Jesus does not want bravado from his disciples. Their bravado only masked their weakness and kept them from asking for God’s help. Consequently, they lacked strength for the battle within. The battlefield that counts is within each person’s heart, and the foe is not easily dispatched—and certainly not with swords. One must be ever mindful how close we are to falling. The good news, however, is that failure in times of crisis is not permanent.
(4) To sleep is to assume that we have arrived (see Phil. 3:12–16). Leo Tolstoy’s short story “Father Sergius” portrays a man who took up the monastic life and quickly excelled all others. He regarded the spiritual life as a checklist of tasks and goals to be accomplished. He reached the point where he believed he had accomplished all his goals. He had “learnt all there was to learn and had attained all there was to attain, there was nothing more to do.”41 The sudden arrival of the hour of trial can be a cruel reminder how mistaken false confidence in past spiritual achievements is.