Gethsemane, the garden of destiny

It is not surprising that an event as significant as Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is recorded in all four Gospels. It was there that the crucial decision was made.
       You will remember that when Jesus and his disciples arrived in the Garden that fateful evening, he was already in deep distress about the critical commitment he was about to make. The text says, "Distress and anguish rolled over him like a great wave" (pp. 238-39, Matt. 26:38). Leaving most of the disciples near the entrance, Jesus took Peter (along with James and John) a short distance into the garden. At that point, Jesus dropped to his knees and began to earnestly pray. So demanding was the decision he was about to make that his tears fell to the ground like great drops of blood. In agony he prayed, “Dear Father, there is nothing you cannot do, so please take this cup of suffering away from me! Don’t make me drink it, yet, may your will be done.”  
       Then Jesus rose and went back to his disciples only to find them sound asleep. He was deeply disturbed by the fact that such close friends could not stand watch with him during this critical period. But he provided them with a reason for their failure, saying, “Their spirit was willing but the old nature simply took over.” Then he left them once again – this time alone – and earnestly prayed that if (and “if” calls for emphasis) he had to go through the suffering and death that lay ahead, then to God the Father he would say, “May thy will be done.”
      When he returned a second time to the disciples he once again found them sound asleep. There was no excuse for their failure to stay awake and support Jesus in prayer, so he went back again to the place where he had been praying and yielded himself to the will of his Father. Then returning to the disciples he found them sleeping as before. “That’s enough of that,” he said. “Get up, let’s be going. It was at that point that he saw the soldiers and Judas coming to capture him.
       This was such a sacred scene that it would probably be best simply to let one’s mind and heart dwell on it without discussion. However, I would like to mention the one theme that is absolutely central. The surrender of Jesus to the will of God his Father took place not on the cross, but in the Garden of Gethsemane. As excruciatingly painful and humiliating as the public crucifixion was, what happened in the Garden involved a “pain” that exceed it by far. All that followed was painful to an extreme, but note how calmly Jesus went through his “trial” and the cross with all its pain and suffering. The decision had been made. He was, of his own will, surrendering to the will of his Father.
       One can read Gethsemane and understand what happened, but there is no way that we created beings can even begin to grasp what it cost the triune God to pay the full price of the sins of the entire world throughout time. It was the defining act of ultimate love. He did it because he loves us ­– you and me. May our response be as complete in our limited realm as was his in that supernatural realm that has no boundaries.