As we head into Resurrection Sunday, we should take time to reflect on the path our Savior walked from Gethsemane to Golgotha. When we take a lingering look at Gethsemane—the garden where Jesus spent His last few hours before His arrest, trial, and crucifixion—what will we see? Matthew 26 is one of the gospel accounts that gives us a glimpse into Gethsemane. After Jesus had finished His last supper with the twelve disciples, He took them to the garden of Gethsemane. There, He chose three disciples to continue with Him further into the garden. As we watch Jesus and these three disciples in the garden, we see both the humanity and divinity of Jesus.
When glimpsing Gethsemane, it’s hard to miss the humanity of Jesus. Mark 14:33 says, “And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy.” The words sore amazed mean “to alarm thoroughly, to terrify,” and the words very heavy mean “to be troubled,” or to be in “great distress or anguish.” Jesus knew what was coming and, as a man, He was dreading it. He was terrified of the cross and He was in anguish over the impending judgement of the Father. Jesus shares this very human moment with these three beloved disciples, saying in Matthew 26:38, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.” In this moment, Jesus was not just relating to them as their master teacher and Lord; He was relating to them as a close friend. As a man, Jesus asked for companionship and comfort in His time of greatest anguish.
The truth is we cannot even imagine the level of anguish felt by Jesus because we have never been as close to the Father as Jesus was. He was one with the Father and yet He was about to be forsaken by the Father for our sakes! Luke’s account of this night gives us a glimpse of the level of anguish Jesus was experiencing in the garden. As a medical doctor, Luke adds another detail that the other gospels do not. Luke 22:44 says, “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Sweating blood is a rare physical phenomenon called hematohidrosis, “in which the capillary vessels that feed the sweat glands rupture, causing them to exude blood, occurring under conditions of extreme physical or emotional stress.”[1] If you knew that you were about to be tortured at the hands of evil men, bear the sins of the entire world, be forsaken by your Heavenly Father from whom you’d never before been separated, and then die on a cross, would you feel terror and anguish? Jesus Christ felt the most extreme level of suffering that any human being can feel, starting that night in Gethsemane and continuing until He finished His work on the cross.
What makes Christianity different from other religions is that the Christian God initiated the reconciliation of God and man. He didn’t just demand that people climb to Him because He knew that we could not possibly do it. So, He came down to us and lived with us and among us. He experienced our hunger, pain, and temptations. He took our sin on Himself and experienced an eternity’s worth of torment compressed into a matter of hours. From Gethsemane to Golgotha, He suffered everything we deserved and more. This is the reason that we can never say to Jesus, “You don’t understand what I’m going through! How could you let me suffer like this?” As Hebrews 4:15 tells us, we have an empathetic High Priest who has already felt the most extreme pangs of suffering for us, so that we will never have to feel them.
In his humanity, Jesus also modeled the appropriate attitude of prayer to the Father. He managed His human emotions with prayer. Matthew 26:39 tells us that Jesus “went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed.” Jesus Christ was prostrate in prayer—the classic position of humility and submission. In His sorrow, Jesus prayed, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (v. 39) Jesus supplicated with God to take away the anguish He faced. Yet even while He asked for what He wanted in His humanity, Jesus also submitted to the Father’s will. As Jesus Christ prayed, so we ought to pray honestly and humbly. We pray with our hands open so that God may remove from them whatever He wants and place in them whatever He deems best. Christ’s humanity is essential to God’s redemptive story and it was on full display in Gethsemane.
While Jesus’ humanity is obvious in Gethsemane, never once does Jesus set aside His divinity. Despite the sorrow and the anguish, we see Jesus’ divinity and sovereignty in His response to Judas’ betrayal. Jesus was not surprised by Judas’ betrayal. He was completely aware of the devices of Judas’ heart. During the last supper, Jesus had predicted that one of His disciples would betray Him and even went so far as to point him out (Matthew 26:21-25). However, the other disciples did not seem to comprehend Jesus’ prediction of betrayal. His last words to the three disciples before His arrest were, “He is at hand that doth betray me” (Matthew 26:46). Jesus responded to Judas’ betraying kiss with a rhetorical question, “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” (v. 50). Like any of Jesus’ questions, this question was not for His own sake, but for Judas’ sake. As Jesus said those words, perhaps He and Judas made momentary eye contact. What a painful gaze that must’ve been for Judas! With His rhetorical question, Jesus made it clear that He knew what was happening.
Another expression of Jesus’ divinity and sovereignty even in Gethsemane is His response to the crowd that came for Him. When they entered the garden with lanterns and weapons, Jesus stood calmly while His disciples finally stirred awake. Now fully awake, Peter drew his sword and assaulted the high priest’s servant. In response, Jesus said, “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” (vv. 52-54). Jesus wanted Peter to know that He did not need his protection. With one word, Jesus could have saved Himself. Perhaps if Peter had stayed awake to listen to Jesus’ earlier prayer to the Father, he would have realized the unity of Christ and God the Father. He would have realized that the Son was not being seized, but that that Son was simply being surrendered to the Father’s will.
In case the crowd there to arrest Him was under the same delusion that Jesus was helpless, Jesus said to them, “Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid not hold on me. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” (vv. 55-56) It was not that their timing was perfect and they had finally caught Jesus off-guard like a hostile thief in the night. Quite to the contrary, they were operating according to God’s time-table. As Jesus said moments before this in verse 45, “Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.” Jesus knew what was coming. Jesus was not being taken, He was fulfilling the scriptures. He had predicted this in John 14:30-31, saying, “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.” Jesus was saying that, although the Devil was coming for Him, the Devil would ultimately have no claim on Him. Jesus would not be killed by the Devil. Jesus would be obedient to the Father, even to the point of death on the cross (Philippians 2:7-8). This moment in Gethsemane illustrates the complete unity and sovereignty of God the Son and God the Father.
Glimpsing Jesus’ humanity and divinity in Gethsemane reminds us that the Father knew exactly what was needed for our redemption. Jesus did not allow His humanity to eclipse His divinity. While He felt the full spectrum of human emotions in Gethsemane, yet He fulfilled the Scriptures perfectly and proceeded to the cross. II Corinthians 5:21 says, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” God the Father knew that only a man could pay for the sins of humankind, but He also knew that only a perfect man could be the satisfactory sacrifice. This is why the God-man, Jesus Christ, was the only One who could be that Passover Lamb for the entire human race. Because He was both God and man, a wonderful exchange has taken place: our sin for Christ’s righteousness.
[1] Jerajani, H R et al. “Hematohidrosis – a rare clinical phenomenon.” Indian journal of dermatology vol. 54,3 (2009): 290-2. doi:10.4103/0019-5154.55645