On the Mount there was a garden, and a place where olives were crushed,
which gave it its name, Gethsemane. Jesus and His friends had been
spending the nights there, either to avoid the odors and noise of the
great city, distasteful to them, country-bred as they were, or because
they were afraid of being treacherously captured in the midst of their
enemies’ houses.
And when He was at the place, He said to His disciples, “Sit ye here
while I go and pray yonder.”
But He was so heavy-hearted that He dreaded being alone. He took with
Him the three whom He loved the best, Simon Peter, James and John. And
when they had gone a little way from the others, He began to be
sorrowful and very heavy. “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto
death; tarry ye here, and watch with me.”
If they answered Him no one knows what they said. But we know that they
did not comfort Him with the words which come from the heart when it
shares the suffering of a loved one, for He withdrew Himself from them
alone, and went further on, to pray. He fell on the ground on His face
and prayed, saying, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; O
my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”
He was alone now, alone in the night, alone in the midst of men, alone
before God, and He could show His weakness without shame. After all, he
was a Man, too, a man of flesh and blood, a living, breathing man, who
knew that His destruction was at hand, that His body would be destroyed,
that His flesh would be pierced, that His blood would be poured out on
the ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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