When the consciousness of possible falling is brought home to us, we
shall carry, if we are wise, all our doubts as to ourselves to Jesus.
There is safety in asking Him, 'Is it I?' To bare our inmost selves
before Him, and not to shrink, even if that piercing gaze lights on
hidden meannesses and incipient treachery, may be painful, but is
healing. He will keep us from yielding to the temptation of which we
are aware, and which we tell frankly to Him. The lowly sense of our
own liability to fall, if it drives us closer to Him, will make it
certain that we shall not fall.
While the other disciples asked 'Is it I?' John asked 'Who is it?' The
disciple who leaned on Christ's bosom was bathed in such a
consciousness of Christ's love that treason against it was impossible.
He, alone of the Evangelists, records his question, and he tells us
that he put it, 'leaning back as he was, on Jesus's breast.' For the
purpose of whispering his interrogation, he changed his attitude for a
moment so as to press still closer to Jesus. How could one who was
thus nestling nearer to that heart be the betrayer? The consciousness
of Christ's love, accompanied with the effort to draw closer to Him,
is our surest defence against every temptation to faithlessness or
betrayal of Him.
Any other fancied ground of security is deceptive, and will sooner or
later crumble beneath our deceived feet. On this very occasion, Peter
built a towering fabric of profession of unalterable fidelity on such
shifting ground, and saw it collapse into ruin in a few hours. Let us
profit by the lesson!
That wholesome consciousness of our weakness need not shade with
sadness the hours of communion, but it may well help us to turn them
to their highest use in making them occasions for lowlier
self-distrust and closer cleaving to Him. If we thus use our sense of
weakness, the sweet security will enter our souls that belongs to
those who have trusted in the great promise: 'He shall not fall, for
God Is able to make him stand.' The blessed ones who are kept from
falling and 'presented faultless before the presence of His glory,'
will hear with wonder the voice of the Judge ascribing to them deeds
of service to Him of which they had not been conscious, and will have
to ask once more the old question, but with a new meaning: 'Lord, is
it I? when saw we Thee an hungered, and fed Thee?'
'STRONG CRYING AND TEARS'
'And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and He saith to
His disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. 33. And He taketh with
Him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be
very heavy; 34. And saith onto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful
unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. 35. And He went forward a
little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible,
the hour might pass from Him. 36. And He said, Abba, Father, all
things are possible unto Thee; take away this cup from Me:
nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt. 37. And He cometh,
and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou!
couldest not thou watch one hour? 38. Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter
into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. 39.
And again He went away, and prayed, and spake the same words. 40. And
when He returned, He found them asleep again, (for their eyes were
heavy,) neither wist they what to answer Him. 41. And He cometh the
third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest, it
is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into
the hands of sinners. 42. Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth Me
is at hand.--Mark xiv. 32-42.
The three who saw Christ's agony in Gethsemane were so little affected
that they slept. We have to beware of being so little affected that we
speculate and seek to analyse rather than to bow adoringly before that
mysterious and heart-subduing sight. Let us remember that the place is
'holy ground.' It was meant that we should look on the Christ who
prayed 'with strong crying and tears,' else the three sleepers would
not have accompanied Him so far; but it was meant that our gaze should
be reverent and from a distance, else they would have gone with Him
into the shadow of the olives.
'Gethsemane' means 'an oil-press.' It was an enclosed piece of ground,
according to Matthew and Mark; a garden, according to John. Jesus, by
some means, had access to it, and had 'oft-times resorted thither with
His disciples.' To this familiar spot, with its many happy
associations, Jesus led the disciples, who would simply expect to pass
the night there, as many Passover visitors were accustomed to bivouac
in the open air.
The triumphant tone of spirit which animated His assuring words to His
disciples, 'I have overcome the world,' changed as they passed through
the moonlight down to the valley, and when they reached the garden
deep gloom lay upon Him. His agitation is pathetically and most
naturally indicated by the conflict of feeling as to companionship. He
leaves the other disciples at the entrance, for He would fain be alone
in His prayer. Then, a moment after, He bids the three, who had been
on the Mount of Transfiguration and with Him at many other special
times, accompany Him into the recesses of the garden. But again need
of solitude overcomes longing for companionship, and He bids them stay
where they were, while He plunges still further into the shadow. How
human it is! How well all of us, who have been down into the depths of
sorrow, know the drawing of these two opposite longings!
Scripture seldom undertakes to tell Christ's emotions. Still seldomer
does He speak of them. But at this tremendous hour the veil is lifted
by one corner, and He Himself is fain to relieve His bursting heart by
pathetic self-revelation, which is in fact an appeal to the three for
sympathy, as well as an evidence of His sharing the common need of
lightening the burdened spirit by speech. Mark's description of
Christ's feelings lays stress first on their beginning, and then on
their nature as being astonishment and anguish. A wave of emotion
swept over Him, and was in marked contrast with His previous
demeanour.
The three had never seen their calm Master so moved. We feel that such
agitation is profoundly unlike the serenity of the rest of His life,
and especially remarkable if contrasted with the tone of John's
account of His discourse in the upper room; and, if we are wise, we
shall gaze on that picture drawn for us by Mark with reverent
gratitude, and feel that we look at something more sacred than human
trembling at the thought of death.
Our Lord's own infinitely touching words heighten the impression of
the Evangelist's 'My soul is exceeding sorrowful,' or, as the word
literally means, 'ringed round with sorrow.' A dark orb of distress
encompassed Him, and there was nowhere a break in the gloom which shut
Him in. And this is He who, but an hour before, had bequeathed His
'joy' to His servants, and had bidden them 'be of good cheer,' since
He had 'conquered the world.'
Dare we ask what were the elements of that all-enveloping horror of
great darkness? Reverently we may. That astonishment and distress no
doubt were partly due to the recoil of flesh from death. But if that
was their sole cause, Jesus has been surpassed in heroism, not only by
many a martyr who drew his strength from Him, but by many a rude
soldier and by many a criminal. No! The waters of the baptism with
which He was baptized had other sources than that, though it poured a
tributary stream into them.
We shall not understand Gethsemane at all, nor will it touch our
hearts and wills as it is meant to do, unless, as we look, we say in
adoring wonder, 'The Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us
all.' It was the weight of the world's sin which He took on Him by
willing identification of Himself with men, that pressed Him to the
ground. Nothing else than the atoning character of Christ's sufferings
explains so far as it can be explained, the agony which we are
permitted to behold afar off.
How nearly that agony was fatal is taught us by His own word 'unto
death,' A little more, and He would have died. Can we retain reverence
for Jesus as a perfect and pattern man, in view of His paroxysm of
anguish in Gethsemane, if we refuse to accept that explanation? Truly
was the place named 'The Olive-press,' for in it His whole being was
as if in the press, and another turn of the screw would have crushed
Him.
Darkness ringed Him round, but there was a rift in it right overhead.
Prayer was His refuge, as it must be ours. The soul that can cry,
'Abba, Father!' does not walk in unbroken night. His example teaches
us what our own sorrows should also teach us--to betake ourselves to
prayer when the spirit is desolate. In that wonderful prayer we
reverently note three things: there is unbroken consciousness of the
Father's love; there is the instinctive recoil of flesh and the
sensitive nature from the suffering imposed; and there is the absolute
submission of the will, which silences the remonstrance of flesh.
Whatever the weight laid on Jesus by His bearing of the sins of the
world, it did not take from Him the sense of sonship. But, on the
other hand, that sense did not take from Him the consciousness that
the world's sin lay upon Him. In like manner His cry on the Cross
mysteriously blended the sense of communion with God and of
abandonment by God. Into these depths we see but a little way, and
adoration is better than speculation.
Jesus shrank from 'this cup,' in which so many bitter ingredients
besides death were mingled, such as treachery, desertion, mocking,
rejection, exposure to 'the contradiction of sinners.' There was no
failure of purpose in that recoil, for the cry for exemption was
immediately followed by complete submission to the Father's will. No
perturbation in the lower nature ever caused His fixed resolve to
waver. The needle always pointed to the pole, however the ship might
pitch and roll. A prayer in which 'remove this from me' is followed by
that yielding 'nevertheless' is always heard. Christ's was heard, for
calmness came back, and His flesh was stilled and made ready for the
sacrifice.
So He could rejoin the three, in whose sympathy and watchfulness He
had trusted--and they all were asleep! Surely that was one ingredient
of bitterness in His cup. We wonder at their insensibility; and how
they must have wondered at it too, when after years taught them what
they had lost, and how faithless they had been! Think of men who could
have seen and heard that scene, which has drawn the worshipping regard
of the world ever since, missing it all because they fell asleep! They
had kept awake long enough to see Him fall on the ground and to hear
His prayer, but, worn out by a long day of emotion and sorrow, they
slept.
Jesus was probably rapt in prayer for a considerable time, perhaps for
a literal 'hour.' He was specially touched by Peter's failure, so
sadly contrasted with his confident professions in the upper room; but
no word of blame escaped Him. Rather He warned them of swift-coming
temptation, which they could only overcome by watchfulness and prayer.
It was indeed near, for the soldiers would burst in, before many
minutes had passed, polluting the moonlight with their torches and
disturbing the quiet night with their shouts. What gracious allowance
for their weakness and loving recognition of the disciples' imperfect
good lie in His words, which are at once an excuse for their fault and
an enforcement of His command to watch and pray! 'The flesh is weak,'
and hinders the willing spirit from doing what it wills. It was an
apology for the slumber of the three; it is a merciful statement of
the condition under which all discipleship has to be carried on. 'He
knoweth our frame.' Therefore we all need to watch and pray, since
only by such means can weak flesh be strengthened and strong flesh
weakened, or the spirit preserved in willingness.
The words were not spoken in reference to Himself, but in a measure
were true of Him. His second withdrawal for prayer seems to witness
that the victory won by the first supplication was not permanent.
Again the anguish swept over His spirit in another foaming breaker,
and again He sought solitude, and again He found tranquillity--and
again returned to find the disciples asleep. 'They knew not what to
answer Him' in extenuation of their renewed dereliction.
Yet a third time the struggle was renewed. And after that, He had no
need to return to the seclusion, where He had fought, and now had
conclusively conquered by prayer and submission. We too may, by the
same means, win partial victories over self, which may be interrupted
by uprisings of flesh; but let us persevere. Twice Jesus' calm was
broken by recrudescence of horror and shrinking; the third time it
came back, to abide through all the trying scenes of the passion, but
for that one cry on the Cross, 'Why hast Thou forsaken Me?' So it may
be with us.
The last words to the three have given commentators much trouble.
'Sleep on now, and take your rest,' is not so much irony as 'spoken
with a kind of permissive force, and in tones in which merciful
reproach was blended with calm resignation.' So far as He was
concerned, there was no reason for their waking. But they had lost an
opportunity, never to return, of helping Him in His hour of deepest
agony. He needed them no more. And do not we in like manner often lose
the brightest opportunities of service by untimely slumber of soul,
and is not 'the irrevocable past' saying to many of us, 'Sleep on now
since you can no more do what you have let slip from your drowsy
hands'?
'It is enough' is obscure, but probably refers to the disciples'
sleep, and prepares for the transition to the next words, which summon
them to arise, not to help Him by watching, but to meet the traitor.
They had slept long enough, He sadly says. That which will effectually
end their sleepiness is at hand. How completely our Lord had regained
His calm superiority to the horror which had shaken Him is witnessed
by that majestic 'Let us be going.' He will go out to meet the
traitor, and, after one flash of power, which smote the soldiers to
the ground, will yield Himself to the hands of sinners.
The Man who lay prone in anguish beneath the olive-trees comes forth
in serene tranquillity, and gives Himself up to the death for us all.
His agony was endured for us, and needs for its explanation the fact
that it was so. His victory through prayer was for us, that we too
might conquer by the same weapons. His voluntary surrender was for us,
that 'by His stripes we might be healed.' Surely we shall not sleep,
as did these others, but, moved by His sorrows and animated by His
victory, watch and pray that we may share in the virtue of His
sufferings and imitate the example of His submission.