32 Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”
33 And He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be troubled and deeply distressed.
34 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch.”
35 He went a little farther, 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 for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”
37 Then He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour?
38 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
39 Again He went away and prayed, and spoke the same words.
40 And when He returned, He found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy; and they did not know what to answer Him.
41 Then He came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough! The hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.
42 Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand.”
Also found in Matthew 26:36-46 and Luke 22:40-46.
Sit here (v.32) — addressed to the eight apostles who did not accompany Him into the garden.
Began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy. The Lord was overwhelmed with sorrow, but His first feeling was one of terrified surprise. Long as He had foreseen the Passion, when it came clearly into view, its terrors exceeded His anticipations. His human soul received new experience—He learned upon the basis of the things He suffered (Hebrews 5:8), and the last lesson of obedience began with a sensation of inconceivable awe. With this there came another, that of overpowering mental distress (He began to be distressed)—the distress which follows a great shock, the confused, restless, half-distracted state which may be worse than the sharp pain of a fully realized sorrow. The three disciples are placed so that they can be witnesses of the agony. “Sore amazed … to throw into amazement or terror, to alarm thoroughly, to terrify, to be struck with terror. “To be heavy” … uncomfortable, as one not at home. It speaks of an experience of which one is not familiar, in which one does not feel at home, that is, at rest, and which distressed him. “Exceedingly sorrowful” … encompassed with grief, very sad. Grief enveloped Him, surrounded, saturated His consciousness. “Unto death” … “so that I almost died.” — Wuest, page 264.
a little farther (v.35) — about a stone’s throw (Luke 22:41). They could probably see Him and may have been able to hear Him.
fell on the ground and prayed (v.35) — imperfect tense. Kept on falling to the ground, kept on praying.
hour (v.35) — the cross
Abba (v.36) = Aramaic for “Father”
this cup (v.36) — There were two things in the cup from which our Lord naturally and sinlessly shrank. If He had not offered this petition, He would not have been who and what He was. One of them was to be made sin, to be charged by the High Court of Heaven with the guilt of all human sin. From that the holy Son of God drew back with all the infinite hatred of sin that was His. The other was the agony of being deprived of the fellowship of the Father for the time from nine o’clock in the morning to three in the afternoon (Psalm 22:1-2). The fellowship between Father and Son had had no beginning. For a sinner who has never known the bliss of the Father’s fellowship, to be deprived of it all through eternity, is bad enough. But for the holy Son of God who knew nothing else up to that moment, the loss of that fellowship meant infinite suffering. — Wuest, page 265.
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Man’s arch-enemy wrought sin and death by asserting his will against God (Isaiah 14:13-14); Jesus wrought salvation by submitting His will to God. Accepting the will of God is always victory, whereas self-will inevitably leads to defeat. — Guthrie, page 882.
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Peter is addressed as the first of the three (v.37); but the rebuke is partly personal, as Mark at least is aware. Mark has not used the personal name “Simon” since Peter’s call to the Apostolate (Mark 3:16), and its appearance here is certainly suggestive …For the time he is “Peter” no more, the new character which he owes to association with Jesus is in abeyance. He who was ready to die with the Master (Mark 14:31) has been proved not to possess the strength of will requisite for resisting sleep during the third part of a single watch. — Wuest, page 266.
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The flesh is man as belonging to the sphere of the material life, under the limitations of a corporeal nature, frail, mortal, and in fact impure (Genesis 6:12). The spirit [is] the vital force (Genesis 6:17) which in man is directly dependent on the Spirit of God (Genesis 2:7), and the organ of communication with God … In the Eleven, the human spirit was already under the influence of the Spirit of God through their intercourse with Christ (John 14:17). It was therefore willing and eager. But its willingness was not a match for the inertia of its colleague, the frail flesh. — Wuest, page 266.
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