MATTHEW 26:36-46
WHEN I WAS EIGHT, my father, older brother, and I traveled to Ireland, to the town where my father was born. There are two things I remember most about that trip. First, I remember that the food and drink were terrible. Eating soda bread and drinking warm, unpasteurized goat’s milk for two weeks was more than my immature American taste buds could bear. I longed for the golden arches of the land of the free and the home of the brave, the country of salt and fat and grease! Second, I remember that the house my father grew up in—in the far western county of Connemara—was old and small but lots of fun to play in.
When I returned to Ireland with my son, Sean, when he was about eight. I had a very different view of my father’s house and country. I then realized for the first time in my life how poor my father was. He grew up in Third-World poverty. He lived in a two-room house that had no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no running water, and a dirt floor. His father, like most of the men in those days, could only find work in England and thus left the family for months at a time simply to put bread on the table. Connemara is filled with rocks, which makes the stone walls built around each plot of land picturesque, but which should indicate to thoughtful visitors the sad reality that that picturesque land could not sustain most crops.
One recent Christmas my father, in a rare moment, got to talking about the poverty of his childhood. He shared about the time he stole two shillings from his father’s wallet to buy apples from Mrs. McGillicuddy because his family rarely ate fruit. “Where did you get those apples?” my grandmother interrogated him. “Oh, Mrs. McGillicuddy is giving them away. She thought you’d like to make an apple pie,” he replied. Well then, didn’t my grandmother go to thank Mrs. McGillicuddy, and didn’t she find out the truth, and meanwhile didn’t my grandfather discover the missing money and didn’t my father then get what was coming to him?
My father also shared how one Christmas Eve as a young boy he stayed up late because he was determined to see Santa Claus and more significantly to see what Santa would put in his stocking. All my dad would receive each Christmas was one gift in his stocking. That year he was hoping for a penny. Each hour he returned to where the stocking hung, looked for Santa, felt the stocking, and left if there was nothing in there. Finally he fell asleep. When he awoke, it was very early but not yet morning. He ran to the stocking and felt it again. Something was in it. He reached down and pulled out a penny. He looked up to Heaven and said, “Thank you, Santa!” My older brother then asked, “Dad, what would a penny buy?” “Oh,” my father said with a big smile, “a candy.” “One candy,” I said. “Yes one candy.”
Twice in the text we will study how Jesus calls God his Father. Note the phrase “my Father” in verses 39 and 42. I make that simple observation not to make a thematic connection between my father and Jesus’ Father, but rather to make a connection of perspective. Just as it took me a second visit to Ireland and two decades for progress in the obvious observations of life to recognize my father’s poverty, when we start to grasp who Jesus is (the beloved Son of the Father) we gain a better understanding and appreciation for the prayers of Gethsemane, and the hour of Christ’s death.
To give us the proper perspective on Gethsemane, we’ll walk through this text by asking and answering eight key questions. Each question will build upon the ones before it and will grow in complexity as well as importance. Thus the final two questions will be the most significant ones for us to wrap our heads and hearts around.
The First Question
The first question is, where is Gethsemane? Gethsemane is a place on the western slopes of the Mount of Olives, the hillside where Jesus had given his recent Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, 25) and where he and his disciples climbed after they celebrated the Last Supper (26:30). Since the word Gethsemane means an olive press or oil press, the “place called Gethsemane” (v. 36) that Jesus went to was likely “an olive orchard on the Mount of Olives,” or put differently a garden of olive trees. John calls it “a garden” (John 18:1). Mathew doesn’t call it a garden, so I won’t make some profound point about Jesus’ relationship to Adam and the garden of Eden and how Adam failed to do God’s will but Jesus here in the garden of Gethsemane perfectly submits to God’s will. However, it’s not a sin to think it if you are now thinking it.
The Second Question
The second question is, who did Jesus take with him to Gethsemane? Verses 36, 37a provide us with the answer.
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee… Jesus took “his disciples,” which is a reference not to all his followers but those most recently with him in the upper room. At this point that would be the Twelve minus Judas. Judas must have sneaked out at some point during the meal because he arrives with his evil entourage in verse 47. But of the eleven disciples who came with Jesus to Gethsemane, Jesus singled out Peter, James, and John.
Why? Was it because they were night owls? Was it because they were the most fearless? We don’t know for certain. The only sure contextual connections we can make are: (a) these three most recently boasted about their courageous faith, and thus perhaps Jesus wanted to teach these sleepy souls a lesson, and (b) these three were the only three to witness the glory of the transfiguration, and thus perhaps Jesus wanted to show them—as official witnesses again—his less than glorious humanity in light of the weight of the cross. They witnessed Jesus’ glory when the heavenly Father’s voice proclaimed, “This is my beloved Son” (17:5), and they witnessed in part (they slept through most of it) his sorrow when our Lord cried out in distressful prayer, “My Father... My Father... My Father” (vv. 39,42; cp. 44) and there was no audible answer from Heaven. Where was the Father’s reassuring voice? Where was the Spirit’s peaceful presence? Was God silent?
The Third Question
The third question is, what did Jesus go to Gethsemane to do? He went there to pray. The verbs “pray” and “prayed” are the most obvious actions in our text. “Sit here,” Jesus said to his disciples, “while I go over there and pray” (v. 36b). “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed” (v. 39). “Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed’ (v. 42). “So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time” (v. 44). And between the four times prayer is mentioned in reference to Jesus praying, we find in the middle of our text—that is, with five verses before it and five after it—Jesus’ admonition to the tired trio, “Watch and pray” (v. 41).
The Fourth Question
The fourth question is, how did the Ecclesia’s first prayer meeting go? Well, there was a better turnout than usual. Four people were present. And there was a much better turnout from the one gender that almost never comes to prayer meetings—men! Four men were there. However, like the Parable of the Soils, only one was any good. Only Jesus prayed at the Ecclesia’s first prayer meeting. And while we might think that that’s all the Ecclesia will ever need—one perfect praying man interceding continually for the Ecclesia (see, e.g., John 17)—Jesus here lets none of “the disciples” off the hook. Sure, it was late. Sure, everyone was physically and emotional exhausted (“sleeping for sorrow,” Luke 22:45). But Jesus gave an order: “Remain here, and watch with me” (v. 38b). It’s hard to know what he meant by “watch.” I think he might have meant, “stay awake and pray,” because that’s basically what he rebukes them for not doing in verse 40. Whatever Jesus meant by “watch," it did not mean “sleep.” Perhaps that night Peter, instead of sleeping, should have been praying, “O God, please give me the strength so I will not deny Jesus in the next six hours.”
Besides the command, Jesus also wanted companionship as well as human sympathy. It was “not good” that the man should be “alone” (Genesis 2:18); “a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). He let them in on his depression. I don’t know of a better word for what he said in 26:38, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” Luke’s version gives a graphic picture of his emotional state: “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). The disciples should have stayed awake because Jesus asked them to stay awake! Also they should have stayed awake to pray because Jesus wanted their companionship and their prayers. Like any human being facing “dreadful things”—sickness, torture, death—Jesus desired for them “to watch and pray alongside” him.
Today while Jesus doesn’t need our prayers for him, it is good for us to stop in the middle of this chapter as Jesus did in the middle of his praying to learn some lessons from Jesus on prayer. We should learn that as our Savior agonized, wrestled, lamented, groaned, and persevered in prayer to the Father at Gethsemane, so we can and should come to the Father in our hour of need and temptation. Moreover, as Jesus pleaded boldly for what he wanted, so we “should feel free also to unload our deepest desires before God.” We should learn, as the author of Hebrews puts it in one place, that we have now in Jesus a high priest who is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” because “in every respect” he was “tempted as we are” (Hebrews 4:15), and in another place, “because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18). N. T. Wright summarizes those thoughts well when he writes, “When we ourselves find the ground giving way beneath our feet, as sooner or later we shall, Gethsemane is where to go. That is where we find that the Lord of the world, the one to whom is now committed all authority (28:18), has been there before us.”
The Fifth Question
The fifth question is, why did Jesus pray? Does it ever strike you as odd to so often find in the Gospels our Lord praying? Jesus prayed because he was/is fully human and because he felt, at this crucial point in his earthly ministry, that he needed to pray.
One summer my family spent a week in Clear Lake, Iowa. Half of our time we spent in the water—whether in the lake or the pool. One morning I swam with the kids while Emily took a break. In the afternoon Emily swam with the kids while I took a break. So that afternoon I was poolside, but in regular clothes, reading a book in the shade. Charlotte, then four years old, was swimming in the shallow end. She was throwing one of those floating noodles in front of her and then swimming toward it. Suddenly I noticed that she stopped swimming. She somehow couldn’t reach the noodle and now was nearly motionless in the pool. She was in an upright position, simply moving her hands slowly, and she had this look in her eyes of utter despair. She was about to give up and go under the water. She felt helpless. Well, I jumped in, scooped her up, and brought her to safety.
Here in Gethsemane, while it is perhaps difficult for us to imagine, Jesus felt as vulnerable as my little girl, so he cried out to his Father to rescue him. That is difficult for us to imagine because this is the same man who stood up against the religious rulers, made bold claims about himself, miraculously healed and fed multitudes, raised the dead, and taught with such great authority. But here the mighty man is so weak. Ah, but that’s just it. Jesus is not a superman. He is a man. And the moment we forget the full humanity of Jesus is the moment we Believers embrace the spirit of antichrist. In 1 John 4:2, 3 John says bluntly, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh [a real human] is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.”
It is difficult for us to imagine Jesus depressed and weak because we have seen his power and authority. But I fear it is also difficult for us because we undervalue his true and full humanity. In Gethsemane there is no diluting his humanness. And thank God for that because Jesus’ humanness is essential to our salvation. The argument is: if Jesus was not truly and fully human—in body, mind, emotions, etc.—then he could not stand in our place as our representative for sin and as our representative before the Father. How true. Jesus’ true humanity is something for us to truly ponder and appreciate.
The Sixth Question
The sixth question is, how did Jesus pray? First, note his posture. Verse 39 says that “he fell on his face and prayed.” That is a posture of submission. It is not how I pray most often or very often. Yet now, with Jesus lying facedown before me in this text, I wonder if I sometimes should. Hebrews 5:7, 8 records, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” I wonder if we should learn such obedience and reverence for God through suffering, the kind of suffering that affects the posture of our praying. Jesus prayed face flat down.
Second, note his petitions. All three prayers begin with the words, “My Father.” I say all three because in 26:44 we are told that Jesus prayed “the same words again.” All three prayers are the same petitions with slight progress in them. By progress I mean that Jesus moves in the first petition from “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (v. 39) to “if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (v. 42). He moves from a near meltdown to a firm resolution. In both petitions Jesus never questions God or God’s will—why this plan, why me, why now? Instead he becomes an embodiment of much of what he taught his disciples to pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done… (6:9, 10b). This is not a Stoic’s prayer but a Son’s prayer. Jesus was “no Socrates [Phaedo 58E], drinking the poison and telling his friends to stop crying because he was going to a much better life.” Jesus’ disposition is that of the refrain of Psalms 42, 43, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (42:5, 11, 43:5), but his actual prayer is the Lord’s Prayer. Yes, the Lord Jesus prays the Lord’s Prayer, minus the part about seeking forgiveness of debts. He had no debts, trespasses, or sins (cp. Hebrews 4:15).
Third, note the period of prayer. After Jesus found the three sleeping after his first session of prayer, he rebuked them all through Peter (v. 40; note that), saying, “So, could you not watch with me one hour?” From Jesus’ rebuke we learn that praying for “one hour”—whether it referred to sixty minutes or simply a period of time that lasted about an hour—was “not a long time” by his standards. Since Jesus prayed three times and three times returned to sleepy disciples, it is safe to say he prayed a long time—more than an hour for sure, likely two or three hours.
Again Jesus models the praying life to his disciples both then and now: he prayed standing and on his face; he prayed short and long prayers; he prayed during the day and at night; he prayed alone and with others; he prayed his set daily prayers, and he prayed off the cuff when he was depressed and desperate; he prayed with reverence and yet with childlike trust in God's will for his life; and he prayed by pouring out his petition and then accepting God’s “no” without grumbling and complaining. Let us imitate the Christ.
The Seventh Question
The seventh question is, what is the cup? If you are sleeping, now is the time to wake up. Wake up. Watch. Pray. Listen. When Jesus prayed for those hours, he prayed about the removal of some cup. The cup is stated explicitly in verse 39 (“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”) and implicitly in verse 42 (“My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done”). The cup refers to his awful sufferings and death. He knows he has to die and how he will die, and he fears dying by crucifixion. But there is more to it than that. It’s the kind of death he will die that has him sweating. In verse 45 Jesus says of himself that he is “betrayed into the hands of sinners.” Also he speaks in that same verse of his hour—“the hour”—having arrived. “The hour” he refers to is broadly speaking “the last part of Jesus’ ministry,” but more narrowly the climax of that ministry (“the most decisive moment in human history”)—his death on the cross.
In 27:46 we read, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” Here is the connection from Gethsemane to Golgotha: in Gethsemane what Jesus fears more than anything is the silence of God and the separation from God his Father. How can there be silence? How can there be separation? The answer is hinted at in 8:17, where Matthew quotes Isaiah 53:4, “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases,” more directly stated by Jesus in 20:28: “the Son of Man came... to give his life as a ransom for many,” in other words, to pour out his blood “for many for the forgiveness of sins” (26:28). How are sins forgiven? Jesus became sin for us, and in Jesus’ becoming sin there was some inexplicable yet unavoidable silence and separation from the Father. Why? Because Jesus, in drinking the cup, became on our behalf the object of God’s judgment for sin.
In Isaiah 51 "the cup” represents the cup of God’s wrath (Isaiah 51:17, 22). Likewise in Jeremiah 25, the cup is “the wine of [God's] wrath” (see Jeremiah 25:15-28). In the prophets the evil nations—Edom, Babylonia, etc.—drink the cup due to their sin. But here it is holy Jesus who drinks the cup for the nations. Another mysterious irony relates to the title “Son of Man” (v. 45). In Daniel the Son of Man is a future figure who is supposed to come to judge sinners. But here Jesus, as the self-professed Son of Man, has come to be judged by sinners. It’s all very inexplicable, ironic, interesting. Breathtaking!
Why is Jesus so sorrowful and troubled? Why is he on his face? Why is he crying out for hours? Why is the one who was born to die so fearful of his death? The colossal burden that “bowed down the heart of Jesus was the weight of the sin of the world.” The Greek Litany calls it the “unknown sufferings of Christ.” And that’s right. His sufferings at Gethsemane and Golgotha are unknown to us. We cannot conceive “the degree of suffering, both mentally and bodily, which an entirely sinless person like our Lord would endure in bearing the sin of all mankind,” having “our guilt imputed to him,” becoming a curse for us, “delivered up for our trespasses” (Romans 4:25). “Behold the man!” (John 19:5); Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccatum mundi—“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
In his book King Solomon. Phil Ryken recounts a story by Robert Coleman:
It is the story of a little boy whose sister needed a blood transfusion. She was suffering from the same disease that the boy himself had survived two years earlier. The doctor explained that her only chance of recovery was to receive a blood transfusion from someone else who had conquered the same disease. Since the two children shared the same rare blood type, her brother was the ideal donor.
"Would you give your blood to Mary?” the doctor asked. Johnny hesitated at first, but with his lower lip trembling he finally said, “Sure, for my sister.”
Soon the children were wheeled into the hospital room—Mary, pale and thin; Johnny, robust and healthy. Neither one of them spoke, but when their eyes met, Johnny grinned. His smile faded as the nurse inserted the needle into his arm and he watched the blood flow through the tube. When the ordeal was almost over, Johnny’s shaky voice broke the silence. “Doctor," he said, “when do I die?”
Only then did the doctor realize why Johnny had hesitated and why his lip had trembled when he agreed to donate his blood: he thought the doctor was asking for all of it! Yet out of love for his sister, he was willing to give it.
Now there is a subtle but significant difference between Johnny and Jesus. The boy was willing to die but didn’t understand what was happening. Jesus was willing to die but fully understood what was about to happen.
That was the cup, and that is what Jesus did for God’s sake and ours.
The Eighth Question
There is a final question, one that returns us to the start of the tract and the theme of perception. The eighth question is, who drank the cup? Jesus, of course, drank the cup. But who is Jesus? We have already hit on his humanity. Jesus is a through and through human with flesh and blood and pain and tears like you and me.
Let’s finish by diving into his sonship. I finish with this point because Jesus finishes with it: “See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners” (26:45). Jesus calls himself "the Son of Man.” a title that becomes Jesus’ favorite title to bestow upon himself the closer and closer he gets to Calvary. What’s with the title? What does it mean? At first reading you might think “Son of Man” refers to Jesus’ humanity. He is the son of humans, we might say. But that is not what “Son of Man” means here. I’ve said this before but I shall say it again and again. With the title “Son of Man” Jesus is connecting himself to this king of Daniel 7:13. 14 who has an everlasting kingdom, who comes with the clouds of Heaven, and who presents himself before “the Ancient of Days” (God Almighty).
So, who drank the cup? The Son of Man drank it. Jesus highlights his sonship. He further highlights his unique and intimate relationship with God with his language, “My Father.” He is the only, the unique, and the obedient Son of the Father. That is why he prays, “My Father.” He teaches the Ecclesia to pray, “Our Father,” and he himself prays, “My Father.” Fifty-three times in Matthew’s Gospel (compared to only six times in Mark), Jesus calls God his “Father.” He is God’s Son.
Who drank the cup? I summarize it this way: Jesus, the Son of Man and the Son of God. And to that truth—that realest of realities, I could call it—what should be our response? How do we respond to Gethsemane? Praise! Adoration! Glory! Honor!
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)