Gethsemane Week 3
The Holy Trinity
3 Persons in One, and One Person in Three
God, the Father
God, the Son
God, the Holy Spirit
The Trinity & The Cross
The 3 Prayers of Jesus
1st Prayer
Jesus moved ahead a little farther and fell with his face to the ground, praying, My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me (26:39). The parallel passage in Mark 14:36 indicates that Jesus addressed the Father as Abba. This Aramaic term expressed the tenderly intimate relationship between Him and the Father, a relationship that would sustain Him in the dark hours ahead. The grammatical construction indicates that Jesus believed it was possible for God to remove the cup from Him. The Old Testament spoke of the cup as a person’s lot in life. Though it could refer to a positive event, it more commonly referred to suffering and shameful treatment (Ps. 75:8; Isa. 51:17; Jer. 49:12; Ezek. 23:31–34). This suggests that Jesus’ anxiety in Gethsemane was not over His fear of death, but because of His understanding that the cup would be the weight and punishment of sin that He would suffer.
The continued prayer, Yet not as I will, but as you will, made it clear that though Jesus knew God’s power could grant Him relief from His suffering and death, He would choose God’s plan instead. His commitment in prayer to the Father’s will modeled what He taught in the so-called Lord’s Prayer, where He instructed His disciples to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven (6:10).
2nd Prayer
2nd Prayer
2nd Prayer
Returning to His place of prayer, Jesus prayed a second time (27:42). This time He said, If it is not possible for this cup to be taken away. This indicates that Jesus recognized that God could not allow His power to override His love for the world. The slight change in wording represented the Savior’s embracing more completely the way of the cross that lay before Him. Having achieved that deeper level of commitment, He went back to the disciples and found them sleeping (26:43). Apparently He was seeking their support in the loneliness of obedience, but He did not awaken them. Rather, He went back and prayed the third time, saying the same thing (26:44). The threefold repetition of His prayer expressed the completeness of Jesus’ commitment to the Father’s will.
3rd Prayer
3rd Prayer
After the third session of prayer, he returned to the disciples and this time He woke them up. His message to them was that the hour is near (26:45). The hour here has a meaning quite similar to its frequent use in John’s gospel. It refers to the critical turning point in Jesus’ life when the final events leading to His death will begin. Further, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. The present tense in both phrases indicates that, in fact, those final events were already underway. The exhortation, Rise, let us go! (26:46), called the sleeping disciples from their places of rest to the path where the betrayer was even then coming.
Matthew’s words, while he was still speaking (26:47), show how quickly the transition from Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane to His arrest took place. He had hardly finished praying when Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived.
The 3 Instructions to the Disciples
The 3 Instructions to the Disciples
1st Time
Peter had objected to Jesus’ first prediction of His coming suffering, death, and resurrection in Matthew 16:21–22. Here he objects to the idea that he would be among the disciples who would fall away
Peter was confident that even if all the others were caused to sin, he never would.
Sadly Jesus answered that Peter would disown Him three times on that very night before the rooster would crow announcing the next morning (26:34). The language of disowning Jesus had already been introduced in 10:33. Presumably, disowning Jesus was a worse failure than falling away. After Peter boasted that he would never fall away, Jesus told him that his failure would be even worse. Peter could not believe Jesus’ words and declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you” (26:35). Though all the other disciples said the same, none had any idea what the devastating events of the next few hours would do to them.
Apparently because of the thought of His impending death, Jesus began to be sorrowful and troubled. He revealed the severity of His distress to the three disciples: My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death (26:38). The words echo Psalms 42:6 and 43:5. Those words also raised the possibility that the emotional agony of what lay before Him might kill Him before the chief priests could carry out their plot (Matt. 26:3–4, 14–16). Jesus then asked the three to stay and keep watch with Him. The Greek word translated keep watch here simply meant to stay awake. If the three fell asleep, He would be left alone in the final moments of His struggle.
2nd Time
When he returned to the three disciples, He found them sleeping (26:40). They must have had no comprehension of what was happening or what was at stake that night to be able to fall asleep so quickly. Jesus reproached them for not even being able to stay awake with Him for one hour. It was critical for them to watch and pray lest they fall into temptation (26:41). His concern that they fall to temptation also calls to mind the petition of the Lord’s Prayer that asks God to lead Jesus’ followers away from temptation (6:13). Perhaps the temptation He wished them to avoid was the test that would come later that night, at which all of them would fall away (26:31).