The Garden Where He Cried

When the supper was over, Jesus and his friends sang a hymn together, the way families did at the end of the Passover meal. Then they walked out of Jerusalem into the night. The Passover moon was full and bright. They crossed a stream and climbed the Mount of Olives to a garden called Gethsemane, where Jesus often went to pray.

(Gethsemane means "olive press." Farmers there crushed olives under heavy stones until the oil ran out.)

At the garden Jesus said to his friends, "Pray that when the test comes, you will not give in." He took Peter, James, and John farther in, and they saw that his face had changed.

"My heart is so heavy with sorrow that it could kill me," he told them. "Stay here and keep watch with me."

He went on about a stone's throw (as far as a strong boy can fling a rock), knelt on the ground, and prayed.

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Yet not what I want. Let what you want be done."

The cup Jesus meant was not the cup from supper. The prophets had spoken of a cup filled with God's anger at every wrong thing in the world, a cup that knocks down anyone who drinks it. Jesus knew he would have to drink it all, in his people's place. And he was afraid.

Then an angel came from heaven and gave him strength. Even so, the fight inside him grew harder, and he prayed harder still, until his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood. Years later a letter in the Bible remembered how Jesus had prayed with loud cries and tears.

At last he got up and went back to his friends. All three were asleep.

"Simon," he said to Peter, "are you sleeping? Couldn't you keep watch for one hour? Your heart wants to, but your body is weak."

(At supper Peter had promised he would go to prison for Jesus, and even die for him. Staying awake turned out to be harder.)

Jesus went away and prayed a second time. "My Father, if this cup cannot pass by unless I drink it, then let what you want be done."

When he came back, they were asleep again, worn out with sadness. Their eyes were too heavy to stay open, and when he woke them, they did not know what to say. So he left them and prayed the same prayer a third time.

The third time he came back, he said, "Are you still sleeping? Get up! Let's go. Here comes the one who is handing me over."

Through the olive trees came a crowd with torches and clubs, and Judas, one of Jesus' own twelve friends, walked in front.

Three times Jesus had come back, and three times his friends were asleep. None of his friends could help him carry what was coming. Even the angel could only make him strong enough to carry it himself.

Long ago, in the very first garden, Adam and Eve wanted their own way more than God's, and then they hid from him among the trees. People have been doing both ever since.

Now another man knelt among other trees and prayed the opposite prayer. He had begged for another way, with sweat and tears, and every time he handed the choice back to his Father. When the torches came, he did not hide. Jesus stepped out from the olive trees and walked to meet them. The road out of that garden led to a cross, and he had already said yes to it, on his knees in the olive press.