“Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”
He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter.
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy.
So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
Matthew 26:36-46
Here is the account of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. It was undoubtedly the beginning of the hardest day of Jesus’ life here on earth.
We must remember that when Jesus was on earth he was still God but he functioned only as man.
Jesus was about to experience what it was like to be falsely convicted on trumped up charges.
He was about to experience one of the cruelest of punishment known to man. In the next few hours he would be brought before what amounted to a kangaroo court. Sent to a Roman governor who pronounced him innocent yet for political expediency allowed his death.
There is no doubt in my mind Jesus while in the garden of Gethsemane understood what he was about to go through yet he prayed to the father “Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
It is difficult for anyone to understand the pressure Jesus was under yet he allowed it to happen. He did it for you and for me.
He did it so that those who believed in Him would not perish but have eternal life. This is the legacy if you will of Jesus.
Today thousands of years after his death we as Christians are still telling of His sacrificial death for the sins of all mankind.
He showed in human terms how far God would go to reconcile mankind to him.
Dr James Allan Francis wrote of him in 1926
“He was born in an obscure village
The child of a peasant woman
He grew up in another obscure village
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty when public opinion turned against him
He never wrote a book
He never held an office
He never went to college
He never visited a big city
He never travelled more than two hundred miles
From the place where he was born
He did none of the things
Usually associated with greatness
He had no credentials but himself
He was only thirty three
His friends ran away
One of them denied him
He was turned over to his enemies
And went through the mockery of a trial
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing
The only property he had on earth
When he was dead
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend
Nineteen centuries have come and gone
And today Jesus is the central figure of the human race
And the leader of mankind's progress
All the armies that have ever marched
All the navies that have ever sailed
All the parliaments that have ever sat
All the kings that ever reigned put together
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life”
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