Jesus Prays in Gethsemane

Bible Study series: Mark 14:32-42. He suffered in his prayer. He surrendered to the will of his Father.

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Mark 14

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Scripture: Mark 14:32-42

³² They went to an area by the name of Gethsemane. He said to his disciples, “Sit here until I have prayed.” ³³ He took Peter, James, and John along with him, and he began to be distressed and troubled. ³⁴ He said, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and watch.” ³⁵ Then he went a little way off and fell upon the ground and prayed that if it is possible let this moment pass him by. ³⁶ He said, “Abba Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. However, not what I want, but what you want.”

³⁷ He went and found them sleeping and said to Peter, “Simon, you’re sleeping? You were not strong enough to watch one hour? ³⁸ Watch and pray so that you don’t come into temptation. The spirit is eager, but the flesh is weak.” ³⁹ Again he left and prayed, saying the same word. ⁴⁰ He came back and found them sleeping, for their eyes were weighted down, and they did not know how to answer him. ⁴¹ Then he came the third time and said to them, “You’re still sleeping and resting? Enough! The moment has come. Look! The Son of Man is betrayed to the hand of sinners. ⁴² Get up, let’s go! Look! The one who hands me over has gotten closer!” (Mark 14:32-42)

Comments:

We are on holy ground. This passage is both sad and inspirational at once. I hope I do justice to it in my comments.

Gethsemane is at the base of the Mount of Olives. The term means “oil press.” He told the twelve to sit down, but they will soon lie down and fall asleep. France points out that John 18:2 says it was a regular rendezvous place for Jesus and the twelve and was a “garden.” So it was probably a cultivated estate and enclosed with a wall. The three were invited in, while the remaining nine waited (i.e. slept) outside.

32-33:

Jesus tells the twelve to remain somewhere on the Mount of Olives, but then he took Peter, James, and John with him. They formed the inner core (Mark 9:2).

“distressed” and “troubled”: Jesus was true God and true man, and here he is expressing his true humanity. He is feeling those emotions.

34:

“deeply grieved”: he senses death is near. He knew how people were executed. They were crucified. Did he see a crucifixion on his way to Jerusalem? If not, he had heard of this method of execution. He seems to say here that he is so deeply grieved that he is dying. Luke 22:43 says: “And his sweat was like drops of blood falling on the ground.” Medical doctors say that this is awful and intense inner turmoil expressing itself by bleeding.

“watch”: it could be translated as “keep awake” or “be on the alert.”

35-36:

“Abba”: I have to follow Decker on the use of this term. He writes:

[Abba] is a transliteration of the Aramaic word `abbā’, an emphatic form that was used as a vocative [address]. It was not the customary word used by a child of his father, i.e. it is not equivalent of our “daddy.” In the Aramaic of Jesus’ day (200 BC-ADD 200), our “Daddy” would have been expressed as `abî. Only after AD 200 does `abbā’ come to replace `abî in a family setting and even then it is rarely used by Jewish speakers in address to God (never in the Mishnah only once or twice in the Targums). We have no evidence in Judaism for any individual using `abbā’ as a personal address for God in or prior to the first century. Even the use of “father” (in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek) is rarely used by an individual in reference to God, though it is common as a corporate term. (p. 202)

So what’s the bottom line? France writes: it means “the respectful intimacy of a son in a patriarch family.” In other words, the term combines respect and intimacy. Jesus is using it, and he is the only one who did at this time in the first century.

However, I must point out that one day I was crossing, on foot, a university campus in Southern California, and I heard a little boy, about four years old, saying to his dad, “Abba! Abba!” I stopped and walked over there and inquired. The family was from Israel, and Abba really was used to mean “daddy.” But apparently it was not so used two thousand years ago.

“bypass” me: or “pass me by.” He wanted to avoid death, if possible. But since the wages or necessary result of sin is death, someone had to pay this penalty; either you and I do for ourselves, or someone else does for us. Jesus did it for us. He paid the penalty for our individual sins and our sin nature—sin itself being built into us. His distress and anguish sought a way out, but the way out for him was the way through. However, (a strong contrast word in Greek), he surrendered his will to the Father’s will. “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief” (Is. 53:10, ESV)

“cup”: it is the same Greek term used at the Last Supper. Here it is a metaphor for the cup of suffering. John 18:11 confirms it: “Jesus commanded Peter, ‘Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?’” (NIV). He was talking about his suffering before and during the crucifixion. In Matt. 20:22-23 and Mark 10:38-39, Jesus asked the two disciples who wanted to be first whether they could drink from the cup (same Greek word) which he was about to drink from, referring to this moment of suffering. James and John said, “We can.” It looks like they were about to be proven wrong, though one of them (Peter) cut off an ear in v. 50. Furthermore, the Old Testament’s imagery of the cup speaks of divine wrath (Ps. 11:6; 75:7-8; Is. 51:17-19, 22; Jer. 25:15-16, 27-29; 49:12; 51:57; Lam. 4:21; Ezek. 23:31-34; Hab. 2:16; Zech. 12:2; Rev. 14:9-10; cf. Job 21:20; Ps. 60:3; Is. 63:6; Ob. 16;). God was about to pour out his wrath on his Son. And His was about to absorb it. But God’s wrath is not about losing his temper; it is judicious and evaluative. Here are two contrasting images:

God’s wrath is judicial.

It is not like this:

(Source)

But like this:

(Source)

That is a picture of God in judgment.

The Wrath of God in the New Testament

Do I Really Know God? He Shows Wrath

The Wrath of God in the Old Testament

Christ’s Death of the Cross = Cosmic Child Abuse?

Everyone Shall Be Judged by Their Works and Words

Word Study on Judgment

Bible Basics about the Final Judgment

37:

“not strong enough”: it could be translated more simply as “unable” or “not able.” Peter and the others were not strong enough to stay awake and watch and pray. But that’s what we are supposed to do morally and spiritually. Do we? They still were unable to discern that their Lord was in mortal danger. No, they could not have stopped the plan of God, but they could have stayed awake and sustain him with their sympathy and unity and prayers for themselves.

38:

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. “On the one hand, the spirit is eager, on the other the flesh is weak.” But that translation is too cumbersome. See v. 21 for more comments.

Is this the Holy Spirit or the human spirit? It is clearly the human spirit because the disciples had not yet experienced Pentecost, yet. The flesh in this verse may indicate their physical bodies, not their sin nature. I get the feeling that Peter may have been able to prevent his mistakes that he committed in other versions, like striking off the high priest’s servant’s ear (John 18:10; Luke 22:49-51). That may be the temptation he was referring to. Or who knows? Maybe Jesus’s prediction about Peter denying him three times would not have happened. These predictions of judgment throughout the Old Testament could have been prevented, if the people had only repented. The prediction was conditional, even if implied: if. “Out of my attribute of righteousness and justice, I pronounced judgment on you!” “We repent!” “Great! Now I withdraw my pronouncement of doom on you and my attribute of mercy shines forth, and I forgive and restore you!” God is not being inconsistent; rather, he shines his attributes forth, out of his nature, as he interacts with inconsistent humanity. Judgment on sin and sinners; forgiveness and mercy on repentant sinners. It’s up to them.

But we will never know whether Peter would have maintained, out of his obedience to Jesus’s command to watch and pray, his vigilance so carefully that he would not have denied the Lord three times before the rooster crowed. Yet Jesus knew their characters so well—better than they knew themselves—that it was easy to predict that Peter was going to deny him and the other eleven would be scattered after the shepherd was struck down.

“willing”: is the interesting adjective which means “ready, willing, or eager.” It means a spirit that leans forward or in advance. We have “look forward” as a rough parallel.

So the flesh is weak, meaning sleepy, but the spirit is eager. See v. 35 for Peter’s boast that he is willing to die with the Lord. Therefore, Peter is a victim of irony again, when Jesus walked up and saw them sleeping. He probably remembered Peter’s boast, but then realized his flesh could not keep up with his spirit. However, in Peter’s defense, he is about to take out his sword and cut off the high priest’s slave’s ear with it, so he may have been willing to die for the Lord (v. 47). (John 18:10 says Peter is the one who did this.) But when Jesus told him to put back his sword, he realized he could not get arrested passively. Jesus was called to allow it to happen, even though he ask his Father to send over twelve legions of angels to stop the false arrest.

39:

He stopped praying for a moment and went back to the three disciples. The Greek says their eyes were literally “weighed down.” This is an idiom for excessively sleepy. They couldn’t keep their eyes open. Maybe a full day of preparations and a later dinner worked against them. Maybe he shook them a little, or probably he stood over them and spoke to them as they were sleeping. He must have roused them a little, for Mark says that the three did not know how to answer him.

In any case, Jesus could stay awake.

40:

For the third and final time, before the mob came, he prayed the same word (literally), but you could say that he prayed the same genre of prayer—to ask the Father to allow the cup of wrath to bypass his Son and find another way. But the Father either spoke to his spirit or the Son realized that this bypass wasn’t going to happen. He simply knew. It was the only way. He had to pray through to the end. Who know for sure how he would have reacted in his humanity if he had not prayed and surrendered. Would he have said, “I’m out of here!”? Probably not, but he was human, after all.

41-42:

Now, for the third time, he returns to the three disciples and says to Peter some ambiguous words. Decker again: it could be a mild rebuke: you are still sleeping! Or do you intend to sleep on and on? Or colloquially Still asleep?

I had translated it as something like: “You sleep and rest for the remaining (time),” as if Jesus’s struggle was over and he no longer needed them to stay alert and in prayer. He was giving them permission to keep on sleeping. Then I read the professional grammarians and followed their advice. Now I’m not so sure that I should have. In his commentary France agrees with my initial translation is legitimate. The American Standard Version, a charmingly “old-school” version,” translates it kindly: “Sleep on now and take your rest: it is enough.” In any case, the Greek puzzles scholars. I’ll leave my translation as it is now.

“Enough!” It’s the verb in this context it stumps scholars. I again follow Decker here. I really like his quotation of an older commentator (A.B. Bruce): “The meaning would then be: ‘I have conquered in the struggle; I need your sympathy no longer; you may sleep now if you will’” (Decker p. 207). This shows that this stage in his struggle against his human nature was over, and he surrendered to God’s will. However, Strauss says the translation “enough!” is not common, so he suggests “Is it far off?” because a third definition of the verb can mean “to be distant.” That is, is the end so far off that you think you can sleep? No, the hour has come!

“sinners”: Generally, in a Jewish context, it is someone who does not keep the law. In this case, however, those who are about arrest him, and those who are about to put him on trial, kept the law in a backwards way. They were the super-duper law keepers, but wrongheaded also.

Bible Basics about Sin: Word Studies

Judas is leading the mob. He is the one getting closer.

“gotten closer”: Jesus could probably hear them coming, but the mob was not there yet, where Jesus was standing.

“Look!” is just an updated version of “behold!” which can often be translated “Pay attention, readers! A new plot development!” “Watch out! “See!”

GrowApp for Mark 14:32-42

1. Jesus surrendered all to his Father, just for you. Have you surrendered all to him?

2. How did you respond when you did not get your prayer answered?

10. Eyewitness Testimony in Mark’s Gospel

2. Church Fathers and Mark’s Gospel

2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels

1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series

SOURCES