God’s Word for You

Mark 14:32 Gethsemane

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, January 14, 2024

32 They went to a place called Gethsemane. He said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”

Exactly opposite the old Golden Gate of Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley, is the Garden of Gethsemane, low on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. The ruins of a wall are still there today along with a small number of very ancient olive trees. The name Gethsemane means “olive press,” and it was prized as a quiet place, serene, away from noise and any sense of hurry; precisely the sort of place Jesus needed for prayer at this very moment. Two English descriptions of the place pre-date the modern expansion and modernization of Israel, both of which contrast with two modern first-hand reports I’ve been given, one from my son Peter who was there last summer, and one from my associate Pastor Nathanial Scharf who was there some years before. They are in agreement that the trees are impressive in their age, but that it is a noisy and loud place today because of the nearby street that makes ordinary speech nearly impossible on account of the noise.

If we go back to 1871, Tristram’s “Topography of the Holy Land” mentions the trees, the wall, and supplies a nice little hand-drawn sketch of the place featuring the stone wall, a gate facing uphill toward the way to Bethany, a small watchtower to the south, and the few ancient trees within the walls.

Twenty years before the short British article was written, the US Navy’s expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea was led by Lieutenant W.F. Lynch. I have a fondness for this sailor’s report, which although an official Naval report is permitted to give way to long passages in which the officer’s Christian faith is permitted a place front and center. I present his entry from May 1849 from his visit to Gethsemane complete, as he submitted it to the US Admiralty:

GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE

From the 15th to the 22nd of May was devoted to making astronomical observations, and reconnoitering the country for the most eligible route to level across to the Mediterranean. All the time not appropriated to duty, was spent in visiting over and over again the interesting localities in and around Jerusalem. Above all others, the spot least doubted, and very far from the least hallowed, was the garden of Gethsemane. It is enclosed by a high stone wall, and when we saw it, the trees were in blossom; the clover upon the ground in bloom, and altogether, in its aspect and its associations, was better calculated than any place I know to soothe a troubled spirit. Eight venerable trees, isolated from the smaller and less imposing ones which skirt the base of the Mount of Olives, form a consecrated grove. High above, on either hand, towers a lofty mountain, with the deep, yawning chasm of Jehoshaphat between them. Crowning one of them is Jerusalem, a living city; on the slope of the other is the great Jewish cemetery, a city of the dead. Each tree in this grove, cankered, and gnarled, and furrowed by age, yet beautiful and impressive in its decay, is a living monument of the affecting scenes that have taken place beneath and around it. The olive perpetuates itself and from the root of the dying parent stem, the young tree springs into existence. These trees are accounted 1000 years old. Under those of the preceding growth, therefore, the Saviour was wont to rest; and one of the present may mark the very spot where he knelt, and prayed, and wept. No cavilling doubts can find entrance here. The geographical boundaries are too distinct and clear for an instant’s hesitation. Here the Christian, forgetful of the present, and absorbed in the past, can resign himself to sad yet soothing meditation. The few purple and crimson flowers, growing about the roots of the trees, will give him ample food for contemplation, for they tell of the suffering life and ensanguined death of the Redeemer.

When John says that Jesus withdrew “about a stone’s throw beyond them” (John 22:41) he does not mean a professional baseball player’s rocketing heave from the outfield, a hundred yards to home plate. No, he means an ordinary person’s toss of a rock, perhaps even underhand, from one side of a small home’s yard to the other; twenty or thirty feet. The Garden itself is not all that much bigger than that.

But there, just out of earshot, Jesus could kneel and pray as John also describes. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to address the Father (Matthew 6:9), to pray about God’s will and the gathering of his kingdom (Matthew 6:10), to pray for forgiveness (Matthew 6:12), and to pray about temptations and deliverance (Matthew 6:13). Sandwiched between these petitions is the request for daily bread; teaching us to look on our physical needs the way the Hebrews looked on manna during their years of wandering in the desert (Matthew 6:11). But surely Jesus was praying on behalf of his disciples and himself: “Deliver us from the Evil One” (Matthew 6:13).

It was under trees, perhaps trees very much like these ancient olive trees, that Adam and Eve had hidden from God when they first sinned. They hid, they said, because they were naked, and they heard God walking in the garden where they were (Genesis 3:10). Now the Son of God prayed to his Father in a garden, not to hide, but on account of every sin of mankind since that first one.

The Father had spoken in the past: “My eyes are watching everything they do. It is not hidden from me, nor is their guilt hidden from my eyes” (Jeremiah 16:17). And again: “The end is coming for this people. I will no longer overlook their sin” (Amos 8:2). And still again: “The Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished!” (Nahum 1:3). “He will strike them with the sword. He will show them no compassion, no pity, and no mercy” (Jeremiah 21:7). “I the Lord your God am a jealous God. I follow up on the guilt of the fathers with their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren if they also hate me” (Deuteronomy 5:9).

Now the Son would speak. “Not them. Do not strike them down.” And like Hezekiah prostrating himself before the King of Assyria, the Son offered to the Father: “Whatever you impose on me, I will pay” (2 Kings 18:14). He did not complain. He did not hide himself under the boughs of the trees. He held out his hands, exposed the skin of his back and bent down his neck to the wrath of the Father. The blow that should have fallen on all mankind fell instead on the one Man in their place.

“Surely he was taking up our weaknesses, and he was carrying our sufferings. We thought it was because of God that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5).

Oh, Jesus! You who loved to walk in the garden in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8)! Find rest, O my sweet Lord, before your Passion leaves you no time to rest, no time to pause, no time for anything except your dear innocent sufferings and death. For me! All for me! Bring me home in the hour of my death, made holy by the hour of your death. Bring me home to your garden of delight where I shall prize you (for the diligent man prizes his possessions), praise you (let the name of the Lord be praised both now and forevermore), and meditate on your sacrifice on my account forevermore. “For you are the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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