Read Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42, Luke 22:39-46 and John 18:1. Jesus and the eleven disciples, and other followers, arrive at Gethsemane, at a garden where He often went with His disciples when visiting Jerusalem. He instructs the eleven to sit at a particular place while He goes off to pray. But then He takes Peter, James and John to accompany Him a little way farther.
1. What does He instruct these three to do while He goes just a bit further to pray?
He asked them to keep watch with Him (Matthew 26:38) and to pray that they may not enter into temptation.
2. Why do you suppose He just took these three with Him and asked them, in particular, to keep watch with Him and not all of the eleven?
While the text does not tell us why He took these three and not all the disciples at this point and on other occasions, it seems to be because these three were the natural leaders of the group and probably because these three had more spiritual insight than the others. He wanted someone to pray with Him as He was about to face the most arduous task and temptation He would face in His earthly life and, of all the disciples, these three were the best candidates He had.
3. Matthew 26:38-39 and the parallel passages in Mark and Luke are among the most amazing passages found in the Scriptures. They teach us much about our Lord and prayer! What does this tell us about our Lord’s human nature and about prayer?
a. They show us that our Lord felt truly human emotions! The task of going to the cross, being tortured and dying was not something He felt like doing. He did not want to do it. If He, being a perfect man, did not want to do this, which was God’s will for His life, then it is not necessarily wrong or sinful for us also not to want to do something we know is God’s will for us.
b. Not only did our Lord feel aversion to going to His death on the cross, but He also actually prayed that He might not have to do this. He asked the Father to take this cup away from Him. He is asking for something that He knows goes against the will of the Father! It is not, therefore, necessarily sinful to ask for something that we know is not God’s will.
However, it must be noted that, although our Lord prayed for the cross to be removed from Him, He also prayed that not His will to be done but the Father’s. While our Lord wanted the cross to be removed, for salvation to be accomplished in some other way, what He wanted, even more, was to do the will of God. Yet our Lord was honest with His Father. It was no sin not to want to suffer and die and to feel the weight of God’s judgment of sin upon Himself, and it was no sin to ask that it might not happen. What would have been sin would have been for Him to desire His will, His comfort and safety before and above that of doing His Father’s will.
4. What does our Lord mean when He tells Peter, James and John the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak?
He is telling them that a trial is coming, and they need to seek their Father’s strength to endure it when tempted. While they may have good intentions, while they may at this point intend to stand by their Lord no matter what may come (the willing spirit), their own human strength and determination (the flesh) is too weak to overcome the test.
5. How many times does Jesus repeat His request to the Father? Is there some significance that He did this these many times?
a. Three
b. We are not instructed to pray three times or any other number of times for something. Indeed we are told it is not the number of times we repeat them that causes prayers to be heard (Matthew 6:7). This being said, we are instructed to be continually in prayer, to pray without ceasing. Such was the example of the believers mentioned in the New Testament. To do something three times also seems to be a way of emphasizing and intensifying the importance or seriousness of an action in Jewish culture. Note that in the Jewish society of that day, a man divorced his wife by repeating the divorce phrase three times. Paul also prayed three times for the thorn in his flesh, whatever that may have been, to be removed. Whatever else it tells us, it does mean that this was a request that our Lord was very intense about, one that He intensely wanted to be answered.
Read Matthew 26:47-56, Mark 14:43-52, Luke 22:47-53 and John 18:2-11. These passages record for us the actual betrayal and arrest of our Lord.
6. Judas betrays our Lord with a kiss. Why would the Jewish leaders and the Roman soldiers need Judas? Why was the kiss necessary?
While this seems a bit out of place and unnecessary to us today, we must keep in mind that at that time, the authorities did not have photographs or pictures of people for which they were looking. Many certainly had never met Jesus and had no idea of what He looked like. When these officers of the Sanhedrin and the Roman forces found the disciples in the garden, they would probably not know which of them was Jesus. To point Him as the one to be arrested out was what Judas was supposed to do.
7. What was Peter’s reaction to the arrest? What does this tell us about Peter?
It does tell us Peter was no coward. He had one of the two swords. The odds were stacked against him, but he was ready to defend Jesus. To attack this group would be suicidal, but Peter acted to do this. It also tells us he still had no clue as to what our Lord was going to do.
8. It is generally agreed by most authorities that the young man who followed Jesus and fled when he was seized by the authorities, leaving his robe behind as recorded in Mark’s Gospel, was indeed the author of this Gospel, John Mark himself. Why do you think the Spirit of God had him record this incident?
That is a question we will have to ask Mark or the Lord Himself. It does tell us a little about Mark, that he was a believer at an early age and followed our Lord prior to His crucifixion. It tells us that there were more people who followed Jesus to the garden than just the eleven disciples. From this, we know that he was afraid and fled, but so did all the others. What spiritual lessons can we learn from this? Maybe, it tells us God has a perfect sense of humor and, while there was nothing funny about this at the time it occurred, looking back, Mark can now laugh at himself!
9. Jesus tells Peter, “Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” What are the implications of this statement?
It tells us Jesus could have, humanly speaking, if He had wished it, still avoided the cross by using the authority given to Him as Messiah to call on a vast number of angelic reinforcements to prevent His arrest. And the Father would have sent them. By application, we can learn that the gifts given to believers by the Spirit of God may be exercised even when the person exercising them may be acting out of God’s will and be successful. Spiritual gifts may be misused.
It is also probably that Jesus wanted His followers to understand that as imposing as the forces that came to arrest Him, the power at His disposal was unimaginable. His arrest was something that He could easily stop yet chose not to do so. It was, therefore, in the will and plan of God!
The Applications:
What are the applications of these passages to our lives today? Identify as many as you are able.
1. We need to be honest with God in our prayer; after all, He already knows our hearts better than we do. We cannot hide any thought or desire from Him! Sometimes we feel that we cannot make a request of Him because we suspect or know that it is not in His will. Although we desperately want to ask it, we think it would not be the spiritual thing to do. Yet, that is precisely what we should do. It is honest and healthy and not unspiritual. It is one way we fight that spiritual battle we all face, the struggle in which we will or want to do God’s will, but our fallen nature impels us to choose a different road.
2. Just as Jesus, our Lord, sought help from others when He faced this trial, so we, too, should seek others to watch and pray with us in the trials we face. He did not seek the prayer of all His followers but of a trusted few, whom He probably deemed to be the most mature of the group. Do we have a core group, a few trusted believers upon whom we can depend for support in prayer in times of need of spiritual strength?
3. Not every request we desperately desire will we receive. It might well be the will of the Father that we face the trial and suffering we wish to avoid. Our Lord did not receive the request He intensely desired, But He was granted the spiritual strength to endure. So too, if we are honest in our prayer with our Father, will He give us the peace and strength we need in those times He does not grant that for which we have desperately prayed.