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Jesus’ struggle on the Mount of Olives (Luke never calls
it the Garden of Gethsemane, because Gethsemane was an Aramaic name and would
sound strange to his Greek readers) has been aptly described as the watershed
of Luke’s account of the Passion Story. It is not too much to say that
everything in the account of Jesus’ suffering and death crests at this
point; and everything following it is determined by it. This is made clear
in two main ways.
First, it is made clear from the context of the gospel as a
whole. Jesus is now in Jerusalem, the destination to which he has been steadily
traveling, and we know what Jerusalem means for him. It is the place he has
been warned away from, the stronghold of his opponents and enemies, the place
of danger. But with dogged persistence he has made his way there. For another
thing, the passage begins and ends with a reference to temptation, testing,
trial. We have heard those words before, notably in the temptations in the
wilderness, when the devil tempted him to divest his role as the obedient
Son of God (4:1-13). The devil failed in his objective, but “departed
from him until an opportune time” (13). That time has now come.
Second, the pivotal character of the prayer on the Mount of
Olives is underscored by certain features of the immediate context. There
is the heavy emphasis on prayer: a standing motif in Luke’s gospel (as
well as Acts), but mentioned no fewer than five times in these verses. The
passage begins and ends with a command to the disciples not to fail to pray
(40, 46), while three specific references are made to Jesus’ praying
(41, 44, 45). There is the description of Jesus’ destiny under the form
of a ‘cup’ (42): a familiar Old Testament metaphor for divine judgment
(Isaiah 51:22; Jeremiah 25:15; cf. Mark 10:38). And just as the devil is active
in his own interests, so there is intervention from heaven in the form of
a strengthening angel to sustain Jesus in his struggle (43). His struggle
is real because he is a real human being. He knows the Father’s will
and wishes it were different. But in the end obedience to the Father triumphs
(42).
Clearly, then, in this passage we are standing on the edge of
something great: something freighted with cosmic significance and eternal
import. Nothing less than the salvation of the world hangs in the balances,
and we wait with bated breath to see on which side the balances will fall.
Remarkably, the one who is primarily in need in this passage
is Jesus. The focus falls on him. This becomes particularly clear when Luke’s
account of this event is compared with Mark’s (Mark 14:32-42). There
is no mention of Jesus’ taking Peter and James and John to support him
in his agitation of soul (Mark 14:33). There is no rebuke of Peter or the
other disciples for falling asleep (Mark 14:37, 41). Jesus is the only one
who speaks of praying, and the only one who prays. The light shows him in
his solitary struggle for the world’s redemption. Luke makes us privileged
spectators at the battle of the ages. If the primary focus falls on Jesus
there are also secondary implications and applications. As we see Jesus’
need of strength to face trial and temptation, we are reminded forcefully
of our own. As we see him struggling with God’s will which he wishes
were different, we see ourselves in the mirror. Even more, we see ourselves
in the disciples who cannot stay awake to pray (46).
The strengthening angel in verse 43 is God’s answer to
Jesus’ agony. The mention of the strengthening angel is unique to Luke’s
gospel. Its absence not only from the other gospels, but from many ancient
manuscripts has led some to question its authenticity. But the language is
Lucan. Moreover, it is unlikely that anyone would invent an episode which
presented Jesus as weak, and being in need of special strength from heaven.
Rather, it makes the point that God lends us his help when accepting his will
is difficult. It is also to the point that it was through prayer that Jesus
battled his way through to acceptance. “In his anguish he prayed more
earnestly” (44), so much so that his sweat fell from him like drops of
blood.
As we contemplate Jesus’ struggle in prayer, his torment
of soul as he wrestles with God’s will for him, and his final acceptance
of it: “not my will but yours be done” (42), our response can only
be amazement and wonder, awe and adoration. This was the critical moment.
From this point on, the cross is inevitable: not because of fate, but because
of Jesus’ free choice. His submission and surrender to God’s will
was now complete, and with it, our salvation.
This carries the implication for us that acceptance of what
Christ accepted but did not want is the pattern to be transposed into our
lives. Twice in the passage Jesus exhorts the disciples to pray (40, 46):
to pray not for him but for themselves that they “may not come into the
time of trial.” Just as he wanted to be spared the cross, so he wanted
them to be spared the confusion and failure that the crucifixion could involve
for them. That prayer—if they ever prayed it—was no more answered
than his prayer for himself. But just as he discovered that in prayer one
could come to embrace what one did not like, so the record of the Acts of
the Apostles goes to show that they embraced the message of the crucified
Christ, and preached it regardless of the cost.
(For a sermon example
from this text go to www.preachersmagazine.org and click on “Sermons”)
The tense solemnity of the prayer on the Mount of Olives gives the sermon
its own gripping power. The preacher has no need to create artificial effects.
He or she simply has to interpret the story faithfully for its pungency to
be manifested. Luke’s version of it perhaps even more than Mark’s
has a tensile strength deriving from the way in which Jesus’ solitary
struggle is presented. The solitude of Jesus, the intensity of his prayer,
the depth of his agony stand in singular contrast with the indolence of the
disciples who seem confused, bewildered and disengaged.
The effect of all of this is to underline that Jesus alone is the author of salvation; he alone drank the cup of God’s judgment upon sin; he alone submitted to the will of the Father. Any sermon that would do justice to the text cannot fail to lay bare these truths.