Selections from The Cross He Bore, Chapter 1Mat 26:36-37
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, "Sit here, while I go over there and pray."
And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
The statement in Matthew 26:36, 37 is significant. Christ has known sorrow before this, but the assertion that in Gethsemane he began to be sorrowful and troubled indicates a sudden steep descent into the billows of distress. Now, as never before, all God’s waves and billows began to sweep over him (Psalm 42:7).
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He had repeatedly spoken of his death to his disciples, telling them what that death would accomplish. He had prayed with the utmost confidence in his high priestly prayer (John 17). Why, then, is there this sudden plunge into such awful agony, why this shuddering horror? Why does the divine record say that in Gethsemane our Lord BEGAN to be sorrowful, sorrowful in a new and terrible way? Was it not because God began forsaking him then? How else is this sorrow unto death to be understood?* * *
What cup (John 18:11)? ‘THIS CUP’—not some future cup. The cup that was symbolized in the feast (Matthew 26:27,28) was now actual: God was placing it in the Saviour’s hands and it carried the stench of hell.~ Frederick S. Leahy
More reflections from Chapter 1
