We can never fathom the agony in Gethsemane, but at least we need not misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and Man in one, face to face with sin.

We know nothing about Gethsemane in personal experience.

Gethsemane and Calvary stand for something unique; they are the gateway into Life for us.

It was not the death on the cross that Jesus feared in Gethsemane; He stated most emphatically that He came on purpose to die. In Gethsemane He feared lest He might not get through as Son of Man. He would get through as Son of God - Satan could not touch Him there; but Satan's onslaught was that He would get through as an isolated Figure only; and that would mean that He could be no Saviour. Read the record of the agony in the light of the temptation: "Then the devil leaveth Him for a season." In Gethsemane Satan came back and was again overthrown.

Satan's final onslaught against our Lord as Son of Man is in Gethsemane.

The agony in Gethsemane is the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Saviour of the world. The veil is drawn aside to reveal all it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony is the basis of the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ is a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that Our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Every human being can get through into the presence of God now because of what the Son of Man went through.

When He needed God most in the greatest crisis of His life, Jesus sought a garden. Under the olive trees, with the Passover moon shining down upon Him, He prayed in agony for strength to do God’s will. Only those who have been through such agony can realize even in part what that bleak hour of renunciation, for the sake of you and me, meant to Christ.

Are we willing that He should suffer Gethsemane and the Cross for us in vain?

“I go to pray,” He said to the eight, “Rest here at the gate.”

But He spake to the three entreatingly, “Will you watch with me as I pray A stone’s throw away? I suffer tonight exceedingly.”

The eight slept well at the garden gate (As tired men will); The three tossed fitfully within, (Twice half-roused by His need of them) But they slept— Till the black in the East turned gray, Till their garments were drenched with the tears of the day: Slept Till He called them—each one by his name— The three within, and the eight at the gate.

The ground was hard where the eight had slept (As hard as the road the soldiers stepped); The grass was bent where the three had dreamt, But red where the Lord had wept.

MIRIAM LEFEVRE CROUSE

“Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” (Matthew 26:40).

My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry here, and watch with me.

And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.

Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.

I looked on my right hand, and behold, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.