CHAPTER XVII.

Gethsemane.

"Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared."

"Strange was His birth-His death and rising such

As to bear out that strangeness-and as much

THE

CHARLES TURNER.

We

of Gethsemane is one of the most agony prominent, and at the same time one of the most mysterious passages in our Lord's life. find it recorded in more or less detail in no fewer than three of the evangelists. Besides, in the Epistle to the Hebrews the narrative is commented upon, and one vivid and impressive detail is added. We are told that Jesus in the days of His flesh offered prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save from death, and was heard in that He feared. That strong crying and tears were the accompaniments of His prayers, we know only from the Epistle, and

the detail is used to show the reality of the Lord's priesthood, and its help for us in our struggles and sorrows. The explanation of the scene, however, takes us much farther, although this element must not be omitted. Gethsemane was a place near Jerusalem, where the Saviour often resorted to pray with His disciples. His oratory was to be the scene of His sharpest conflict and suffering. There still stand olive-trees which may have succeeded those that saw the supreme agony of Christ.

The suffering at Gethsemane was evidently of peculiar intensity. Jesus was familiar with the varied forms of suffering, and His biographers with their recital. Many and keen were the pangs of the chastisement of our peace that had gone before, but apparently they were far transcended here. Very unusual words are employed to describe this centre and heart of His suffering, as if language were taxed to convey an adequate expression. He was sore amazed. He was very heavy, His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even to the point of death, as if any addition to the burden would have been enough to snap the breaking thread of life. He prayed with strong crying and tears to Him who was able to save

Him from death, and was heard in that He feared. This was no torture of the body, no physical agony, but the far keener pains of the spirit. The fastidious reticence of modern times must not prevent us looking at the stern and naked reality which is with a very gracious intent disclosed to us. The suffering was so sacred, that, though He was glad to feel His disciples near, He could not bear them so near that they should see it, and said, "Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder." But we are taken into the most sacred ground. It was needful that we should see the agony of His spirit. Had we not witnessed this great and solitary expression of pain, we would have been in danger of supposing that His Divinity made the fact of His suffering less precious and less helpful to us. We might have said, "God cannot suffer as I suffer. His pains are not to Him what mine are to me." And it is that this doubt should be forever silenced that the veil is lifted, and our eyes behold His awful agony, His bloody sweat, His great heaviness, His sore amazement, His strong crying and tears. His suffering, though in one sense quite unique, is, we are warranted in believing, a guide and a solace for us when a sorrow comes which makes

us solitary, and renders unavailing the sympathy that helps us in our common woes. As there come times sooner or later when no human sympathy is enough,-bereavements which no human love can supply, wounds which the closest affection cannot stanch,-when nothing really helps but the sympathy of Christ,-this assures us that He can sympathize even as He suffered, that He can go with us down the loneliest road of sorrow and of loss, because His feet have gone even further, and His footprints are seen stretching away to the darkness beyond it. There is a Roman story of a husband and wife, who, weary of this tyrant-ridden world, resolved to commit suicide. The wife took the blade and plunged it into her breast, and then drew it out, saying with her dying breath, "Take it; it is not painful." So, when the dagger of sorrow is plunged into our hearts, it is tinctured with the blood of Christ. It has gone into Christ's heart before it was plunged into ours, and this has robbed it of its keenest agony. So, when we have no other companion, we are able to flee to Him and to say, "He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and, being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation to all them that

obey Him." As the intensity of the agony grew greater, and He felt Himself dying, He asked whether the cup might not be foregone. He made His last appeal to the Fatherly love and omnipotence of God: "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee." He did not abandon the salvation of the world, but He asked whether this cup, so bitter and terrible, must be drunk in order to accomplish it. Three times He prayed, and as He prays He grows more resigned. "He was heard," says the inspired writer, "in that He feared;" in other words, He was heard for His piety-His submissive reverence. His submissive reverence appeared in that He said, "Father, if it be possible;" and again in that He said, "Not My will, but Thine be done. If it be possible, in Thine unlimited power, canst Thou not find another way? Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done." There is no revolt; He is ready to accept the answer, whatever it may be. There is the reluctance of the flesh-the drawing back of humanity—the resistance of natural instinct,—but that is all. In all His purpose He never faltered, never ceased to be the Son. The will of nature did not for a moment escape from the law of the Spirit, and after a struggle it was entirely ab