صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

and prayed. All was as still as death, and the silver rays of the full moon played fantastically with the shadows of the olive-leaves. After a time Jesus found words for his prayer, and above his sobs the three friends heard, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! And yet not my will, but thine be done!"

Is it strange that Jesus, who had seen the threatening storm gathering in the distance and drawing ever nearer, now prayed that he might be spared from suffering and death? Is it strange that he who had looked all danger steadfastly in the face now seemed to lose his courage at the last? Doubtless it was a grievous disappointment to Jesus himself, when he found that the conflict he imagined to be over had returned in all its fierceness, that the terror he had already vanquished was once more too strong for him. Yet in our eyes he would be less great, less lovable, had he gone to meet his fate impassively as a man of steel, suppressing every human feeling without apparent effort. The more keenly he felt his lot and the fiercer the conflict in his own bosom, the greater was his triumph and the higher his claims to our reverence. And who so dull as not to feel that the various events of the evening must have touched him to the quick, while the very midnight hour would heighten his feeling of oppression. Besides, even when he had suspected or foreseen the issue most distinctly, it had always been to some extent uncertain; it had always left a possibility of hope and in any case it is one thing to see the clouds gathering more or less in the distance, another to know that the bolt may fall at any instant. Had Judas gone for men? Were they drawing near or lying in wait for him even now? Were they approaching him that very moment? He could expect no mercy at the hands of the authorities to whom he seemed so dangerous. He must prepare for the very worst. Snatched away from his work and from his friends in the very flower of his life! And death approached him in its most ghastly shape, malefactor with all its attendant shame and the promise on which he began his work? it inevitable, that he must face this lot? otherwise? All things were possible to version of the bitterest foes of truth into its friends. Why should not He? . . . Oh, if it could, if it might, but be that the kingdom of God should come without this bitter trial!

as the death of a horror. Was this Was it true, was Why could it not be God, even the con

. . Thus did he wrestle with God in prayer. But if the only escape lay through desertion of his post, he would not

seize it. He would obey God's holy will and not the promptings of his own carnal nature. He would be true to the last to the task and mission of his life. But if it could, if it could!

What he said after the few words we have given, and how long he prayed, we know not. The three disciples who were the only witnesses had nothing to report, for the same emotions that had strained the nerves of Jesus to such insupportable tension had excited his friends to a moment's effort, and had then left them numbed and insensate. When Jesus had already partially regained his self-possession and came to speak to them, he found them sleeping! Even his truest friends could give him no sympathy, or, at any rate, not even the semblance of support. There was a tone of reproachful disappointment in the question he addressed to them, especially to Peter, who had been so loud in his promises, but now- "Asleep! Could you not watch a single hour with me? Be vigilant, and pray to God that you be spared temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

66

In these last words he uttered his own recent experience; and if he felt that he himself was weak, what must he not have feared for these well-meaning, but alas! so feeble, friends? As for himself, welcome as their support would have been, he no longer complained of its failing him. He found all that he needed in his God. Once more he withdrew and bent down in prayer. My Father, if this cup cannot pass away without my drinking it, thy will be done!" His friends heard no more, or could not remember more; but these few words suffice to show how completely he surrendered his own will, how unconditionally he yielded all that God required. When he returned to his disciples he found them asleep again, and when he roused them they were too dazed to exchange a word with him, so completely had their powers collapsed. So he left them, and found his refuge in God. At last he had completely regained his selfcommand. Then he was ready for the worst; and when he stood by his disciples once more, it was with the words of forgiving gentleress, "Nay, nay, sleep on, and have your

rest!

Such is the moving scene of the Master's wrestling of soul in Gethsemane! The apostolic age itself did well in attach ing high importance to it as the proof that the great Exemplar and Perfecter, however highly exalted above his brothers,

1

had yet been like to them in all things, —had felt with them; had known their temptations, their conflicts, their weakness, and had only learned complete obedience and realized his calling by means of suffering. And let him who knows it not already learn from this scene that there is nothing shameful in shrinking from suffering, if we overcome our dread by faith. Never, perhaps, has a word been spoken upon earth that has unlocked such treasures of consolation and strength in suffering as that prayer of Jesus: "Thy will be done."

We need not be surprised that oral tradition soon heightened the coloring of this scene. Luke can already tell us how an angel appeared from heaven to Jesus as he prayed, and strengthened him; and how he prayed so earnestly in the fierceness of his conflict with himself that the sweat started out like gouts of blood and dropped upon the ground. But the obvious exaggeration of this addition cannot throw any reasonable doubt upon the authenticity of the original account, though even there the details are from the nature of the case uncertain. Matthew, for instance, speaks of three several prayers, which is a round number; whereas Luke expressly mentions only one, and Mark two. The invincible drowsiness of the only witnesses throws a certain haze of uncertainty over all details.

Two remarks may serve to support the authenticity of the narrative. The prayer of Jesus indicates that to the very last he believed that there was a possibility of the kingdom of God being founded without his falling a sacrifice himself, and was to some extent uncertain as to his own fate. It was just this alternation that caused him such agony of soul when the hope that had grown ever weaker, that he had almost completely suppressed at the Paschal supper, for a moment reasserted itself. Here then the Gospels, which made him announce his fearful end as absolutely certain weeks before, correct themselves. And again, this terrible antecedent conflict gives us the needful explanation of the Master's mood and bearing during the dread hours that follow. There is a certain proud, immovable loftiness in him; he suppresses every emotion; not the most galling insult or the fiercest suffering can draw a sigh, much less a cry of lamentation or of pain, from him, until his strength forsakes him a few moments before his death. This lofty and unshaken self-reliance and reliance upon God, this strength of will, this might of spirit,

1 Hebrews ii. 10, 17, iv. 15, v. 2, 7-10.

without which he could not have endured the fierce ordeal, · was the fruit of that hour in the olive-garden.

[ocr errors]

"Wake up! The time has come! The Son of Man is already betrayed into sinners' hands! Rise up and let us go! The traitor is here! Such were the cries with which Jesus roused his friends, and, as they sprang up still only half awake, endeavored to apprise them of the instant danger. He had heard in the distance the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps; then the eight disciples he had left at the entrance rushed in with a terrified alarm upon their lips, while close upon their heels came an armed band of men with Judas at their head. As though he were still a friend, as though he were rejoiced to see his Master again after a few hours' absence, the traitor ran to him and kissed him twice upon the cheek, with the cry, Hail, Rabbi!" Or, according to another account, he shouted, "Rabbi! Rabbi!" as if he too would warn him of the danger.

66

This kiss was a preconcerted signal, so at least it struck the other disciples, for of course the conspirators themselves never gave any information. When Judas had stolen away from the others he had gone straight to the temple, which was reopened at midnight on this special evening. There he had asked the officer in charge to give him some men to enable him to carry out his promise. The majority of the guards on service were required just then in the temple itself; but some of them, strengthened by dependants of the high priests, were placed at his disposal, and formed a sufficiently numerous though ill-ordered company, armed in some instances with swords and in others with cudgels, - for, even if the people about the Nazarene offered no resistance, it was impossible to. say whether, on such a night as this, when the streets would never be quite empty, force might not be needed at some point or other. Had Judas already been to Bethany and searched in vain? Or had he come upon his eight fellowdisciples on his way there, and perceived at once where the Master was? However this may be, it seems that he had taken the rather superfluous precaution of fixing upon this veritable traitor's token of a kiss, to avoid the chance of his companions making any mistake in the darkness and confusion and letting the right man escape.

"Friend, do your work!" said Jesus sternly and briefly, rejecting the false kiss, as if he would say, "That is no part of it!" Or, as the third Gospel paraphrases it, "Judas, is

it with a kiss that you betray the Son of Man?" But Judas had already drawn back, and the men had seized Jesus, who made no show of resistance, and were securing him in their midst. Meanwhile one of the disciples, the possessor of one of the two swords, made an effort to defend his Master, and drew. It was not Peter, for in that case his name would have been mentioned, and we should not have found him immediately afterwards in the palace of the high priest; but whoever it was, he struck wildly and unskilfully, and all he did was to cut off a piece of the ear of one of the high priest's men. It was well that he was not more successful. And there resistance ended, either because Jesus instantly forbade his followers to use force, or because they themselves perceived that it was hopeless.

According to the first Gospel, Jesus said: "Put back your sword into the sheath! For they who seize the sword shall fall by the sword. Think you that I cannot pray to my Father, and He will send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that so it must be?" But in reality there was not the least time or opportunity for such an elaborate answer; and we should hardly expect a quiet aphorism from the lips of Jesus at such a moment.1 And moreover this declaration on his part that he could command assistance from on high, and call out sixty thousand angels, a legion of the heavenly host for each disciple, - agrees but ill with the prayer and the conflict that have gone before. Luke on the other hand begins with graphic touches that have quite the air of truth, and says that when the disciples saw what threatened they cried, "Master! shall we strike?" and without waiting his reply wounded the servant; whereupon Jesus instantly forbade all further resistance with the words, "Nay, let it come!"- that is to say, "Let them take me prisoner." But unfortunately the same Evangelist throws suspicion upon his whole version of the affair by going on to say that Jesus healed the wound by touching the bleeding ear; and that not only officers of the temple but even high priests and elders were included in the band, — all of which is equally incredible.

Jesus made no resistance; but when he saw the weapons in the hands of his assailants he could not refrain from saying, "Have you come out to seize me with swords and cudgels as though I were a robber? I have sat daily in the temple teaching, and you never laid hands upon me." Luke makes

1 Compare Revelation xiii. 10.

« السابقةمتابعة »