We note, first, the place (14:32a):

And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane:

And we note, also, the pain (14:32b-34):

and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. (14:32)

An enclosed piece of ground was there at Gethsemane. The Lord seems to have left the main body of the disciples outside. He had a parting word of advice for them, however: "Sit ye here!" He said, "I am going to pray." The implication is that they would be well advised to do the same, especially with Zechariah 13:7 still fresh in their minds. They should stop protesting their resolutions and start praying. Judas and the mob would soon be there.

And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; (14:33)

The other disciples were getting used to the choice of these three for further revelation. It had happened twice before, once in the house of Jairus, when they had been chosen to witness His greatness in the raising of a little girl to life, and once to be with Him and witness His glory on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now they were being taken aside to witness His grief.

And what grief it was! The word for "sore amazed" occurs in only two other places, both of them in Mark's gospel. We have met the word before. When the Lord came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, we read that "all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed. . ." (9:15). The glory of that other world, revealed in all of its awe-inspiring magnificence on the mount itself, seems to have left its aura about Him. The people were awed by the splendor of another world. It would be the same on the resurrection morning; when the women came to the tomb and saw the angel there, "they were affrighted" and were told to not be "affrighted." Again, it was contact with another world that awed them (16:5-6).

In Gethsemane, the Lord was brought into contact with another world too -- the world of our sin, the world of unspeakable horror that lay before Him at Calvary when He would take upon Himself our guilt and be "made sin for us." He was "sore amazed."

The Greek word actually conveys "to be stunned with astonishment." It depicts the pain that results from some great shock. The Lord had lived on this sin-cursed planet ever since He was born at Bethlehem. He had rubbed shoulders with sinning humanity all of His life. But this was different. This was sin in the raw, naked sin, sin in all of its undiluted wickedness. The Lord's first reaction to the full horror and heinousness of human sin seems to have been one of overwhelming shock. The reality exceeded all of His expectations.

He was "sore amazed." Mark adds that He was "very heavy." The word means to be deeply weighed down, to be depressed, to be uncomfortable, to be in a situation in which He no longer felt at home.