And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. (14:34)

The words exceeding sorrowful mean that He was completely surrounded with grief. "Unto death" -- "I almost die!" He adds.

"Tarry ye here, and watch," He said, adding the extra injunction to His chosen three to watch as well as to pray. They had never heard Him speak such words of personal woe before. Surely, they must have made up their minds then and there to do exactly what He requested -- to watch and pray.

Next, we note the prayers (14:35-42):

And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. (14:35)

If ever we are shown the true humanity of the Lord Jesus, it is in Gethsemane. The hour was upon Him. The verb for "fell" is in the imperfect tense. He not only fell to the ground but also kept on falling to the ground. He was like some mighty wrestler locked in deadly struggle with some mighty antagonist. The struggle in the darkness was terrible. The word for "prayed" is also in the imperfect tense -- He kept on praying. We are told the burden of His prayer:

And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt. (14:36)

The Lord used two words for God here. He called Him "Abba," an Aramaic word that occurs only here, in Romans 8:5, and in Galatians 4:6. The word Abba is the word of a child. It answers to our word Papa, or Daddy. It expresses the deep, emotional devotion and trust that the Lord Jesus had in His beloved Father in heaven.

The word Father comes from the Greek word pater. It is the word of an adult son. The Lord Jesus fully entered into the mind and will of God. As God, He had been present before time ever began when, in the eternal counsels, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit had planned the redemption of a race as yet unborn. As perfect Man, with perfect understanding of the Scriptures to instruct Him, and with a peerless relationship with the Father to uphold Him, He could thus speak to the Father with every confidence.

The Lord used both expressions -- not just Abba and not just Father but both -- joined together to express the fullness of the relationship.

It was as Man, however, that He made His request. The horror of that dark and dreadful cup filled His holy soul with loathing. The Lord acknowledged God's omnipotence; all things were possible with God. He asked that some other way be found. And then He capitulated at once to that "good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Rom. 12:2).