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):
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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).