It is not
secret that Latter-day Saints place a strong emphasis on Jesus’ agony in
Gethsemane. Notwithstanding, it is not totally unique to us. Many other groups
place a great importance on Gethsemane, even if they do not believe it to have
been part of Christ’s atoning sacrifice.
Walter Elliott,
a Catholic priest wrote the following about Jesus’ agony in the Garden:
As He crossed the road it seemed as if He had
suddenly entered hell, so unspeakably bitter was the torture which immediately
seized His spirit. And indeed it was His purpose to suffer the torments of the
damned in order that men might escape them. Here, then, the human soul of Jesus
was made to appreciate as never before what sin is, to realize the offended
majesty of God, and, in conjunction with that, the awful calamity of being a
lost soul. To use a feeble comparison, He was like an innocent man who had
contrived y means of a disguise to take his guilty brother’s place in the
prisoner’s dock, and in his stead to be tried for an atrocious crime, condemned
and executed. Infinite holiness disguises itself as pride and sensuality and
becomes the victim of the sinner’s wickedness. The whole shame and degradation
of sin, the entire agony of punishment for sin, entered into the thoughts and
feelings of Jesus as poison would have entered His blood had. He drunk a cup of
it: hence, “let this cup pass from me” was the prayer that sprang to His lips
in the horror of His first moments alone.
The coup of blessing (I. Cor. x. 16), which He
had given us a short while before, is now recompensed by the cup of malediction
thrust upon Him by our vices. It agnonizes Him to that degree that His human
heart craves relief. “O My Father! if it be possible let this cup pass from Me.”
His prayer, thrice repeated, is refused, and His submission is true, absolute,
and universal: “Not My will but Thine be done,” submission without exception or
qualification, total and irrevocable, mere obedience, the displacement of His
own will by that of the Father.
He was made to know all sins, in themselves
and in their circumstances and surroundings, the wilfulness of sin and its
folly, the aggravating accompaniments, the countless repetition of sins, the
relapses after pardon; all this, with a perfect knowledge and a vivid
imagination, did its work upon His sensitive soul, plunging Him into a
condition of agony which appalled even so lofty a courage as His. It was from
this ordeal that He shrank; He was horrified to find Himself feeling guilty of every sin, realizing
the remorse, the shame, the eternal despair of sin, becoming, as it were,
responsible for every sin in all respects except personal guilt; such was the
Saviour’s doom. He instinctively recoiled from it. “He fell flat on the ground,
and He prayed that if it might be, the hour might pass from Him. And He said:
Abba, Father, all things are possible to Thee; remove this chalice from Me; but
not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”
Here, then, began the crisis of our atonement.
“The High-Priest of the law,” says St. Francis de Sales, “wore upon his back
and upon his breast the names of the children of Israel engraven on precious
stones! Ah! behold Jesus, our chief bishop, and see how the instant of His
conception He bore us, upon His shoulders, undertaking the charge of redeeming
us by His death, even the death of the Cross. O Theotimus, Theotiumus, this
soul of our Saviour knew us all by name and by surname; but above all in the
day of His Passion, when He offered His tears, His prayers, His blood and His
life for all, He breathed in particular for all, He breathed in particular for
thee these thoughts of love: Ah, My eternal Father, I take to myself and charge
Myself with all poor Theotimus’s sins, to undergo torments and death that he
may be freed from them, and that he may not perish but live. Let Me die so that
he may not perish but live. Let Me die so that he may live; let Me be crucified
so he may be glorified. O sovereign love of the heart of Jesus, what heart can
ever bless Thee as devotedly as it ought?” (The
Love of God, Book XII. chap. 12). This explains the meaning of His saying, “My
soul is sorrowful even unto death.” It was all the death that an immortal soul
could suffer. The forces of a spirit cannot be dissolved, the faculties of
thought and love cannot rot and perish like flesh and blood . . . He outstayed
the period of the Father’s allotment of bitterness. All that thought and
affection, gratitude and appreciation, could suffer from insult and contempt;
all that is meant by disappointment, chagrin, failure; all that hell could do
to an innocent soul, all this Jesus suffered that we might escape it. At length
the end approached. The Father had not, indeed, relaxes His justice; the soul
of Jesus had been crucified. But the paternal love sent a messenger of
consolation. “And there appeared to Him an angel from heaven strengthening Him.”
. . . when He arose and wiped the sweat from His face He found blood mingled
with it; it was oozing out from every pore. “And His sweat became as drops of
blood ticking down upon the ground.” The spasms of His heart had driven the
blood of the Saviour with such force as to cause it to overflow its channels.
If Jesus had suffered an indescribable agony
in the Garden, He also had gathered an increase of courage from His fortitude
and His prayers. For when He realized that His hour was at hand He arose, wiped
the blood-stained seat from His face, and calling to His Apostles to follow
Him, calmly advanced towards His enemies to give Himself up to them. There
shall be no further sign of fear in Him, or of other emotion, till “all things
are accomplished.” (Walter Elliott, The
Life of Christ: Embracing The Entire Gospel Narrative [The Paulist Press,
1939], 649-52, 654, 655)
