Mark 14.32-42: Jesus loses it before his arrest.

They were going to a place named Gat Semaním/“oil press,” and Jesus told his students, “Sit here while I pray.”

He was taking Simon Peter, Jacob, and John with him. He began to panic and freak out, and told them, “My soul is deathly sad. Stay here. Stay awake.” He went a little ahead, fell to the ground, and was praying this: “If it’s possible, have this hour pass me by!” He said,

“Abbá! Father, you can do anything: Take this cup from me.

But not what I want. What you want.”

He came back and found them asleep, and told Peter,

“Simon? You’re sleeping? You can’t stay awake one hour?

Stay awake. Pray, lest you come to temptation.

Though you have a willing spirit,

your flesh is weak.”

He went away again, praying the same words. Coming back again, he found them asleep. Their eyes were heavy. They didn’t know how to answer him. When he came back a third time, he told them, “Oh, sleep the rest of the time; stop it. They’re still far off.”

—Mark 14.32-42 KWL

This took place at an olive grove on the Mount of Olives with the Aramaic name Gat Semaním—or as we tend to call it nowadays, Gethsemane. This is where Jesus was arrested.

One of God’s abilities is he knows all. He knows the past, present, and future (he fills all of time and space, so of course he does). So since Jesus is God, we figure he had this same ability—and often wonder what this episode was all about. Why’s Jesus freaking out?

The popular interpretation is this was Jesus’s “human side.” Supposedly he had two sides: A divine side, which had all the superpowers; and a human side, which had all the human frailties of mortality, temptation, and bodily functions. Jesus’s divine side was ready to do the Father’s will, and be killed; Jesus’s human side didn’t wanna be killed, and for a few minutes recoiled at the idea, till Jesus finally got hold of himself.

But this interpretation is heresy. Theologians call it Nestorianism—named for Nestorius of Constantinople, who believed Jesus joined these two sides of himself, rather than them being unified in his one person. Jesus isn’t part God and part human, like a mermaid is part woman and part fish; Jesus is fully God and fully human, like a Texan is fully a citizen of the United States and fully a citizen of Texas. Now, this isn’t a perfect metaphor, ’cause during the Civil War, many Texans rebelled against the United States and gave up their American citizenship. Jesus doesn’t rebel against his divinity, nor his humanity—it’s not an allegiance, but who he is. We non-divine humans might have the occasional battle between flesh and Spirit, as did Peter. Mk 14.38 Jesus never would, and never did.

This being the case, what do we make of this freakout at Gethsemane?

Why did the Son of Man panic?

Because Jesus is divine, we assume Jesus had all God’s abilities. We forget he gave up these abilities in order to become human. Pp 2.6-7 He wasn’t infinite anymore; he was finite. He didn’t fill space and time anymore; he lived in only one point in space and time. He didn’t know the future by virtue of being in the future, seeing it from the inside: He knew it because he knew of it, informed by the Holy Spirit. Which is a pretty big difference. It’s like knowing London because you’ve read everything you could find about it—or knowing London because while you’ve read up on it, you also live there.

Jesus knew the future. But he didn’t know-know the future. He knew it was coming. He just didn’t know the specifics: When the next punch would land. When the next hand would yank out his beard. When the next cane or club would rattle his skull. When the next lash would rip the skin from his back. When his captors blindfolded him, beat him, and told him, “Prophesy who just hit you,” Lk 22.64 he couldn’t necessarily do it. (Had he done so, it would’ve freaked ’em out—but then again, they’d just claim it was a good guess or devilish trick.)

We Christians assume Jesus still had his almightiness: He was in control of every circumstance of his arrest. After all, he did say he could stop it at any time. Mt 26.53 He said he laid down his life; nobody took it from him. Jn 10.17-18 Thing is, he was in control in that he could stop things. But once he let them proceed, he surrendered control. They could do with him as they wanted. He wasn’t directing any of their punches. This wasn’t self-torture.

So why was Jesus freaking out at Gethsemane? Because he was anxious. Humans get anxious when we guess what’s coming, but don’t entirely know for certain. And that’s the boat Jesus was in: He didn’t know for certain. His knowledge was imprecise. And maybe even changeable. After all, he did pray, “Father, take this cup from me.” Maybe the Father could bypass the suffering altogether—’cause he can do anything, can’t he?

Jesus is God. But Jesus is a depowered God. Still God, but lacking all the things we assume make up God—his might, his knowledge, his control, his advantages. All he had were the things which truly make up God—his love, his joy, his patience, his forgiveness. And his peace, even though at this particular moment, he sure was struggling to find that peace.

Lack confidence? Pray.

So in his moment of anxiety, Jesus turned to his Father.

Not because he foolishly figured the Father would make it all better. That’s often why we turn to God: We’ve got it in our heads that God works out everything for our good, so we needn’t worry when there’s chaos in our lives, for God’ll sort things out. In reality, sometimes chaos is chaos. Sometimes life sucks, and God doesn’t have a secret plan behind it all, to deliver us out of it. Sometimes we’re gonna die. Like Jesus. He was gonna die. Horribly. He knew it was coming.

Would God pull him out of it? Well, Jesus did ask. But he knew it wasn’t likely. The Father wasn’t going to give him a reprieve. The only thing he could have was peace—and we notice, throughout the rest of Jesus’s trial and torture, he was remarkably stoic about it. Seems the Father gave him peace, and the ability to endure. Sometimes that’s all the Father will give us. We’re not getting a rescue; we’re only getting grace. It’ll have to be enough.

And just as Jesus prayed for that, he told his students to pray for that for themselves. Notice he didn’t ask them to pray for him. (They wouldn’t have prayed correctly anyway.) He told them to pray for themselves. He told Simon Peter to pray lest Peter fall into temptation, not lest Jesus fall into it. Peter might’ve been willing to die for Jesus, but Jesus knew he was gonna stumble soon, and wanted him to have peace about it. He didn’t want Peter to despair, Judas-style. Nor any of his other students.

But it was late. Likely after midnight; way past their bedtime, since in pre-electric cultures you didn’t stay up too long past sundown. With a big dinner, a few cups of wine, a long lesson from Jesus, and a long hike to Gethsemane in them, they were dead tired. Jesus’s stress was keeping him awake, but the students weren’t where he was—they weren’t wide awake till the adrenalin of his arrest kicked in. After three attempts to get ’em to pray instead of sleep, he finally gave up and let them have their sleep.

Never assume the Lord will pester us forever when we’re not doing as he wants: After a point, he’ll tell us, “Fine, your will be done,” and let us suffer the consequences of our weakness. ’Cause I guarantee you these students wished afterward they had prayed when Jesus told them to.