Bible Commentaries
Luke 22

Verses 39-46

On the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:30-46; Mark 14:26-42; Luke 22:39-46)

The hymns which were sung at the close of the Passover meal were Psalms 115-118. Jesus betakes himself to the Garden of Olives, separated from the city by the Brook Kidron. He announces to his disciples those indeed who had just celebrated the Last Supper with him! that he is going to be for them, that night, an occasion of falling. He cites the words of Zechariah 13:7 "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered" (Matthew 26:31).

Jesus knows the weakness of the Apostles much better than they do themselves; he knows that they will forsake him. Once more he announces to them his resurrection. It is in Galilee, there where they have worked together, that he makes an appointment to meet them.

Peter shows himself to be the impulsive one which he has always been. The idea that he could deny his Master scandalizes him. He is dangerously sure of himself: "Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away." He believes himself to be stronger than his brothers. It will be necessary to shatter his presumption by the dreadful experience of denial. Jesus warns him. But Peter does not believe it. He is ready to die for his Master! "And so said all the disciples." If it had been a question of fighting for Jesus, without doubt they would have done that! But it involved something entirely different. Temptation takes us unawares; it comes under forms for which we are not prepared. This is why it is the part of wisdom to fear it and to count on nothing but the sole fidelity of God (compare the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, 6:13).

The last hour is come. Jesus awaits his arrest. The place to which he has withdrawn, Gethsemane "oil press," calls to mind the words of the prophet:

I have trodden the wine press alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold (Isaiah 63:3-5).

Jesus is about to descend into the last solitude where no one can follow him. He takes with him his three most intimate disciples, Peter, James, and John, and confides his anguish to them: "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death." He asks them to "watch" with him a request unique in the entire Gospel but even that will be refused him.

The Gospels show Jesus prostrate, face to the ground, beseeching his Father to spare him "this cup" the bitter cup of abandonment and death (compare 20:22). But the entreaty concludes in an act of total submission: "not as I will, but as thou wilt." Is not the will of the Father his life, his reason for existence? "Thy will be done" (vs. 42; see 6:10; 12:50; John 6:38; Hebrews 10:5-9). But this will costs him; it is in this that he is made truly our brother (Hebrews 4:15; Hebrews 5:8-9).

Jesus three times entreats his Father. Three times he arises and finds his disciples sleeping. Peter this Peter so sure of himself has not been able to watch one hour with his Master. And Jesus warns the Apostles once more: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." In biblical language the "flesh" designates human nature in all its weakness and fallibility. It is opposed to the spirit, which comes from God and draws us toward him. Paul has characterized the struggle which sets man at war with himself: "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do" (Romans 7:18-20; Romans 8:5-6). Temptation is going to find the disciples tragically disarmed since they have not had the strength to watch one hour with their Master. Who are the "sinners" into whose hands the Son of Man is betrayed? (vs. 45). An Apostle, the leaders of Israel, a Roman magistrate the religious authorities and the secular authorities, the "qualified" representatives of a humanity which does not want God.

Some people are astonished that the prospect of death should have thrown Jesus into such an agony. The objection is not new. Socrates, dying stoically without uttering a complaint, has been contrasted with him. Why did Jesus’ spirit recoil at the last minute before a death which he had foreseen and announced? Is Jesus in his turn unsettled by the scandal of the Cross which disturbed the disciples?

No one could without rashness seek to penetrate the mystery of the agony of the Son of God. Jesus has let us know his anguish, but not what passed between him and his Father at this hour. Let us recall simply that in the biblical revelation death is not something "natural," something "normal." Life is natural and normal, for God is the God of life, and death is the negation of him. According to a word of the Book of Job, death is "the king of terrors" (Job 18:14). The Bible does not proclaim the immortality of the soul as a property which belongs to it by nature. It proclaims the miracle of the Resurrection. John shows Jesus deeply agitated at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:33; John 11:38). He measures, as no mortal man can, the horror of this break, this "end" which is death.

In the second place, let us understand what sort of death is involved for Jesus. God has come to his people in the Person of his Anointed, and his people respond to him with a deicide; they kill the "heir" (Matthew 21:38). The acme of love is about to produce the acme of hate. The coming of the Son causes men to commit the worst crime they have ever committed. God "delivers" him. "into the hands of sinners."

Let us be thankful to the evangelists for having reported to us this struggle. The one whom God has given us as Savior is not a Stoic, nor a god whose humanity was only specious. No, he is one who cried out to God with tears (see Hebrews 5:7), and begged him to spare him. This is why he is able to sympathize with our griefs, carry our sorrows, and give us the strength to pray, in our hours of greatest confusion and abandonment, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt"

Let us be thankful also for the honesty with which the Apostles have confessed their own failures. They have preserved and transmitted the memory of this dreadful night when they could not watch one hour with their Master and afterwards abandoned him. They tell us this for our warning. Pascal has reminded us that Jesus is in agony until the end of the world, and we should not sleep during this entire time. Pascal understands that the combat of the Lord against the powers of evil and death continues to the end of time, "until he has put all his enemies under his feet" (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). Is the Church watching with him? Or are our eyes "heavy"?