An Intense Moment in Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-42)

There are a couple of things which stand out to me in this passage of Scripture. The first deals with Peter. Here was Christ who was experiencing such anguish as He had never known in His earthly life. He takes His three closest men with Him for them to stand guard and to pray. Christ is facing His greatest temptation ever....He was being buffeted by the temptation to forsake the Father's plan, which was that the Son must go to death and bear the sins of the whole world. Now, that wasn't just the sins of the whole world committed up to then. That did include those sins, yes, but it also was to bear all the sins ever committed by anyone all the way to the very last person ever to live on earth. So every sin, that I have ever committed, or will commit in the future is covered by Him. That would be some mighty terrific 'buffeting' going on there. In fact, so severe, that an angel ministered to Jesus in the garden (Luke 22:43). (Just a side note...this is where the mormons believe Christ paid the penalty for our sins...in the Garden...because He sweated drops of blood. But, our debt was not paid by sweating but by shedding, on the Cross...He had to make payment in the form of death...a perfect sacrifice. Okay, end side note.)

When Christ goes back to the three men He finds them asleep! They were to keep watch/guard! This I find interesting, Christ awakened them but only reprimanded Peter (not the three, this is at the first time) for his inability to bear with Him in prayer. I wonder, do you see a connection here? Only a short time before, Peter had twice said he would never forsake the Lord and yet he could not even pray with Him in His greatest need. Isn't it ironic that three times Peter failed to watch and pray; three times he would fall into temptation and disown Jesus? I see a warning here for all believers, for all of us are susceptible to spiritual failure.

The other thing I find quite intriguing is the fact that in some of His final hours Jesus faced temptation in a garden. Follow me here, ladies. Man fell into sin because of temptation in a garden. And man's deliverance from sin comes about in spite of further temptation in a garden. Jesus, the "last Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45), did not fall into temptation but followed the will of God which the first Adam failed to do.