The Cup in the Garden: Mark 14:27-42

"You will all fall away," Jesus told them as they walked through the dark streets toward the Mount of Olives. "For it is written: 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.'"

Peter interrupted, his voice fierce with loyalty: "Even if all fall away, I will not."

Jesus looked at him. "Truly I tell you, today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times."

Peter insisted emphatically: "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." All the others said the same.

They came to a place called Gethsemane—the oil press—and Jesus told them, "Sit here while I pray." He took Peter, James, and John further into the garden, and something changed in him. Mark uses devastating words: he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.

"My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," he said. "Stay here and keep watch."

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground. Not knelt—fell. Face in the dirt, body crumpled under a weight no human eyes could see. He prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.

"Abba, Father," he cried—the intimate word, the child's word for daddy—"everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me."

The cup. The cup of God's wrath that prophets had described. The cup of judgment, of suffering, of sin's full consequences. Jesus was asking his Father to find another way.

"Yet not what I will, but what you will."

The prayer of all prayers. Complete surrender wrapped in honest agony.

He returned to find them sleeping. "Simon, are you asleep? Couldn't you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

He went away and prayed the same thing again. Returned. Found them sleeping again—they did not know what to say to him. A third time he prayed. A third time they slept.

Finally: "Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"

The garden's silence shattered. Torches flickered through the trees. The hour had arrived.