Canter Bridge

It is probably impossible for us credibly to imagine Jesus’ solitude in the garden called Gethsemane.

As his heart and mind writhed in agony before his impending execution and the lived experience of abandonment by his Father, his friends, too, deserted him for sleep.

And Jesus withdrew from (his disciples) about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.’ (Luke 22:41–42 ESV)

Speaking of things impenetrable, there is also unfathomable power in the word ‘nevertheless’, joining as it does two contrary sentiments that in combination would remake the world. English ‘nevertheless’ burdens the thing with four syllables, rendering it on the surface more complicated than the brutal contest of the moment actually was. Greek πλήν aligns sound with meaning, similar to the less elegant but suitably rustic ‘But’. There is little time for baroque eloquence when sweat is dropping like blood from an anguished man’s face.

Jesus’ poignant, ‘Father, if you are willing …’ is met with heaven’s silence. Night’s tranquility in Gethsemane is perhaps gently rustled by an angel who according to Luke the chronicler comes to strengthen Jesus, but heaven does not otherwise respond. Jesus’ friends trouble the quiet only with their snoring.

He is alone.

Was there some right of refusal in the agreement that would lead this Son of God to die for the lot of us, as his earliest followers assure us he did? Might he have insisted on some other way, free of dereliction and pain?

Perhaps. The logic of redemption seems to require a willing Jesus, walking toward his death with eyes wide open, his purpose aligned with the unfolding of heaven’s script. Jesus’ own will, counterposed to another by the words ‘not my will, but yours’, must become subjugated to a greater though mysterious purpose if redemption was to proceed.

Possibly humanity stood nearer than we can comprehend to its own abandonment, indeed its extinction, as Jesus came to the end of his fateful negotiation: ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.’

‘Nevertheless …’

Has creation ever known a more meaningful pivot than this?

Another biblical writer would explain to us that Jesus, ‘for the joy set before him, endured the cross’. There is cold, hard calculation in that. No wonder his sweat turned crimson.

Christian martyrs in Libya have even in these days tasted something of that turning. Gethsemane’s terrifying silence was for a moment made their own.

Then joy.