Secrets of Gethsemane

Secrets of Gethsemane

Immediately after the Last Supper, Jesus and his friends walked about a half mile outside the city walls to the Garden of Gethsemane located at the foot of the Mount of Olives. On that first Holy Thursday night, he went there to pray as was his custom but that night was different. The choice Jesus made in that garden changed everything!

As archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “Eden and Gethsemane were the two gardens around which revolved the fate of humanity."

He chose Gethsemane for two reasons:

1. Because it was a beautiful garden reminiscent of Eden and Jesus was there to begin a reversal what the first Adam had done in Eden.

2. Because it was at Gethsemane (which means 'olive press') where olives were crushed to extract olive oil and now where Jesus would be crushed by sin so much that sweaty blood would exude from his body. 

New Garden - New Adam

“Christ’s whole life is a mystery of recapitulation. All Jesus did, said, and suffered had for its aim of restoring fallen man to his original vocation.” -Saint Irenaeus 

“What we had lost in Adam, that is, being in the image and likeness of God, we might recover in Christ Jesus" -CCC 518

The scriptures confirm that Jesus is the New Adam whose choice made in a garden affects everyone... 

“For if by that one person’s transgressions the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one person Jesus Christ overflow for the many. In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all.” -Romans 5:15-21

It was at the tree in the middle of the Garden that the first Adam gave into temptation and brought about our demise. Jesus too went toward the middle of a garden. He advanced a little and fell to the ground. He began to be troubled and distressed. Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch.” -Mt 26:38

At the height of his agitation, he prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass by him, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.” -Mk 14:36.

Crushed like an Olive

In submitting to the Father’s will against the temptation to run from the cup of suffering, Jesus reverses or recapitulates Adam’s fall. In Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ, it is here that Jesus stomps on the head of the encroaching serpent. This was to fulfill the promise of Genesis 3:15 that Jesus, crushed by the weight of the world's sins, would in turn crush the head of the serpent. 

Was there a physical sign of the crushing of the Savior's soul?

Yes. The word, 'Gethsemane' is our first clue. It literally translates to ‘olive press’. Jesus prayed surrounded by old, twisted and gnarled olive trees. There would have been a millstone and a press nearby where the olives, after having been harvested, would be crushed to extract the olive oil. 

According to Luke, a physician, it was recorded that Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood: “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” -Luke 22:44. Medical experts have called this strange phenomenon, hematidrosis. The sweating of blood happens sometimes when people are undergoing extreme mental stress.

"From the North, South, East, and West, the foul miasma of the world’s sins rushed upon Him like a flood; Samson-like, He reached up and pulled the whole guilt of the world upon Himself as if he were guilty, paying for the debt in our name, so that we might once more have access to the Father"-Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

What could be more extreme than having the weight of the world’s sins pouring down on him? Jesus’ soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. This is why it is called the ‘agony in the garden’ and not just the 'sorrow' or 'fear in the garden'.

At the meal he just had that evening, he identified the bread with His Body and the wine with His Blood. Now, in this olive orchard through his strange sweaty and bloody anguish filled prayer. Jesus identified his whole being in a mystical way with the olives which hung on trees around him. Instead of being plucked from a tree and then crushed, Jesus, the fruit of Mary's womb, was first crushed like an olive and then hung on a tree.

In the self-emptying or kenosis of Jesus and i n experiencing this episode of hematidrosis, our Lord is teaching all of us that we must pour ourselves out and experience a death to self. This self-emptying calls for an alignment of our wills to the will of the Father. Jesus showed us what it looked like and he even gave us a prayer to help us, "Lord, not my will but your will be done."