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Then Jesus went to a garden called Gethsemane with His disciples. He told His disciples to “sit here while I go a little further to pray.” He had lately prayed with them; and now He instructed them to withdraw while He went to His Father to pray. His example tells us that our praying with our families and friends does not excuse our neglect of secret worship. He took with Him Peter, and James, and John, three competent witnesses of this part of His humiliation. He was not ashamed that they should see. These three had boasted most of their ability and willingness to suffer with Him.

In this garden, Jesus begins to offer His own body - His own life - a lamb without spot, for the sin of the world. Here, being in agony, He fell upon His face, accommodating Himself to His present humiliation. Luke observes, Luke 22:43-44, that there appeared unto Him an angel from heaven strengthening Him; and that, being in agony, His sweat was like great drops of blood falling to the ground. The agony He was in caused excruciating anxiety and torture of soul.

He began to be sorrowful. He made a sad complaint stating that “my soul is exceeding sorrowful.” He fully knew the malignity of the sins He was to suffer for; and having the highest degree of love to God, who was offended by them, and of love to man, who was damaged and endangered by them, His soul was exceeding sorrowful.

He cried out to God, “O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not as I will but as You will.” He exhibits resignation to suffer whatever may be required to accomplish God’s will. The humanity of Christ most evidently appears here for it was His humanity alone that could suffer; and if it did not appear that He had felt these sufferings, it would have been a presumption that He had not suffered, and consequently made no atonement. And had He not appeared to have been perfectly resigned in these sufferings, His sacrifice could not have been a free-will but a constrained offering, and therefore of no use to the salvation of mankind.

Soon thereafter, our Lord Jesus was seized by the officers of the chief priests. This was what His enemies had long aimed at, they had often sent to take Him; but He had escaped out of their hands, because His hour was not come, nor could they now have taken Him, had He not freely surrendered Himself. He began first, in the garden, to suffer in His soul, and afterward suffered in His body on the Cross for our sins, so that He would enter death as the divine Son of God, and would destroy the last enemy, which is death itself.