Mark 14:32-42
Take This Cup From Me
32Then they came to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus told His disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”
33He took with Him Peter, James, and John, and began to be deeply troubled and distressed.
34Then He said to them, “My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch.”
35Going a little farther, He fell to the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour would pass from Him.
36“Abba, Father,” He said, “all things are possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will.”
37Then Jesus returned and found them sleeping. “Simon, are you asleep?” He asked. “Were you not able to keep watch for one hour?
38Watch and pray so that you will not enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
39Again He went away and prayed, saying the same thing.
40And again Jesus returned and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And they did not know what to answer Him.
41When Jesus returned the third time, He said, “Are you still sleeping and resting? That is enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
42Rise, let us go. See, My betrayer is approaching!”
Berean Standard Bible
They come to an olive grove called Gethsemane. He leaves most of them at the edge and takes three farther in, Peter and James and John, the same three who were in the room when a dead girl got up and walked and who saw his clothes go white on the mountain. They have seen more than the others, and they are the ones he wants near him.
Then Mark says something about Jesus that the other accounts handle more gently: he began to be deeply troubled and distressed. Then Jesus puts it into his own words, to three friends standing in the dark.
My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch.
He is telling them the grief is heavy enough to kill him, and asking them to stay awake. He goes on a little farther and falls to the ground. Mark does not write that he knelt. He prays that if it were possible the hour would pass from him. Abba, Father, he says, and then this.
all things are possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will.
Abba is the first thing in that prayer. Mark keeps the word Jesus used and then gives the meaning of it, and it is the ordinary family word a small child uses for a father. In the worst hour of his life he reaches for the name a child uses.
The cup is the second, and that word carries a history. In the prophets the cup in God's hand is the cup of his anger, and the people who drink it are the ones under judgment. Isaiah calls it the cup that makes men stagger. Jeremiah is handed it and told to make the nations drink. A psalm has the LORD pouring from his cup and the wicked draining it to the dregs. So the request is not about pain in general. He is asking about that cup.
Two of the men asleep behind him had been asked whether they could drink his cup, and had said we can. He comes back three times and finds them sleeping, and the second time they do not know what to answer him. He wakes Peter with the name he came with rather than the one he was given, asking Simon if he is asleep.
The scene does not end in collapse. He says the hour has come and tells them to get up.
Rise, let us go.
He gets to his feet and walks toward the man who is coming to hand him over. The praying is over, and he is the one moving.
How We Know
Verse 36 keeps one Aramaic word: Abba, with Father beside it. That doubling is in the sentence Jesus speaks rather than in one of Mark's explanatory asides, which is how Talitha koum and Ephphatha are handled.
Paul keeps the same word untranslated in two different letters. Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6 both have believers crying out Abba, Father, written to churches in Rome and Galatia who did not speak Aramaic.
A single foreign word preserved by two writers, in three documents, for readers who needed it translated, strongly supports it having been fixed in Christian use very early. Neither Mark nor Paul explains why it was kept.
Questions
1 When something you dread is coming, do you tell anybody about it or keep it to yourself? What does Jesus do here?
AnswerHe takes three friends with him, tells them his soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death, and asks them to stay near. Then he goes a little way off and says the same thing to his Father.
2 What does his body do while he prays?
AnswerHe falls to the ground. Mark does not say that he knelt or that he bowed. Then he asks for the hour to pass from him, and he calls God by the name a small child uses at home.
3 What is the cup he asks to have taken away?
AnswerIn the prophets it is the cup in God's hand, full of his anger, and the ones who drink it are the guilty. Isaiah calls it the cup that makes men stagger. So the request is about more than pain. Jeremiah is handed the same cup and told to make the nations drink from it.
4 How does the scene end?
AnswerNot in a collapse. He says the hour has come, gets up off the ground, and walks toward the man who is on his way to hand him over. Nobody drags him anywhere.
What This Means for Us
He asked to be let off, and the answer was no.
Somebody here has prayed a prayer that got the same answer and has quietly wondered since whether the prayer itself was a mistake. His was not. He asked his Father plainly for what he wanted, his Father said no, and the two of them were not at odds about it.
His sentence comes in an order. He asks first and he submits second, and he does not skip the asking in order to get to the brave part.
Whatever this house is carrying tonight, both halves are allowed. Ask for it to be taken away. Then get up and go.
Prayer
Father, thank you that your Son asked. Thank you that he said out loud he did not want it, and that you did not think less of him for asking. When the answer is no, give us what you gave him: the strength to get up and keep walking. Amen.