Thursday Night: In the Garden

In Matthew and Mark, it is at the Mt. of Olives that Jesus tells Peter of how he will deny him that night. Then they go to the Garden of Gethsemane, at the base of the Mount to pray.

John does not give a place where Jesus delivers John 15-17. This discourse looks to the time after Jesus will depart and then later will return. Jesus speaks of his existence before he came to earth, of the fact that he is going back to the Father, and also that they will see him again. When Jesus goes away, he will send the Spirit to lead them in the meantime.

John 17 is of course Jesus' high priestly prayer in which he prays not only for his disciples but also for those who will later believe through their word. We are wont to think of ourselves as the ones Jesus is talking about. Surely we are in a secondary sense. But John surely has his own audience first in mind, who indeed did believe through the word of the Beloved Disciple.

In Matthew, Mark, and John, Jesus procedes to a garden. Jesus encourages his disciples to pray, but they fall asleep instead. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus prays for God to remove the cup from him. In Matthew and Mark, he finds his disciples sleeping three times.

Then Judas arrives and signals who Jesus is by greeting him with a kiss (Matthew, Mark, Luke). In John they all fall down when Jesus tells them who he is. Jesus points out that they were afraid to arrest him in public and so had to do it on the sly.

One of those with Jesus cuts off the ear of one of the slaves of the high priest (John says it was Peter). Jesus heals the ear (Luke). But then all flee.