The Agony In The Garden

[NihilObstatINRI]

This is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful scenes of the Bible. Sin and death entered the world through Adam in the Garden of Eden, the bright and perfect garden, and now all sin will be conquered through Christ, the new Adam, in the garden of Gethsemane, which is dark and unwelcoming.
The three, Peter James and John, are seen to represent the temptation we all have towards lukewarmness. We take small steps of spiritual progress and are tempted to look at it as “good enough”. It never is. We can never do enough for our God. When we look at our own efforts as good enough, we too fall asleep. Worse still, we have already been called to stay awake by our Lord. “Stay you here, and watch with me.” “Pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” In the face of Jesus’ constant reminders to keep watch, we still fall back into lukewarm contentedness and cease to look upon the suffering of our God. We refuse to look at our own sin, which has been taken entirely into Christ, and instead we close our eyes and exist only for ourselves. Even when He comes and wakes us up, we still do not listen.
Yet, this is precisely why Jesus came. He came so that He could wake us up time after time after time. On our own, we slumber in death and darkness, but Jesus has taken that to Himself so that we, if we choose to follow Him, can wake up and keep watch.

This suffering of Jesus in the garden is recalled again only in His Passion which is to come shortly. Christ’s human nature is tormented by the suffering that He knows he must endure. He too does not want to suffer, but unlike us who avoid our trials, Jesus embraced His because it was the will of the Father.
Jesus at this point experiences the entire suffering of humanity, and takes it all into Himself. He takes all the sin and pain and betrayal and brokenness into His own soul to that He can allow us to overcome it with Him.
In Pope Benedict’s new volume of Jesus of Nazareth, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, the Holy Father goes into great depth regarding the parallels between the prayer of Jesus and the Psalms. Every word of Jesus is in fulfillment of the Old Testament, and His prayers perfect the Psalms that until that point had been only pointing towards He that would come.
Benedict says that the fear Christ experiences is “the primordial fear of created nature in the face of imminent death, and yet there is more: the particular horror felt by him who is Life itself before the abyss of the full power of destruction, evil, and enmity with God that is now unleashed upon him, that he now takes directly upon himself, or rather into himself, to the point that he is “made to be sin” (cf. 2 Cor 5:21).”
Since Jesus Christ is God, He sees and experiences the evil of our world in its entirety, through all time, at this one moment, and He experiences it not only in its entirety, but also with more perfect clarity than we can ever know, and more than we could ever experience. It is necessary that He must experience this totality of sin and death, that He may conquer it in His sacrifice.
The sins of every last member of Creation is felt individually at that very moment by our Lord. Every single failing and turning away and rejection is felt in all its depraved horror, and yet He took it willingly, knowing that He did so to redeem us. He did so out of unimaginable love for us, totally in spite of our constant failures, because we belong to Him.

I wrote more reflections on the Agony in the Garden, and posted them at this link. In addition to this, I also write about how the Agony in the Garden clearly recalls the Hypostatic Union. I have taken many of my ideas from Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, and reflected on them, putting them into my own words so that I might impress upon myself what they mean for my in my own life.

 

[Crumpy]

I’m beset with caffeine-induced insomnia at 3:30 a.m.

I can’t offer a scriptural insight on the agony. Some memory comes back to me that the night of Passover was to be a night of watching and waiting. I don’t remember what that waiting and watching is for, in the tradition.

Ironically, the blood of the lamb splattered on the doorpost was supposed to spare the residents from the plague of the death of the first borns, but Jesus is splattered with His own blood, and is selected as the victim, when the mob of soldiers comes seatching.

Scripture has a lot of anthropomorphic statements about God - walking in the garden of Eden, and many other things. But, here we see something way beyond anthropomorphic depictions,we see God actually suffering because of our sins.

In the Act of Contrition, we acknowledge that our sins offend God. Beyond that – this is just a personal opinion of mine – God actually suffers on account of our sins. We witness it in the Agony in the Garden and more largely in the Passion. Our sins are the stripes from the lash. our sins are the thorns of the crown, and our sins are the nails piercing His flesh. God suffers, more than merely anthropomorphic figures of speech.

 

[NihilObstatINRI]

The current thing I’m trying to figure out is the connection between the Transfiguration and the Agony. I notice that only Peter James and John are present at each, and I can’t imagine that being simply accidental. However I’m not sure what the connection is right now.

 

[RSD]

The current thing I’m trying to figure out is the connection between the Transfiguration and the Agony. I notice that only Peter James and John are present at each, and I can’t imagine that being simply accidental. However I’m not sure what the connection is right now.

It took me a long time to understand this, but I finally got that the Transfiguration is actually not a Transfiguration of Christ- He is what He has always been. It is a Transfiguration of how Peter, James and John were able to see Him. Could that have a connection with the Agony in the Garden, where Jesus is in a different way revealing himself?

 

[NihilObstatINRI]

It took me a long time to understand this, but I finally got that the Transfiguration is actually not a Transfiguration of Christ- He is what He has always been. It is a Transfiguration of how Peter, James and John were able to see Him. Could that have a connection with the Agony in the Garden, where Jesus is in a different way revealing himself?

I think that must be part of it. One possibility I came up with yesterday is that it was easier for the three (representing humanity) to see Jesus as God, than it was for them to see Him as man, and suffering. They didn’t want to see the suffering.
However, that’s sort of beside the point of the Transfiguration, and your idea is definitely a good start.
It’s definitely more of a revealing than a transforming. Jesus was always God.

 

[Crumpy]

Fidelis has a thread on last Sunday’s readings which includes the transfiguration.

I related an insight that was published in our church bulletin by the pastor, and he points out that while Moses and Elijah are present, talking with Jesus, the Theophany of the voice says (obviously to Peter, James, and John) to listen to HIM. Jesus is the new law and the new prophet.

So, that would be a change in Peter, James, and John, if they got the upshot of that startling incident.

So, the divine voice says to listen to HIM, and then Jesus says to say nothing about this until after the resurrection (if I recall correctly).

I don’t have the New Testament studied enough to see exactly what happens to them and if they teach this new emphasis. In the first place, I think they have to wait until Pentecost, to be energized to start preaching.

Exactly. Why is this for just Peter,James, and John?

 

[NihilObstatINRI]

Fidelis has a thread on last Sunday’s readings which includes the transfiguration.

I related an insight that was published in our church bulletin by the pastor, and he points out that while Moses and Elijah are present, talking with Jesus, the Theophany of the voice says (obviously to Peter, James, and John) to listen to HIM. Jesus is the new law and the new prophet.

So, that would be a change in Peter, James, and John, if they got the upshot of that startling incident.

So, the divine voice says to listen to HIM, and then Jesus says to say nothing about this until after the resurrection (if I recall correctly).

I don’t have the New Testament studied enough to see exactly what happens to them and if they teach this new emphasis. In the first place, I think they have to wait until Pentecost, to be energized to start preaching.

Exactly. Why is this for just Peter,James, and John?

Thinking about that leads me to think of one possible link to the Garden… On the mountain during the Transfiguration, the three apostles are told to listen to Jesus. Then in Gethsemane Jesus tells them to stay awake, yet they do not.
It was easy for them to stay awake and keep watch during their ‘consolation’, when they see Jesus as God at the Transfiguration, but they fall asleep and turn away in the Garden, when they are tested spiritually, where sin and hell are present with them.

Still, I don’t think I’m quite getting it. That may be the first link, but I know there must be something deeper than brings it all together.

 

[Crumpy]

The current thing I’m trying to figure out is the connection between the Transfiguration and the Agony. I notice that only Peter James and John are present at each, and I can’t imagine that being simply accidental. However I’m not sure what the connection is right now.

I managed to read a little bit of Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Bible before falling asleep and he makes the simple observation that this experience is given to them so that they may be better prepared to witness and to understand the agony in the garden and the subsequent events.

I’ve been looking through the scriptures to see if they mentioned it, something that they shouldn’t forget, I’d say, but I haven’t found it yet.

 

[ignatius777]

This is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful scenes of the Bible. Sin and death entered the world through Adam in the Garden of Eden, the bright and perfect garden, and now all sin will be conquered through Christ, the new Adam, in the garden of Gethsemane, which is dark and unwelcoming.
The three, Peter James and John, are seen to represent the temptation we all have towards lukewarmness. We take small steps of spiritual progress and are tempted to look at it as “good enough”. It never is. We can never do enough for our God. When we look at our own efforts as good enough, we too fall asleep. Worse still, we have already been called to stay awake by our Lord. “Stay you here, and watch with me.” “Pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” In the face of Jesus’ constant reminders to keep watch, we still fall back into lukewarm contentedness and cease to look upon the suffering of our God. We refuse to look at our own sin, which has been taken entirely into Christ, and instead we close our eyes and exist only for ourselves. Even when He comes and wakes us up, we still do not listen.
Yet, this is precisely why Jesus came. He came so that He could wake us up time after time after time. On our own, we slumber in death and darkness, but Jesus has taken that to Himself so that we, if we choose to follow Him, can wake up and keep watch.

This suffering of Jesus in the garden is recalled again only in His Passion which is to come shortly. Christ’s human nature is tormented by the suffering that He knows he must endure. He too does not want to suffer, but unlike us who avoid our trials, Jesus embraced His because it was the will of the Father.
Jesus at this point experiences the entire suffering of humanity, and takes it all into Himself. He takes all the sin and pain and betrayal and brokenness into His own soul to that He can allow us to overcome it with Him.
In Pope Benedict’s new volume of Jesus of Nazareth, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, the Holy Father goes into great depth regarding the parallels between the prayer of Jesus and the Psalms. Every word of Jesus is in fulfillment of the Old Testament, and His prayers perfect the Psalms that until that point had been only pointing towards He that would come.
Benedict says that the fear Christ experiences is “the primordial fear of created nature in the face of imminent death, and yet there is more: the particular horror felt by him who is Life itself before the abyss of the full power of destruction, evil, and enmity with God that is now unleashed upon him, that he now takes directly upon himself, or rather into himself, to the point that he is “made to be sin” (cf. 2 Cor 5:21).”
Since Jesus Christ is God, He sees and experiences the evil of our world in its entirety, through all time, at this one moment, and He experiences it not only in its entirety, but also with more perfect clarity than we can ever know, and more than we could ever experience. It is necessary that He must experience this totality of sin and death, that He may conquer it in His sacrifice.
The sins of every last member of Creation is felt individually at that very moment by our Lord. Every single failing and turning away and rejection is felt in all its depraved horror, and yet He took it willingly, knowing that He did so to redeem us. He did so out of unimaginable love for us, totally in spite of our constant failures, because we belong to Him.

I wrote more reflections on the Agony in the Garden, and posted them at this link. In addition to this, I also write about how the Agony in the Garden clearly recalls the Hypostatic Union. I have taken many of my ideas from Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, and reflected on them, putting them into my own words so that I might impress upon myself what they mean for my in my own life.

The transfiguration is more related to Jesus baptism then the agony in the garden. Look for similar vereses in each telling.

 

[NihilObstatINRI]

The transfiguration is more related to Jesus baptism then the agony in the garden. Look for similar vereses in each telling.

The parallels are definitely closer and that’s a far easier connection to see. However, I simply cannot see it as a coincidence that the same three apostles were there for each, rather than all of them.

 

[ignatius777]

The parallels are definitely closer and that’s a far easier connection to see. However, I simply cannot see it as a coincidence that the same three apostles were there for each, rather than all of them.

No of course its not a coincidence. Nothing in the bible is. The bible is intended by God to reveal a truth about Him and His realtionship with us that He wants us to know. Reflect on each of them, who they are and what they go on to do and what does that reveal about the relationship God wants to have with us.

 

[NihilObstatINRI]

No of course its not a coincidence. Nothing in the bible is. The bible is intended by God to reveal a truth about Him and His realtionship with us that He wants us to know. Reflect on each of them, who they are and what they go on to do and what does that reveal about the relationship God wants to have with us.

This is exactly my point. There’s something to be learned by their presents (and theirs alone). However, since their presence is associated with two very specific and very important events, I have to see the events themselves being linked in that way.

 

[ignatius777]

This is exactly my point. There’s something to be learned by their presents (and theirs alone). However, since their presence is associated with two very specific and very important events, I have to see the events themselves being linked in that way.

So what does your reflection on their involvement in these specific events reveal to you about what God wants you to know about Him?

 

[NihilObstatINRI]

So what does your reflection on their involvement in these specific events reveal to you about what God wants you to know about Him?

I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. Did you read my entire article? It might give you broader context. In the specific instances we’re talking about, I have to assume that the three apostles are standing in for humanity in general, and therefore each individual personally. We should see ourselves in them and as them. So we have to conclude in that sense that we are to learn from their reactions which are presented as in need to purification in the Person of Christ.
However, I am currently trying to understand the deeper connection between the Agony in the Garden and the Transfiguration.
It’s easy enough to look at each in isolation and thereby see certain lessons about Christ and ourselves, however in a much deeper sense we have to look at the entire New Testament as an integrated whole. In that second sense I’m currently having trouble making that deeper connection because I’m not quite seeing in my own mind what links the Garden and the Transfiguration besides the presence of the three apostles.
As I said earlier, my assumption is that it lies in the Divine nature of Christ and the human nature, with the Divine nature more visible during the Transfiguration, and the human nature more visible (to humanity) in the Garden of Gethsemane. However this is still not a very deep explanation and I don’t think it does the events justice.

 

[Guitarjesus7]

Growing up Mormon, I was always taught differently about what happened in the garden (of course me being catholic now changes my belief on this a bit). The lds church teaches that in the garden, Jesus Christ physically took the sins of the world into himself, and the intensity of doing so was so great that it caused him to bleed from every pore. When Christ cried out “father, why has thou forsaken me?” it was because he was full of our sins. When he later died on the cross, the sin died with his physical death, and then the ressurection shows the final step in Christ atoning (and ultimately destroying) our sins. I dunno, just thought I’d share a different perspective. It makes a lot of sense, as compared to the “christ dying to satisfy Satan” theories and such.

 

[NihilObstatINRI]

Growing up Mormon, I was always taught differently about what happened in the garden (of course me being catholic now changes my belief on this a bit). The lds church teaches that in the garden, Jesus Christ physically took the sins of the world into himself, and the intensity of doing so was so great that it caused him to bleed from every pore. When Christ cried out “father, why has thou forsaken me?” it was because he was full of our sins. When he later died on the cross, the sin died with his physical death, and then the ressurection shows the final step in Christ atoning (and ultimately destroying) our sins. I dunno, just thought I’d share a different perspective. It makes a lot of sense, as compared to the “christ dying to satisfy Satan” theories and such.

Well it is true that He takes all sin into himself. The Pope himself talks about this in his book. That’s what makes His suffering so much more than simply human suffering.
However, a physical conception of sin… seems almost dualist to me. Sin is not a physical object, and it can’t die, so to speak. Am I understanding correctly?

 

[ignatius777]

I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. Did you read my entire article? It might give you broader context. In the specific instances we’re talking about, I have to assume that the three apostles are standing in for humanity in general, and therefore each individual personally. We should see ourselves in them and as them. So we have to conclude in that sense that we are to learn from their reactions which are presented as in need to purification in the Person of Christ.
However, I am currently trying to understand the deeper connection between the Agony in the Garden and the Transfiguration.
It’s easy enough to look at each in isolation and thereby see certain lessons about Christ and ourselves, however in a much deeper sense we have to look at the entire New Testament as an integrated whole. In that second sense I’m currently having trouble making that deeper connection because I’m not quite seeing in my own mind what links the Garden and the Transfiguration besides the presence of the three apostles.
As I said earlier, my assumption is that it lies in the Divine nature of Christ and the human nature, with the Divine nature more visible during the Transfiguration, and the human nature more visible (to humanity) in the Garden of Gethsemane. However this is still not a very deep explanation and I don’t think it does the events justice.

This is my point exactly. You seek an answer from a place where it is not availabe, us. Prayer and reflection will reveal it to you. If for right now all you see is the 3 apostles that are common between them then reflect on that and ask God to reveal more to you

 

[NihilObstatINRI]

This is my point exactly. You seek an answer from a place where it is not availabe, us. Prayer and reflection will reveal it to you. If for right now all you see is the 3 apostles that are common between them then reflect on that and ask God to reveal more to you

You are incorrect. I’m looking for the answer in Scripture, and even though it is obviously there, my mind is not grasping it right now. It may never do so, but my understanding is a gift from God.
Why do you try to judge my intentions? This is very insulting.

 

[ignatius777]

You are incorrect. I’m looking for the answer in Scripture, and even though it is obviously there, my mind is not grasping it right now. It may never do so, but my understanding is a gift from God.
Why do you try to judge my intentions? This is very insulting.

I am not judging your intentions whatsoever and its quite insulting to have you accuse me of such a thing. I have simply suggested that you pray and ask God to reveal things to you. I wish you all the best in your serach for whatever it is you are seeking.

Peace to you

 

[NihilObstatINRI]

I am not judging your intentions whatsoever and its quite insulting to have you accuse me of such a thing. I have simply suggested that you pray and ask God to reveal things to you. I wish you all the best in your serach for whatever it is you are seeking.

Peace to you

You said specifically that I was seeking answers in myself. That was a judgement of my intentions, and inappropriate, because you cannot know where I look for the answers I seek.