Gethsemane and Calvary

Most Christians believe that Jesus’ suffering for the sins of the world took place only on the cross.  To them, the cross has become the symbol of His grace.  Latter-day Saints understand that His suffering began in the Garden of Gethsemane and ended on the cross.

The word Gethsemane is a clue in itself, and I do not believe it was by accident that Jesus went there to pray the night before His death. Nothing He ever did was coincidental.  The word Gethsemane means olive press.  It was so named because of the olive presses that did and – so I understand – still do exist in the garden.  I’ve never seen olive oil being pressed, but I have listened to those who have.  The olives are ground to a pulp under large stone wheels.  The olive mash is then placed into the press where a heavy stone presses down with such force that oil and water are extruded from the olive mash and run out through an opening in the bottom of the press into a collecting trough.  Those who have seen it firsthand say that the first liquid to come through is a deep, blood red and that it will stain anything it touches. 

 

I believe that the symbolism of the olive press is a description of Christ’s suffering when the weight of the sins of the world pressed down on a sinless man.  Let me walk you through the Biblical account and then follow up with the Book of Mormon and modern-day revelation.

Prophesying about the atonement, the Psalmist wrote: “I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none. . .” (Psalm 69:20).  The first thing Matthew tells us is that as Jesus goes deeper into the garden with Peter, James, and John, He said that He felt “sorrowful and very heavy . . . exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death . . .” (Matthew 26: 37-38).

Mark also tells us that Jesus felt very heavy, but he also said that Jesus “began to be sore amazed . . .” (Mark 14:33).  Jesus had known from before the foundations of the world that He would suffer for the sins of the world.  But as the weight of that awful burden began to press down upon Him, I think He was sore amazed.  He was a sinless man.  He had known grief and sorrow, but never the tormenting grief of sin.

Mark also tells us that Jesus “went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed . . .” (Mark 14:35).  The Greek verbs translated as went, fell, and prayed are in the imperfect tense describing, not an action that happened once and then stopped, but rather a series of actions that went on and on.  So Jesus went forward and fell and prayed; went forward and fell and prayed; went forward and fell and prayed. The crushing weight of the sins and sorrows of the world had to have been almost unbearable.  Only Mark tells us that, as He prayed that the bitter cup be taken from Him, He addressed His Heavenly Father as Abba – a close translation of which is daddy.  His torment must have been unfathomable.

Luke was a physician.  He gives us an insight into Jesus’ suffering in the garden that none of the other gospel writers could have.  Luke tells us that in the depth of “agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

Scholars are conflicted as to what Luke meant.  The confusion surrounds the Greek word, hos.  If the word is used as an adverb, it means Jesus sweat was like blood.  If it is used as an adjective, it means His sweat was blood. The question cannot be answered by an appeal to the Bible alone, but men have gone both ways on the issue.  Our phrases for severe stress - “sweat blood” and “blood, sweat, and tears” - certainly come from Luke’s account of Jesus’ suffering.

King Benjamin, a righteous Nephite king and prophet, wrote this about 125 years before Jesus was born:

And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.  And he shall be called . . . the Son of God . . . the Creator of all things from the beginning . . . (Mosiah 3: 7-8).

In modern revelation, Jesus Himself said that He sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.  After calling the Latter-day Saints to repentance, He told the Prophet Joseph Smith:

For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit – and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink – Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men (Doctrine and Covenants 19: 16 – 19).

Jesus bled further that same night as he was beaten severely and more than once.  These are the “stripes” with which we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).  This, too, was part of the price He paid for our sins.  Only then did He go to the cross.

Crucifixion was a brutal, painful, and shameful death.  Certainly, there was bleeding with nails driven into feet, hands, and wrists.  But its victims didn’t bleed to death.  They died from suffocation when, through shock and fatigue, their legs could no longer hold their weight and they slumped, crushing their lungs.  Men sometimes hung on the cross for days before dying.

Jesus was on the cross for six hours – from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM – before He died.  We know He was already weak from loss of blood because He said He was thirsty, a sign of low blood volume.  When He died, He did not die from the effects of the crucifixion.  He died because He gave up His life; no one took it from Him. Luke tells us that He said, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost” (Luke 23: 46).

The Jewish Sabbath would begin at 6:20 PM that year.  The three men on the crosses could not be left to hang during Sabbath so the soldiers moved to complete the executions before then.  The two thieves were still alive and the Roman soldiers broke their legs to hasten their deaths.  But when the soldier approached Jesus, He was already dead and, therefore, he did not break His legs. This fulfilled prophecy that none of His bones would be broken.  The Paschal lamb was to have no bones broken during the sacrifice (see Numbers 9:12) and the Psalmist wrote, “He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken” (Psalms 34:20).

To make sure Jesus was dead, a soldier pierced His side with his sword.  Blood and water gushed out like the virgin pressing of the olive mash and the atonement and suffering for our sins was over.

Text copyright Gebara Education 2011

Pictures from multiple sources on the web