The Conflict in Gethsemane.
I. The place of the conflict calls for a brief notice. Gethsemane is now only a name for one of the booths in Vanity Fair. There are two rival Gethsemanes, and rival guides wrangle about the truth of this and that local identification. One place, called the true Gethsemane, is walled round by the Latins. Another, a little more to the north, is walled round by the Greeks; both enclosures being under lock and key. The New Testament lends no help to enquiries that have reference to sanctity of places.
II. The story of this conflict. (1) Its intensity is the first fact in the story that strikes us. (2) This awful inward conflict was in a scene of outward peace. (3) The conflict wrung from the Saviour a great cry: "O, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." We have a glimpse here of the conflict carried on by Christ for us, single-handed.(4) We see that under all the sorrows of the Man of Sorrows, in this night of conflict, there was tender personal thought about His disciples.
III. The sleep of the disciples while this conflict was going on. While the Lord's great cry rang they were dropping asleep. On three occasions He came back from His own terrible post, that He might see how they were faring at theirs, and on these occasions He found them asleep. "Couldest not thou watch one hour?" He had only asked Peter and his associates to watch. As a true man, He longed to have at least their sympathy, though He would not have their cooperative work. In your measure you know the feeling. "The spirit, indeed, is willing; but the flesh is weak." There was tender remonstrance, but not severe reproof. The sleep of the disciples has been cited as a sign of indifference; but it was treated by Jesus only as a symptom of mortality. In the case of excessive sorrow and care, the immense fatigue demands the enormous sleep. There is no master so merciful as He, no friend who makes such allowances. This quick apology of love for weakness is set on record for all who need it; and we, ashamed of our slumbers, and alarmed at our deadness of soul to things tremendous, may sometimes be kept from despondency by these words of Christ golden words to be hidden in our most sacred treasury.
C. Stanford, Evening of Our Lord's Ministry,p. 171.
References: Matthew 26:36. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xii., No. 693; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year,p. 199; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 215.