Jesus in Gethsemane

1921

Rev. William Bishop Gates, preaching in the First Presbyterian church last night at the second of the services being held each night during Holy Week, chose for his text, "The Cup Which the Father Hath Given Me, Shall I Not Drink It?" John 18:11. His theme was "Jesus in Gethsemane." He said in part: "George Matheson, that blind preacher of Edinboro, has deeper insight than other people into spiritual things because he is blind. I bring to you tonight some of his thoughts taken from one of his volumes 'Studies in the Portrait of Christ.'

"Gethsemane was Jesus' suppressed Hour. His grief had been long repressed. At last his sorrow broke forth. His work on earth was done and it is when work is done that sorrows assert themselves.

"Overwhelming grief expresses itself sometimes in numbness and stony apathy; sometimes in rebellion, the sorrow being diverted into anger; sometimes in a torrent of expression in which the sorrow finds outward play. This last was the sort of sorrow that overwhelmed Jesus in Gethsemane, as he cried out: 'If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.'

"What was 'the cup?' Surely something connected with his death. It was not mere recoil from physical death. Jesus whose soul was steeped in the thought of immortality, and who had just raised Lazarus from the dead could not fear physical death, nor was it physical pain. If hundreds have gone to the stake in serene confidence for Jesus' sake, surely the 'Captain of our Salvation' would not blanche at physical pain. Nothing personal could have brought such agony to Jesus. What He shrank from was not His share in the cup of suffering, but THE WORLD'S share. Jesus' life had revealed the infinite possibilities of righteousness. What awful unrighteousness on the part of man His murder at their hands would reveal. To kill him was to trample the love of the Father under foot. It meant the death not of a man but the death of purity, holiness, justice, mercy and love. Jesus felt himself standing alone in Gethsemane. There was no other who could breathe the divine air that He breathed. They were about to kill Him who had brought this divine air to the world. He was standing alone. It was the cry for communion with the world that Jesus uttered, — with the world which ought to have had but had not, appreciation and love for Him who brought the revelation that He brought."

—Olean Evening Herald, Olean, NY, March 22, 1921, p. 5.