Garden of Gethsemane

Garden of Gethsemane Prayer

Garden of Gethsemane is where Jesus sweated blood, where Judas betrayed innocent blood, and where Peter drew blood. Where exactly is Garden of Gethsemane and what is it like today? Did Jesus really sweat blood, and if so, why?

Garden of Gethsemane is located just east of Jerusalem across the Kidron Valley, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. This garden (first century gardens served an economic purpose) is where olives from the Mount of Olives were pressed into oil; "Gethsemane" is derived from the Hebrew words "gat," which means "a place for pressing," and "shemanim," meaning "oils").

This small relief sculpture, found inside the Garden of Gethsemane, depicts Jesus praying in agony in Gethsemane the night that He was betrayed:

"And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground." (Luke 22:44)

Did Jesus really sweat blood?

Arteries can and do rupture when a person is under great stress. Examples include heart attacks and strokes but also "hematohidrosis," in which the arterioles surrounding sweat glands rupture, leaking blood into the sweat glands. When the resulting mixture of blood and sweat excrete through the sweat pores, the appearance is red, "like great drops of blood."

Why was Jesus so stressed?

The typical answer is that Jesus knew and agonized over the physical pains of flogging and crucifixion that awaited Him the next day. Thirty-nine lashes with the Roman flagellum, a whip with imbedded metal and bone fragments will shred His back. Thorns will dig into the crown of His head, and large nails will puncture His wrists, crushing the ulnar nerve, and His feet. Once the cross was tilted vertical, both of His shoulders will dislocate from gravity, and He will push up and down on His legs to move His diaphragm to breath, rubbing his shredded back against the rough wood of the cross for six hours until death.

During its Inquisition, Roman Catholics often roasted Christians over fire for longer than six hours for their refusal to pledge allegiance to the Pope. Many of those Christians died while praising Jesus and even singing hymns to Him. Dying on the cross was painful, but being slow roasted over fire arguably was even more painful. If Jesus sweated blood over the physical pain of dying on the cross, He would have had some explaining to do to His followers who sang their way through even more painful physical deaths.

Then why was Jesus so stressed? The Bible says that there was a cup that He didn't want to drink: And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." (Luke 22:41-42)

What was in the cup?

Instead of a tea cup, imagine a giant trophy cup, the type awarded to winners of Formula One car races. Walk up to it spit into it all of the gross things you have done in your life, and have millions of other people do likewise until the cup is full.

Jesus, who is sinless, was being asked to drink all of this liquid filth so that He becomes not just "full of sin," but sin itself: "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21) It would have been perplexing if Jesus hadn't been utterly revolted, to the extent of sweating blood, at this prospect. But there's something else.

Since the beginning of eternity, God the Son - Jesus - had always been in union with God the Father. That union needed to be interrupted when Jesus drinks the cup, lest the Father also becomes sin. Jesus' abhorrence of being separated from the Father is attested to by His bloody sweat, as well as His heartbroken cry from the cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34)

If you are Christian, are you as revolted by your sins as Jesus was? And do you abhor doing things apart from God?

Travel Tip
Today, Gethsemane is a Catholic monastery with a small garden of eight olive trees, including a few that are claimed to be 2,000 years old and still bear olives (Olive trees are resilient plants. After a couple of centuries, they stop bearing olives and wither. But if the withered branches are broken or cut away, new branches sprout and the tree starts to bear olives again. One olive tree in Magliano in Italy's Tuscany region is touted to be 3,500 years old).

More dubious is the large flat rock in the middle of the monastery on which, according to the friar in charge of the monastery, Jesus prayed on that fateful night. When pressed for Biblical evidence of Jesus having prayed on that rock or any other rock, the good friar conceded that that detail had been added by his tradition.

The last chapter of the Bible ends with a stern warming about adding to the Bible: "For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." (Revelation 22:18-19)

To get to Gethsemane on foot, exit Old Jerusalem eastward via Stephen's Gate, and then simply walk down to and across the Kidron Valley. If coming by taxi and visiting Mount of Olives as well, getting off at the top of the Mount and walking down will be easier on your legs than getting off at the bottom and hiking up.