In Matthew 26:31, Jesus somberly told the 11 disciples at the Mount of Olives that they would all desert Him that very night. He used the words of the prophet Zechariah to give the basis for this assertion: “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (cf. Zechariah 13:7). After the Father would strike His own Son (the Good Shepherd) as part of the triune God’s plan to redeem a people unto Himself, Jesus would then be raised back to life, and He would lead the way for His wayward disciples to rejoin Him in Galilee.
Peter declared with great sincerity that he would never abandon Jesus (even if the other 10 disciples did); but in this response, he demonstrated both pride and presumption. Jesus revealed to Peter that he would deny Him three times this very night, but Peter emphatically rejected Jesus’ words, promising that he would remain with Him, even unto death!
At Gethsemane, Jesus left 8 disciples seated together, and He went a short distance away with just Peter, James, and John to pray. Accompanied by these 3 disciples, Jesus’ closest friends, He began to express great personal distress as He told them how deeply grieved His soul was … to the point of death. Jesus instructed these men to watch with Him while He prayed just a stone’s throw away.
Three times in intimate, heartfelt prayer to His beloved Father, Jesus expressed the anguish of His soul as He asked if there was another way for the plan of redemption to be accomplished with the possibility of the cup of God’s wrath against sin passing Him by. But He also voiced a much deeper desire, and that was His commitment to the Father’s will being done. In this most soul-wrenching of occasions, Jesus demonstrated that He was truly a man with real feelings and emotions.
While Jesus was steadfast in prayer, the weary disciples failed to watch with Him or to pray for help in their own battle against temptation. Instead, they slept. After discovering them fast asleep a third time, Jesus informed them that His hour had now come, and that His betrayal was imminent, with His betrayer at hand. Everywhere the first Adam failed in the Garden of Eden, especially in his failure to pray, Jesus, the second Adam, succeeded in the Garden of Gethsemane, especially in His repeated prayers.
Listen to this teaching on Matthew 26:30-46 by clicking on the link below: