The Agony of the King: Luke 22:39-46
Introduction: The Terrible Door
We have come to a place of great darkness and great glory. We are on the Mount of Olives, in a garden called Gethsemane, which means "oil press." And here, in this place, the weight of the world, the weight of all human sin, is about to be pressed upon the Son of God. This is not a scene of quiet, contemplative prayer. This is a battle. This is the great agony. What we witness here is the hinge of history, the moment when the Captain of our salvation stares into the abyss that He must enter for our sakes.
We live in a sentimental age, an age that wants a soft Jesus, a therapeutic Jesus, a Jesus who would never be so rude as to be terrified. But the Jesus of the Scriptures is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Here, He is not just sorrowful; He is crushed with grief, pressed down with terror, His soul overwhelmed to the point of death. Why? Because He is not contemplating the physical pain of the nails or the whip. As terrible as those things were, many martyrs have faced such things with songs on their lips. No, Jesus is looking at something infinitely more terrible. He is looking at the cup His Father is handing Him. He is looking at the undiluted, unmitigated wrath of Almighty God against sin.
This is the terrible door He must walk through. This is the moment where the perfect communion He had enjoyed with His Father from all eternity was about to be broken. He, who knew no sin, was about to be made sin for us. He was about to be forsaken so that we could be adopted. He was about to drink the poison of our rebellion so that we could drink the wine of the new covenant. And in this moment of ultimate crisis, He teaches us everything we need to know about true prayer, true submission, and the true cost of our salvation.
We must not turn away from this scene. We must look at it squarely, because if we do not understand the agony of Gethsemane, we will never understand the glory of Calvary. We will never grasp the horror of what our sin deserved, and we will never appreciate the love that paid such a price to rescue us from it.
The Text
And He came out and went as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. Now when He arrived at the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me, yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently, and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. And when He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, and said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
(Luke 22:39-46 LSB)
Custom, Command, and Crisis (vv. 39-41)
We begin with the setting and the initial command.
"And He came out and went as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. Now when He arrived at the place, He said to them, 'Pray that you may not enter into temptation.' And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray," (Luke 22:39-41 LSB)
Notice first that Jesus went to the Mount of Olives "as was His custom." The greatest crisis of His life did not cause Him to abandon His spiritual disciplines; it drove Him to them. He had a regular place of prayer, a place of communion with His Father. This is a crucial lesson for us. You cannot expect to find strength in a crisis if you have not cultivated the habit of seeking God in the ordinary. When the storm hits, you will be driven to the place you have already been going. For Jesus, that was the place of prayer.
He arrives at "the place," Gethsemane, and gives His disciples a command that is both for them and for us: "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." He knows what is coming. He knows that their loyalty is about to be tested to the breaking point. He knows that Satan desires to have them, to sift them like wheat. And the only defense against the power of temptation is prayer. Notice He does not say, "Pray that you may not be tempted." Temptation is inevitable for the Christian in a fallen world. He says pray that you may not enter into it. The temptation comes, it knocks on the door. Prayer is what keeps you from inviting it in for dinner and giving it the run of the house. Jesus is warning them, and us, that spiritual warfare requires spiritual watchfulness.
Then He withdraws. There is a holy separation here. He goes "about a stone's throw" away. He is close enough for them to see, but far enough to be alone with His Father. The battle He is about to fight is one He must fight alone. He is the solitary champion, the federal head who must stand in our place. And He kneels down. This is a posture of humble submission. The King of the universe kneels in the dirt, preparing to plead with His Father.
The Cup and the Will (v. 42)
Here we come to the heart of the prayer, the center of the agony.
"saying, 'Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me, yet not My will, but Yours be done.'" (Luke 22:42 LSB)
First, He says, "Father." In the midst of this cosmic terror, His relationship with the Father is His anchor. This is the cry of a true Son to a true Father. This is not the stoic resignation of a Greek hero; it is the intimate, agonizing plea of a beloved Son.
He asks, "remove this cup from Me." What is this cup? This is not the cup of physical suffering. This is the cup of divine wrath. The Old Testament is filled with this imagery. The cup is the symbol of God's righteous judgment poured out on ungodly nations and rebellious sinners (Psalm 75:8; Isaiah 51:17; Jeremiah 25:15). This is the cup that we all deserved to drink. It is a cup filled to the brim with the poison of our sin, our rebellion, our filth. And Jesus, the sinless one, is being asked to drink it down to the dregs. He is recoiling, not from the pain, but from the poison. He is recoiling from the prospect of being made a curse, of being forsaken by the Father He loves. His holy soul shrinks from the horror of becoming sin.
This is the cry of His true humanity. If He had not desired to avoid this cup, He would not have been truly human. But then comes the glorious, world-altering pivot: "yet not My will, but Yours be done." In this moment, the salvation of the world is secured. This is the ultimate act of submission. The first Adam, in a garden, said, "My will be done," and plunged the world into ruin. The second Adam, in a garden, says, "Your will be done," and purchases our redemption. This is not the defeat of His will, but the alignment of His will with the Father's perfect plan. He is choosing obedience, choosing the cross, choosing you.
Anguish, Agony, and Angelic Aid (vv. 43-44)
The intensity of this spiritual battle is described in stark, physical terms.
"Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently, and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground." (Luke 22:43-44 LSB)
Even in His submission, the battle rages. The Father does not remove the cup, but He does send aid. An angel appears to strengthen Him. This does not lessen the agony, but it fortifies Him to endure it. It is a reminder that even in our darkest trials, God provides the grace necessary to persevere. He does not always remove the trial, but He always gives the strength to face it.
The word for "agony" here is the Greek agonia, from which we get our word. It means a struggle, a contest. Jesus is wrestling. He is at war. And the intensity is so great that it manifests physically. His sweat became "like drops of blood." This is a rare medical condition known as hematohidrosis, where extreme anguish can cause capillaries in the sweat glands to rupture. This is not poetry. This is the physiological result of the immeasurable spiritual pressure He was under. The weight of our sin was literally crushing the life out of Him. He was being pressed in the oil press of Gethsemane, and what came out was His lifeblood, offered up for us.
Sorrowful, Sleeping Disciples (vv. 45-46)
After this titanic struggle, Jesus returns to His friends, only to find them failing Him.
"And when He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, and said to them, 'Why are you sleeping? Rise up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.'" (Luke 22:45-46 LSB)
He had asked them for one thing: to watch and pray. And they failed. Luke, the physician, gives us the diagnosis: they were "sleeping from sorrow." Their grief and confusion had exhausted them. This is a merciful detail, but it is not an excuse. Sorrow can be a powerful sedative. It can cause us to shut down, to retreat, to fall asleep spiritually when we should be most alert. But Jesus does not coddle them. He rebukes them with a question: "Why are you sleeping?"
This is a question that echoes down to us. In a world at war, in a culture that is running headlong into judgment, with temptation all around, why are we sleeping? Why is the church so often drowsy, passive, and prayerless? Jesus's command is the same to us as it was to them: "Rise up and pray that you may not enter into temptation." The battle is not over. Their greatest test was just moments away, and they were utterly unprepared because they had substituted sleep for supplication. Their failure here leads directly to their failure later: Peter's denial, and the scattering of them all. Prayerlessness is the front door to temptation and denial.
Conclusion: The Victorious Submission
What do we take away from this dark and holy ground? We see, first, the sheer horror of our sin. We must never treat sin lightly. It is the thing that caused the Son of God to sweat blood. It is the poison in the cup that made His soul recoil in terror. If you want to see what God thinks of sin, look at Gethsemane.
Second, we see the profound love of our Savior. In the face of that horror, He did not turn back. He said, "Not My will, but Yours be done." He willingly drank the cup of wrath so that we could be offered the cup of reconciliation. His agony was the price of our peace. His forsakenness was the price of our adoption. He faced the ultimate temptation to abandon the mission, and He conquered it through prayer and submission.
Finally, we see the pattern for our own lives. We are called to follow Him. We will face our own Gethsemanes, our own trials, our own temptations. And the path through them is the one He blazed for us. It is the path of honest, fervent prayer. It is the path of submitting our will to the Father's will, trusting that His plan is perfect, even when it is painful. And it is the path of watchfulness, of rising up from the slumber of sorrow and self-pity to engage in the spiritual battle. Because of His agony, we do not have to face our own alone. Because He drank the cup of wrath, we are invited to the Lord's Table to drink the cup of blessing. He endured the press so that we could enjoy the oil of gladness forever.