in
Gethsemane_. There is the Kidron brook, the gentle rise of ground, the
grove of gnarled knotty old olive trees. The moon above is at the full.
Its brightness makes these shadowed recesses the darker; blackly dark.
Here is a group of men lying on the ground apparently asleep. Over yonder
deeper in among the trees a smaller group reclines motionless. They, too,
sleep. And, look, farther in yet is that lone figure; all alone; nevermore
alone; save once--on the morrow.

There is a foreshadowing of this Gethsemane experience in the requested
interview of the Greeks just a few intense days before. In the vision
which the Greeks unconsciously brought the agony of the olive grove began.
The climax is among these moon-shadowed trees. How sympathetic those inky
black shadows! It takes bright light to make black shadows. Yet they were
not black enough. Intense men can get so absorbed in the shadows as to
forget the light.

This great Jesus! Son of God: God the Son. The Son of Man: God--a man! No
draughtsman's pencil ever drew the line between His divinity and humanity;
nor ever shall. For the union of divine and human is itself divine, and
therefore clear beyond human ken. Here His humanity stands out,
pathetically, luminously stands out. Let us speak of it very softly and
think with the touch of awe deepening for this is holiest ground. The
battle of the morrow is being fought out here. Calvary is in Gethsemane.
The victory of the hill is won in the grove.

It is sheer impossible for man with sin grained into his fibre through
centuries to understand the horror with which a sinless one thinks of
actual contact with sin. As Jesus enters the grove that night it comes in
upon His spirit with terrific intensity that He is actually coming into
contact--with a meaning quite beyond us--coming into contact with sin. In
some way all too deep for definition He is to be "made sin."[23] The
language used to describe His emotions is so strong that no adequate
English words seem available for its full expression. An indescribable
horror, a chill of terror, a frenzy of fright seizes Him. The poisonous
miasma of sin seems to be filling His nostrils and to be stifling Him. And
yonder alone among the trees the agony is upon Him. The extreme grips Him.
May there not yet possibly be some other way rather than _this--this!_ A
bit of that prayer comes to us in tones strangely altered by deepest
emotion. "_If it be possible--let this cup pass_."