Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

At the foot of the Mount of Olives, in a place called Gethsemane, Jesus was overcome with deep anxiety. “He began to be distressed and agitated” (Mark 14:33). Jesus sees death approaching, and he struggles with God in prayer: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mark 14:36). On the one hand this prayer depicts Jesus’ profound trust in his Father: the Aramaic abba is not attested as an address in the prayers of Judaism at that time. It is the trusting and loving address of children, but also of adult sons and daughters, to their father.² So according to the text Jesus prays with childlike trust. On the other hand he struggles with God, because when he speaks of the “cup” he wants to have pass by him, that is biblical language. It is the cup of wrath and of desolation,³ in this case the cup of death. This makes it clear that Jesus is pleading not to have to die. We dare not detract from that, and it must not be drained of its significance. Jesus—according to the narrative—fell into deep fear. On the other hand, he places his life completely in his Father’s hand. It probably contributed to his fear and distress that the most trusted members of the group of the Twelve—Peter, James, and John—have left him alone in his time of crisis. They do not understand. They keep falling asleep.

Evidently the passion story has artistically united two things: on the one hand a precise recollection of what happened in Gethsemane, and on the other hand a theological interpretation of the event with the aid of biblical language. It will often be this way in the course of the passion story. A refined explication of how much language from the psalms and how much of the theology of the “suffering righteous one” has made its way into the passion narrative in no way proves that the early church freely invented these events on the basis of the Old Testament. The phenomenon should be interpreted otherwise: the passion story tells of real events, using biblical language, in order to make clear that what is happening here is history between God and God’s people, just as it had always been, again and again, in the history of Israel.

Something else must also be maintained: the scene in Gethsemane is fundamentally different from later depictions of early Christian martyrdoms, which lack the motifs of temptation and struggle in prayer. We must also keep clearly in mind that Celsus, the philosopher and critic of Christianity, mocked Jesus’ fear of death; the emperor Julian “the Apostate” found Jesus’ behavior “pitiful.”⁴ In the eyes of antiquity, heroes must behave differently. For biblical authors of both the Old and New Testaments, on the contrary, the depiction of such existential crises is not only possible⁵ but appropriate: that is how the righteous in Israel suffered, and that is how Jesus suffered.

Arrest

Immediately after Jesus’ struggle in prayer, an armed troop appears and seizes him. There is not the least reason to disqualify the arrest scene, as Mark describes it, as unhistorical. The Judas kiss in particular is often regarded by critical scholars as a legendary narrative motif. Against this we must say that the arrest takes place at night. Having made a number of failed attempts, as John’s gospel is aware (John 7:30, 32, 44; 10:39), Jesus’ opponents want to be absolutely sure of getting their hands on Jesus this time. That Jesus is not arrested in the daytime but in the depths of night must also be the result of anxiety over the many Galilean festival pilgrims in Jerusalem. The Passover night was the most opportune time to seize Jesus without being seen. Mark writes: “Immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived; and with him there was a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders” (Mark 14:43). This sounds like an improvised posse, if not a group paid to act against Jesus. Biblical translators would do better to speak of “nightsticks” than of “clubs.” That is what Mark means, and such a translation would make it clear that this is a police posse.

In addition to the regular temple guards, the Sanhedrin (the Council) apparently had at their disposal a larger police troop for keeping necessary order, making arrests, and guarding prisoners. This also makes it clear that this was an official arrest ordered by the Council and altogether part of the normal order of things. Because of the disciples, who we know were with Jesus at this time, a large number of armed men had been sent. It is possible that the posse was augmented by servants from the high-priestly families of Annas and Caiaphas (cf. Mark 14:47).