Yeshua knew that his arrest and trial was at hand. He went to the garden to pray and enjoy the beauty of the garden, the silence of the night.
He asks if the cup may be taken from his lips. But ends in “not my will, but thine be done”
He understands that he is about to face his final initiation and trial and that this is his mission and destiny, but the human part of him feels a little bit of fear and trepidation. This is his last initiation and rite of death.
His disciples could not stay away - a metaphor for their sleepy consciousness
Judas comes and lovingly kisses him - but this kiss also identifies him
The roman soldiers come and he goes with them without a fight
- Praying, and Arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus, accompanied by Peter, John and James, enters the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives where He experiences great anguish and prays to be delivered from His impending suffering, while also accepting God's will.
According to the Synoptic Gospels, immediately after the Last Supper, Jesus retreated to a garden to pray. Each gospel offers a slightly different account regarding narrative details. The gospels of Matthew and Mark identify this place of prayer as Gethsemane. Jesus was accompanied by three Apostles: Peter, John and James, whom he asked to stay awake and pray. He moved "a stone's throw away" from them, where He felt overwhelming sadness and anguish, and said "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it be as You, not I, would have it." Then, a little while later, he said, "If this cup cannot pass by, but I must drink it, Your will be done!" (Matthew 26:42; in Latin Vulgate: fiat voluntas tua) He said this prayer thrice, checking on the three apostles after each prayer and finding them asleep. He commented: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak". An angel came from heaven to strengthen Him. During His agony as He prayed, "His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down upon the ground" (Luke 22:44)
At the conclusion of the narrative, Jesus accepts that the hour has come for Him to be betrayed.
Then He said to them, 'My soul is very sorrowful even to death; remain here, and watch with Me.'
— Matthew 26:38
Etymology
Gethsemane appears in the Greek original of the Gospel of Matthew[1] and the Gospel of Mark[2] as Γεθσημανή (Gethsēmanḗ). The name is derived from the Aramaic ܓܕܣܡܢ (Gaḏ-Smān),[3] or Hebrew גַּת שְׁמָנִים (gath shǝmānim)[4] meaning 'oil press'.[5] Matthew 26:36[6] and Mark 14:32[7] call it χωρίον (chōríon), meaning a place or estate. The Gospel of John says Jesus entered a garden (κῆπος, kêpos) with his disciples.
LOCATION
Mark and Matthew record that Jesus went to "a place called the oil press (Gethsemane)" and John states he went to a garden near the Kidron Valley. Modern scholarship acknowledges that the exact location of Gethsemane is unknown.
William McClure Thomson, author of The Land and the Book, first published in 1880, wrote: "When I first came to Jerusalem, and for many years afterward, this plot of ground was open to all whenever they chose to come and meditate beneath its very old olive trees. The Latins, however, have within the last few years succeeded in gaining sole possession, and have built a high wall around it. The Greeks have invented another site a little to the north of it. My own impression is that both are wrong. The position is too near the city, and so close to what must have always been the great thoroughfare eastward, that our Lord would scarcely have selected it for retirement on that dangerous and dismal night. I am inclined to place the garden in the secluded vale several hundred yards to the north-east of the present Gethsemane."