erod's temple, so beautiful in the light of the full
moon. And then, as they walk through the narrow, shadowed streets, the
shadows come into the Lord Jesus' spirit and words.[70] Now they are
outside the wall of the city, out in the open, under the blue, and with
upturned face, the great pleading prayer is breathed out.[71] Now they are
across the Kidron, and now in among the shadows of the huge olive trees of
the garden called Gethsemane.

It's quite dark and late. He leaves the disciples to rest under the
trees, and with the inner three He pushes a bit farther on. And now He
pushes on quite alone in the farther lone recesses of the woods. And now
the intensity of His spirit bends His body as He kneels, then is
prostrate. And the agony is upon Him. He is fighting out the battle of the
morrow. He is sinless, but on the morrow He is to get under the load of a
world's sin; no, it was yet more than that, He was to be Himself reckoned
and dealt with as sin itself. All the horror of that broke upon Him under
those trees, more intensely than it had yet. The brightness of the full
moon made the shadows of the trees very dark and black, but they seemed as
nothing to this awful inky black shadow of the sin load that would come,
no longer in shadow but actually, on the morrow.

The agony of it is upon Him as He falls prostrate on the ground, under the
tense strain of spirit. Out of the struggle a bit of prayer reaches our
awed ears, "_If it be possible_ let this cup pass away from Me; yet not as
I will, but as Thou wilt." And so tense is the strain that an angel comes
to strengthen. With what reverent touch must he have given his help. Even
after that the great drops of bloody sweat came. But now a calmer mood
comes. The look full in the face of what was coming, the realizing more
clearly how the Father's plan must work out, these help to steady Him.
Again a bit of prayer is heard, "Since this cannot pass away; since only
so can Thy plan for the world be accomplished Thy--will--be--done." The
load of the world's sin almost broke His heart that dark night under the
olives. It actually did break His heart on the morrow. This is the meaning
of Gethsemane, intense suffering of spirit because of the sin of others.

And at first thought you say, surely there can be no following for any of
us in this sore lonely experience of His. And there cannot. He was alone
there as on the morrow. None of us can go through what He went through
the