The Place of Pressing

After Jesus and His disciples finished their Passover meal, they began to make their way to the Mount of Olives.

The disciples probably sang the hallel – Psalm 113 through 118 – as they walked through the dark streets of Jerusalem. Jesus’ steps probably grew heavier as they crossed the Kidron Valley to get to the Gethsemane.

We often talk about the garden of Gethsemane.

That phrase isn’t actually in the Bible, though.

They did go to an olive grove, but a gethsemane is a thing more than a place.

See, the Hebrew word “gat” means “press” and “shemen” means “oil.” When you put those together – gatshemen – you get the English pronunciation of gethsemane.

A gethsemane is an olive press.

It is here, at the olive press, that Jesus tells His disciples, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matthew 26:38, NLT)

The book of Luke tells us that, “he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.” (Luke 22:44, NLT)

As a gatshemen crushes olives, Jesus can feel the crushing weight of what lies before Him.

I wonder if in this moment, Jesus was thinking of the words Isaiah spoke about Him so many centuries before.

He was despised and rejected—
    a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
    He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
    it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
    a punishment for his own sins!

But he was pierced for our rebellion,
    crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
    He was whipped so we could be healed.

All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
    We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
    the sins of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-6, NLT)

It was our weakness that He carried.

It was our sorrows that weighted Him down.

The agony of the cross didn’t begin on the cross.

It began here – at the place of pressing.

Read Isaiah 53 and, as we get closer to the cross, reflect on the great love that compelled Jesus to offer Himself as a sacrifice on our behalf.