"He went forth with His disciples over the brook Kidron, where was a garden."—John xviii. 1.
"Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto His disciples, Sit ye here while I go yonder and pray."—Matt. xxvi. 36.
"And He taketh with Him Peter and James and John, ... and He saith unto them, ... abide ye here, and watch."—Mark xiv. 33, 34.
"And He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed." v. 35.
John was our leader to the Upper Room. And now he guides us from it, saying, "Jesus ... went forth with His disciples." That phrase "went forth" may suggest to us much more than mere departure. The banquet of love was over. The Lord's cup of blessing and remembrance had been drunk by His "little children," as He affectionately called them. He was now to drink the cup the Father was giving His Son—a mysterious cup of sorrow. It was probably at the midnight hour that Jesus "went forth" the last time from Jerusalem, which He had crowned with His goodness, but which had crowned Him with many crowns of sorrow.
Other Evangelists tell us that He went "to the Mount of Olives," "to a place called Gethsemane." John shows us the way thither, and what kind of a place it was. Jesus went "over the ravine of the Kidron," in the valley of Jehoshaphat. At this season of the year it was not, as at other times, a dry water-bed, but a swollen, rushing torrent, fitting emblem of the waters of sorrow through which He was passing. Whether the name Kidron refers to the dark color of its waters, or the gloom of the ravine through which they flow, or the sombre green of its overshadowing cedars, it will ever be a reminder of the darker gloom that overshadowed John and His Master, as they crossed that stream together to meet the powers of darkness in the hour which Jesus called their own.
The garden of Gethsemane was an enclosed piece of ground. We are not to think of it as a garden of flowers, or of vegetables, but as having a variety of flowering shrubs, and of fruit-trees, especially olive. It might properly be called an orchard. On the spot now claimed to be the garden, there are several very old gnarled olive-trees. Having stood beneath them, I would be glad to believe that they had sheltered my Lord. But I remember that when the prophecy concerning Jerusalem was fulfilled, the most sacred trees of our world were destroyed.
