https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=BGR-ZnOfGpI
Hello everyone, I’m standing here, I’m sitting here in the Garden of Gethsemane. If you look just next to me, this is reputedly the stone where Christ prayed and wept when he came up to the Garden. It’s a pretty amazing place. It’s reputed that some of the trees in the Garden might be 2,000 years old, at least some of the shoots of shoots might be from the time of Christ. The Garden here is very interesting for many reasons. It can really help us understand the way that the story of Christ is told and the way that the symbolism in his story functions. The story of the Garden is really a little version of a return to the Garden of Eden and it’s also a little version of what will happen later in the crucifixion. This is Jonathan Pajot, welcome to the Symbolic World. They went to a place called Gethsemane and Jesus said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. He took Peter, James and John along with him and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, he said to them. Stay here and keep watch. Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. Abba, Father, he said, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. Simon, he said to Peter, are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. Returning the third time, he said to them, are you sleeping and resting enough? The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. Here comes my betrayer. Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them. The one I kiss is the man. Arrest him and lead him away under guard. Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, Rabbi, and kissed him. The men seized Jesus and arrested him. Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Am I leading a rebellion, said Jesus? That you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I was with you teaching in the temple courts and you did not arrest me. But the scriptures must be fulfilled. Then everyone deserted him and fled. A young man wearing nothing but a linen garment was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. Coming out he went to the Mount of Olives, as he was accustomed, and his disciples also followed him. When he came to the place, he said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and he knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done. Then an angel appeared to him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. If you look at the way the story develops, you’ll notice that Christ leaves his disciples and takes with him three disciples, Peter, James, and John, with him in order to go up the mountain. Because the Garden of Gethsemane is in the Mount of Olives, and so it’s up a mountain. It’s not at the top of the Mount, but it is up a mountain. And so he leaves his disciples, and then he moves up with the three of them. And then he leaves the three of them at some place, and he goes even further up into the hill, into the garden, to pray. So already you can realize what’s going on. He’s moving from the quantity to the quality. He’s doing the same thing that Moses did at Mount Sinai, which is leave Israel down below, go up with a few elders, and then leave those elders in order to find himself alone at the top of the mountain in the end. So Christ follows this pattern, and as he goes up, he goes into a garden. And this garden, of course, is a stand-in for the Garden of Eden. But what happens in the garden is very interesting, because it plays with the story of the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. But here the return to a garden is really a return to the garden with a willingness, a facing, whether or not he’s willing to die, to take the cup, to drink the cup, to drink the fruit, and die. And so he’s not doing it out of his own will, and that’s why the story looks the way that it does. He goes and he asks that this not be done to him, if that’s possible, because he’s not doing it in order to manifest his own will, but really to manifest the will of God, and to submit himself to the will of God. And so he comes up to the mountain and he prays that this could be avoided him. Another little tiny aspect that you see is that when Christ is praying, he is so anxious that he sweats blood. This is, of course, a little hint or a little version of what will then happen on the cross when blood and water are coming out of his side. It’s like a little version of what will later happen at the crucifixion, but it’s also there to help us understand the crucifixion. Because, of course, the crucifixion doesn’t happen in a garden, but it does happen in a mountain, and it’s there to connect the stories together so that we understand how it is that all these stories are little versions of the great story and how it’s manifesting to us what it is ultimately that will happen at the crucifixion. And so what’s interesting in the story of the garden is that when he goes to pray, he tells the disciples to stay awake, to remember, not to fall asleep. Of course, you know that sleep is a standing for death. It’s a little death. So he’s saying, stay alive, stay awake, stay connected to my attention in the garden. Christ goes up to the garden and then gives his attention to God and tells the disciples, we’re lower down, to stay connected to him. Even though they’re further away from the center, from the top, they have to remain awake and remember, but they fall asleep. They fall into death. This, of course, if you think of the hierarchy itself, you can understand that this is very much the image of the death that comes in at the bottom of the mountain, you know, leaving the garden. And so Christ, so Christ prays that this may be taken away from him. And then he goes back down three times in order to see and finds his disciples sleeping, not connected, not remembering what is at the top happening at the top of the mountain. Of course, this is a little version of the golden calf. What happens at the bottom of the mountain when Moses goes up to receive the law to show this idea that what happens when the top and the bottom of the mountain are disconnected. So as the disciples for the last time, when he goes back on the third time, he realizes that the disciples have forgotten that they’ve fallen asleep, that they haven’t been connected, that their attention hasn’t been connected to the top of the mountain. Then the moment of the betrayal comes. And so Judas comes and kisses him and that scatters the disciples. It’s very important to understand the scattering. It’s like the betrayal brings about the breakdown, the breaking of the cohesion of the body. And that is, of course, another image of death itself. So the disciples scatter. And one of the other things that happens is one of the people following him, someone grabs his clothing and he runs away naked. So it’s an interesting play on the story of the Garden of Eden, because here, as the things scatter, what’s happening is not that he’s being clothed like Adam and Eve were clothed, but that his cloth is being removed and his nakedness is a nakedness of shame, that he’s exposing his cowardice and the fact that the disciples were not able to stay connected to Christ. So all the elements in the story of the garden really are a connection to the story that happened in the Garden of Eden, also that happened to Moses as he went up the mountain, all of these things connected together, little versions of what will ultimately happen at the cross, because there is also a story of a garment at the cross where Christ’s garment is cast by lots, where Christ is, his clothing is removed and all he smashes, all those images together, of course, on the cross, where now the naked disciple that ran away is brought onto the cross itself, onto this pillar of the world, where all the elements, you know, the cup that he wanted to, that he told Christ God to remove from him is given to him on the cross as the bitter vinegar before he dies. And of course, his body is pierced just as he sweat his sweat blood during his moment in the garden. So we can see how there’s this reflection happening across the stories and how the crucifixion ends up bringing all the elements together. And so I hope this was a nice little meditation on this moment in the garden. I’m going to hopefully I can do a few more videos on different aspects of Jerusalem and how they bring the story, how we can understand the story of Christ by meditating on a few of these aspects. So thanks, everybody. See you soon.