The Atonement 2 - Matt 26:36; Mark 14:32; John 18:1

I tried to think about why Jesus chose the Garden of Gethsemane to begin the atonement, and the conclusion that I came to was that ultimately, it doesn’t matter where it happened, only that it did. With that being said, understanding the where, why, and how of the location can lend insight into the process of the atonement and some symbolic meaning. Let’s review a little bit because it seems like months ago that we discussed the Last Supper in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem, but in the actual time, it’s only been a few minutes. Jesus and the 11 remaining disciples left the hour where they had eaten the Passover meal and had the ordinance of the sacrament instituted, and I would imagine, walked through the city to the east gate and from there, left the city of Jerusalem. Jesus had continued teaching his disciples on the way, and finally offered a prayer as they reached the garden.

John tells us that the route was “over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples.” The IM includes a modern day picture of the Kidron valley which shows the temple at Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives only separated by a wall and a steep slope. I’m going to try to include a map that I found online from thebiblejourney.org that shows the relative proximity of the east gate of the temple and the garden of Gethsemane. This is significant because of Jewish law and tradition. The Law of Moses dictated that “when someone desired to make a burnt offering, he selected a ‘male (animal) without blemish’ and presented it to the priest at the east door of the tabernacle. During New Testament times, the offering was presented to the priest at the eastern gate of the temple in Jerusalem. These acts can be seen as a similitude of the Savior presenting Himself to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane.”
The Law of Moses was a type of symbol for the atonement of Jesus Christ for the sins of all mankind, so it would be appropriate that Jesus offer up the sacrifice of the atonement in the same place where the sacrificial animals were presented for symbolic atonement. Honestly, it doesn’t seem like a big deal today because it was so long ago and the idea of killing animals as part of ritual sacrifice kind of makes me sad, but at the time, and for those who understood and lived the Law of Moses, it would have been easily understood and significant symbolically. This information also ties the new gospel that Jesus started with the old gospel or the Law of Moses.
There seems to be such a disconnect between the gospel that we know and love today and the anciently practiced Law of Moses. It really does seem to be like two completely different doctrines, the angry, vengeful Old Testament God of blood and animal sacrifices, and the New Testament God of love and service and personal growth. How can that possibly be the same God and the same gospel? I guess it’s one of those things that must be considered as a different time and circumstances and people. But little tidbits like “Jesus began the atonement right outside of the east gate of the temple because that’s where the priests accepted sacrificial animal under the Law of Moses” helps tie the ancient law and the new and everlasting gospel together.
That the Garden of Gethsemane requires a walk through the Kidron Valley is significant in another way as well. The IM comments, “The Kidron Valley contained tombs in Jesus’ time, as it does today. The walk Jesus and His disciples would have taken through this area the night before He died evokes the scripture, ‘I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.’” When I hear that verse I have two immediate thoughts, first is the super cool and popular Coolio song “Gangsta’s Paradise” that came out in the 90’s. The second thought that I have is from the scene in the movie “Titanic” when the ship is rising up out of the water and the people are all clamoring for high ground and the priest is holding his rosary and praying, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
I feel like both of these examples are perfect for describing what I usually associate this verse with, a very intense time, when the fear is so intense that you can’t focus on anything else. This can be a time when you’re really sick, when you’re really sad, scared, feel helpless, feel powerless, feel vulnerable. Of all the things that has ever happened to me, there was only one time in my life when I really thought that I was going to die, where I told myself, “This is it, the only way out of this is death,” and that’s when I was delivering my daughter. I was in a military hospital and it was absolutely a butcher shop. The pain was so intense and the care so poor that I didn’t think that there was anything anyone could or would do so I could live through this. Obviously, I did live through it, but I had a better appreciation for what it was to look death in the face.
In the example of Coolio’s song, as a black man raised in a ghetto, with violence on all sides and no way out, feeling completely vulnerable and powerless, that’s a time when it might seem like darkness on all sides, and only Jesus can help you. I know that this isn’t a song about God or anything, and that he used this verse to set the scene of destruction and poverty, but people in these situations, the only way out is through Jesus. Then the people in the Titanic movie. This is a little bit more true to life because there is a priest citing scripture, but these people are facing a horrific and painful death in a matter of minutes, and no one is coming to help them. This is a time when this verse can be used to comfort someone that all will be made right through Jesus, even though it all seems so unfair.
But does this verse apply to Jesus as he’s basically walking through a graveyard? Is he comforted by His faith and relationship with His Father as he marches down to the place where he knows he will experience pain and suffering that no one else has ever experienced before? Regardless of the pain of the atonement, which he doesn’t really understand the magnitude, he knows that he’s about to be crucified after being tortured, and nailed to a cross, at a minimum he’s staring that in the face. It seems like after suffering through all the pain and sins of mankind, being crucified would be the upside of his day. Too soon?
A final note about the significance of the Garden of Gethsemane as the cite of the atonement is that the word “Gethsemane” means “oil press” or the process by which oil is extracted from olives. The IM quotes Elder Russell M. Nelson as recounting a time when he was in charge of the students in the BYU Jerusalem Center. The students got to harvest and squeeze oil from their own olives in the type of pressed used anciently. The olives were put into the large stone bowl and the crushing rock was pushed “until the olives began to ooze their oil. When the oil began to run down the lip of the limestone basic, it had the distinctive red color characteristic of the first moments of the new pressing each year. At that instant an audible gasp came from the 170 students who surrounded the olive press to witness our re-creation of the ancient pressing process. It was a stunning, even chilling, minute until the oil turned back to its usual golden color… This was right before our very eyes, a real-life reflection of Gethsemane… In the place called the ‘oil press,’ Gethsemane, the Savior was pressed in our behalf as he wrought for all mankind the infinite and eternal atonement.”