Garden of Gethsemane: "Sweating Drops of Blood"

The beginning of the agony

After the Last Supper that took place in the Upper Room on Mt. Zion Jesus together with the Apostles continued their journey and spent the night in Gethsemane, in the Kidron Valley.

As they were praying there, Jesus asked them to walk to the other side of the Garden so that he could pray alone to his father. When he had completed his prayer and returned back to them, he found them asleep. He woke them up and they began to pray again. It was not long before the Romans came to the garden looking for Jesus.

Judas Iscariot stepped forward and kissed Jesus on his head. By doing so, he marked him and Jesus said: “you are giving a man by a kiss” and that was the sign for the Romans to arrest Jesus and beat him. That was the beginning of the agony of Jesus. He was then taken to spend the night at the house of the High Priest – Caiaphas before being taken in the morning to Pontius Pilate.

The meaning of Gethsemane - In Hebrew it is two words:

Gat – a place where you press wine or oil

Shemanim = oils.

In the Garden of Gethsemane you can see some extremely old Olive trees, some of them dating back approximately 2,000 years.

Today, the Church of all Nations is located in the Gethsemane Garden. It was built by a very famous architect Antonio Baluzzi at the beginning of the 20th century. The church is built on the remnants of a Byzantine church built in the 4th century and then destroyed in 614. In between the 11th century and the 13th century a church built by the Crusaders stood in this location. It was later on destroyed by the Mamluks.

You’ll get a chance to visit this site during one of the upcoming "ReLive the Bible" Tours.

I would like to thank Pastor Dr. Todd Fink for this video.