They went to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took with him Peter and James and John and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me, yet not what I want but what you want.”
Mark 14:32-36 NRSV
I used to think of Jesus as an unreachable figure. He was the Son of God after all. I grew up hearing about his miracles and his godliness and that made him feel less like a personal savior and more like a concept. And then, during a class with Dr. Kendra Haloviak Valentine, I read this passage and Jesus became very human. Painfully so.
I’ve never found an accurate way to put my depression and anxiety into words. That’s one of the cruel things about mental illness. It lives with you and yet it can resist language. And then I read: “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death” (Mark 14:34). Jesus spoke this? Jesus, the Son of God, perfectly put my pain into words? Unbelievable.
I believe that Jesus had a panic attack in the Garden of Gethsemane. All of a sudden, what he was about to go through overwhelmed him and that’s why he left the disciples to go pray. He needed to be by himself and when he was alone, he threw himself on the ground. That is not an action of someone who is coping. That is an action of someone who is barely holding on. Jesus was trembling.
When I was at a psychiatric ward in high school, I remember trembling. My body felt like it was out of control. I remember sobbing to my mom over the phone “I just want to go home, let me go home.” For my soul was deeply grieved, even to death. My mom told me to just hold on. Hold on. I didn’t really have the capacity to do that but somehow those two words were enough to keep me grounded.
That night was the first time I had prayed in a long time. I don’t remember the specifics but I think it was similar to Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, because when I later read the passage, it struck a deep chord within me. “Abba God, help me, take away my pain and let your will be done.” I wasn’t praying because I knew God was listening, I was praying because I was desperate. That first night in the psych ward was indescribable. But I was strangely at peace. I left it all up to what I thought was fate at the time but was actually God.
This passage is heavy. Heavy and perhaps Jesus’ most fully human moment. It doesn’t offer a lesson or metaphor or traditional comfort. It just sits there, a man on the ground asking for a way out of his own suffering. For some, this may be troubling. Maybe you don’t know what to do with it.
For me, it’s comforting. Comforting that even the Son of God panics and is anxious. Comforting that he prayed and didn’t immediately feel better. That he went back to his disciples and found them asleep, that the cup was not removed. Because my suffering has rarely been removed on request either. But somehow, like Jesus in the garden, like 16-year-old me in the psych ward, there can be rest in God’s presence, even when unsettled. It reminds me that ultimately, it is all up to God.
Lia Kritzinger is a third-year political science major at La Sierra University. She loves reading and engaging in Scripture and is an avid mental health advocate.