(Read Matthew 26:36-39)
This is an olive press/crusher or, in Hebrew, a gethsemane. The weight of our sin was heavy on our Lord the night before it fell on him completely on the cross.
After a wheel extracted the juice, this instrument with large weights pressed the remaining oil from the olive. Gethsemane is not so much the official name of a place as it’s the place where this process occurred in the olive groves in the hills above Jerusalem.
Oh, the incredible weight of sin he bore for you and for me. It is no wonder that his sweat mixed with blood in deep anguish of what he had to do. His choice? “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” I simply can’t wrap my mind around such an unfathomable, willing response. l can only receive his love.
Matthew 26 36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
TIMBO FOWLER 