After His last meal, He tiptoed down the slope, crossed Kidron’s weeping Brook, ascended the craggy incline, to do combat with God’s wrath, away from crowds…secluded from the world.

A Provocative Question

“Are those olive groves?” That was the question that my wife asked me this morning. We were on our way back to our apartment after the daily grocery shop!

A Dominant Crop

Rows upon rows of olive trees, almost everywhere you look – along with other fruit crops, and grapevines that abound, it is hard not to notice how the olive dominates the the landscape, agriculture, and mindset around lake Garda.

A Graeco-Roman Pulse

Olives are used for cooking. Olives are good to eat. Olives were used for fuel – in fact, in the ancient Roman world, the economy was largely olive-driven. Olives, for the Latins, were part and parcel of everyday life.

Which brings me to Gethsemane…

This observation, prompted by Hazel’s question, made me wonder why Jesus chose Gethsemane, or “the olive press”, as the ideal grove for groans – for His submissive, prayerful, hemorrhagic, perspiring, terrorized, weeping sobs and pleas? Why here, at the Olive Press, for Jesus to struggle with the prospect of draining Calvary’s woe-filled, fuming, cup? How do we explain His selection of this site for head-on collision with the prospect of sin-deserving holy wrath as our selfless, sacrificial, substitute?

Accepted Reasons

Let me suggest 5 things, plus 1 other:

1. Destiny – this was the garden which the Father had appointed before the world began as the place in which Christ would sweat bloody drops: of that there is no doubt.
2. Habit – the evangelists make it clear that this was the place where Jesus was accustomed to retire for fellowship and prayer to rejuvenate his heart.

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