Luke 22:45

And when he rose up from his prayer, he came unto his disciples, and found them sleeping for sorrow, and said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.

Mortal men are incapable of knowing fully the nature and extent of the saviour's awful agony; but it was there in Gethsemane that our Lord made the final, irrevocable decision to bear our sins on the tree. Morgan said:

All I can say is that as I ponder it, through the darkened window there is a mystic light shining, showing me the terrors of the cross more clearly than I see them even when I come to Calvary.[30]

Sleeping for sorrow ... Only Luke the physician connected the sorrows of the apostles with their sleeping contrary to Jesus instructions; but surely that was a very important element in it.

Regarding this event in the garden, Geldenhuys quoted the Jewish scholar, Montifiore, as saying:

One cannot help but marvel at the wonderful grace and beauty, the exquisite tact and discretion, which the narrative displays. There is not a word too little; there is not a word too much.[31]

[30] G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel of Luke (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1931), en loco.

[31] Norval Geldenhuys, op. cit., p. 578.