This is an excerpt from my book “40 Moments From Christ’s Final Days.” Click here to get it from Amazon using my affiliate link.
Find this moment in: Lk. 22:43-44
Much of what I’ve written so far has shown a deeper, more meaningful understanding of what the gospel writers recorded about the last seven days of Christ’s life. But after better understanding the mindset and heart of Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane, we now need to discuss something Luke didn’t write.
The gospels seem to show that Christ is struggling with what’s waiting for Him. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, the perfect Jesus knows He will soon “become sin” and be treated as guilty by the Father. The perfect, holy, and eternal God of the universe is about to have the guilt of our sin placed on Him, and it’s reasonable that He’d look to that moment with a perfect and holy sense of dread.
However, when we understand the nature of His prayer to the Father, we may be left scratching our heads at what happens immediately following this prayer.
Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently, and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. (Luke 22:43-44)
Why does an angel need to strengthen Him if He isn’t praying out
of His human weakness? Why is He so stressed about His confidence in the Father’s will that Jesus may have suffered from hematidrosis, a condition where blood vessels in the skin break open and send blood through the sweat glands?
To understand this, get a recently printed Bible and find Luke 22:43-44.
Many recently printed Bibles will have something that sets verses 43-44 apart from the rest of the text. Your Bible may even include a note that reads something like “early MSS omit vs. 43-44,” where MSS means “manuscripts.” Before reading on, make a choice not to panic, get defensive, or jump to conclusions. The only way to understand what is (or isn’t) happening here is to desire to understand what the original writers wrote more than we want to defend tradition.
Although the earliest versions of English Bibles were world-changing, they could only use copies of the New and Old Testaments that were available at the time. But as time has progressed, God has allowed archaeologists to uncover copies of the Testaments that are even older than anything we’ve had available. Not only has this allowed us to see how the core truth of God’s word has remained unchanged throughout history, but it’s also helped us better understand why some things seem out of place.
This event in Luke may be one example of something being accidentally added as scribes have continued making copies of fading documents so that Christians could preserve God’s word. When copying a decaying piece of God’s word, sometimes scribes would write a note in the margins that a future scribe would copy as though it was an original part of the text. Other times, a scribe may add something they were positive was supposed to be there because they’d heard it somewhere else, so they’ll add it because they worry a previous scribe forgot it.
It’s important to realize two things. First, there’s no evidence of a core truth of Christianity falling victim to what we call “scribal errors.” The opposite is true because, as we continue to find documents closer to the original source, we find that God has preserved the core teachings of our faith. Second, we also must realize that scribes didn’t do this maliciously. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 reminds us that God’s word is inspired, but that doesn’t mean humans can’t make errors after copying things for hours upon hours every day.
This scene where an angel strengthens Christ while he sweats blood is intense, but it’s noticeably different from what’s happening before and after. Simply put, evidence suggests that Luke didn’t originally write this. Instead, Luke wrote this:
And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me, yet not My will, but Yours be done.” And when He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow (Luke 22:41-42, 45)
For one reason or another, a scribe accidentally made it seem like an official part of the text, leading future scribes to copy it the same way they copied the things Luke did write. Bibles today preserve these two verses out of tradition. Still, that little footnote cautions us to be very careful about how much weight we give this moment, especially if it contradicts everything else happening in Gethsemane.
Stop and think: The nature of Bible translation is a deep, difficult subject. However, for now, consider Christ’s time in Gethsemane without these odd verses about an angel and drops of blood. How does their removal add more weight to Christ’s confidence and unquestioning submission to the Father’s will?
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