We finish this series on some of the highlights of the Mount of Olives with what is typically the last stop on the “Palm Sunday walk” down the ridge. At the bottom of the Mount of Olives we visit two sites, but they are adjacent and related: the Garden of Gethsemane and the Church of All Nations (Basilica of Agony).
After the Passover meal, Jesus took his disciples to “a place called Gethsemane,” where he prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:36-39) The word “Gethsemane” is a Hebrew and Aramaic word that Matthew and Mark transliterate into Greek in their gospels. It literally means “oil press,” suggesting that the place was an olive orchard that, unsurprisingly, had a stone press for processing olives. Matthew and Mark refer to the location as a “place” or a “field” (some designation for a piece of land), while John’s Gospel calls it a “garden.”
It is the prayer of Jesus as he knowingly faced the cross on that final night before his execution that is so remarkable about this location. In that place at that moment, Jesus made a choice that changed the world. I have written previously about the significance of that scene in a blog post called “Choice Gardens.” Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him to a place beyond where he left the rest of the disciples, and the Lord himself, “going a little farther, fell with his face to the ground and prayed” that prayer of agony.
We don’t know exactly where in that part of the Mount of Olives the garden was. However, the Roman Catholic Church of All Nations next to the small grove of olive trees called the Garden of Gethsemane today is a traditional location for recalling those events of Christ’s passion. A fourth-century church once stood on the site, and the modern church that is there now was built in 1924 on those older foundations. That earlier structure was destroyed by earthquake in the eighth century. The Crusaders built a chapel on the site, but with a slightly different orientation. Some of those foundations are still visible on the south side of the modern church. Inside, twelve seals on the ceiling of the current church commemorate the donations of the countries that contributed to its construction (the United States is one of them), which is why it is called the Church of All Nations.
The church is also called the Basilica of Agony, and its focal point is a flat, worn rock that tradition identifies as the place where Jesus agonized in prayer. The rock is at the front of the church, at floor level and just before the altar, and it is surrounded by a metal crown of thorns. Mosaic depictions of Jesus praying on the rock, and of his betrayal and arrest, dominate the front of the church. The Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi (who also built Dominus Flevit, among others) designed the church to evoke the darkness of the nighttime setting and of the grief that filled it. The ceiling is colored a deep blue with stars that are framed by olive branches, creating a sense of the heavenward view that Jesus and the disciples would have had from the garden. The atmosphere invites the kind of serious reflection appropriate to such a site.
The adjacent grove outside the church has rows of old, gnarled olive trees. Carbon dating suggests that some may be nearly a millennium old. They are not the original trees from Jesus’ time, but their appearance is ancient, and they are still productive. The garden is peaceful and well kept, and in walking the footpaths among the trees, a pilgrim can meditate and reflect on the life-changing events that happened nearby. The church and grounds are indeed a meaningful conclusion to the Palm Sunday walk.
Church of All Nations altar: adriatikus, CC BY-SA 3.0.
