John’s Witness

John’s Witness—The Gospels’ Missing Pearl

This is Jesus’s Gospel: that he was lifted up so that he could lift all unto him. We all know the Easter story by heart—how Jesus conquered death. That’s the first pearl of Jesus’s Gospel. What’s not so clear—the missing pearl we seek to illuminate—is how was hell defeated?

Which of the four Gospel writers captured the events of Gethsemane? Where did Matthew, Mark and Luke get their information, since they were not physically present? John was the sole eyewitness to the events in Gethsemane, and yet his own pearl of the account is altogether missing from his Gospel.

The biblical record of Gethsemane is sparse, given the event’s obvious importance. We know from Matthew (26:36–46) that Jesus invited three witnesses (Peter, James, and John) into Gethsemane to “watch” what would happen there, elaborating that the suffering and sorrow Jesus experienced in three separate sessions took him to the very brink of death. Mark reiterates these points (14:32–41) and significantly adds that whatever Jesus did there was “enough” (verse 41, KJV) for his purposes at hand. (Compare John 19:28–30, where all things were finally “finished.”)Luke (22:39–46) provides the unique details that Jesus’s agony resulted in his sweating blood, and that an angel had appeared to strengthen him.

Four is the number of Gospel writers.

Three is the number of disciples invited into Gethsemane to watch.

Two is the number of disciples who slept through Jesus’s atoning work.

One watched ….

Given that he was the sole eyewitness among the Gospel writers, isn’t it strange how John is utterly silent in his own account, with the Gethsemane episode entirely absent?

In piecing together John's missing story, we structurally rely on nested flashbacks to Gethsemane during John's anxious dash to visit Jesus's empty tomb on that third day. The story takes about as long to read (less than an hour) as John takes to run there, and we learn with John as he ponders the atonement's deep meaning. Gethsemane’s biblical angel provides him with added context from John's time spent with Jesus, as well as special visions he receives of Eden that clarify Jesus's atoning work.

Please join my imaginative exploration of Jesus gaining the capacity to comprehend all pain, suffering, and unfairness and to descend below all sorrow and grief, that he might succor the rest of us (Heb. 2:18). With scriptural basis, I point to the prince of this world, victor at Eden, as the one demanding the divine ransom payment at Gethsemane. Here, Jesus would attempt purchasing us back by voluntarily subjecting himself to Satan’s attempts to force him to choose to die. Thus, we tie three gardens together such that because of Eden we must have Gethsemane; and without Gethsemane there could be no Golgotha.

I hope this story will facilitate greater intuition for what it means that Jesus provided atonement for each individual and bore all humanity’s burdens by illuminating the origin and source of those burdens. Trigger warning: although the infinite and eternal suffering that Jesus willingly subjected himself to in three sessions is hard to suggest within the limitations of mortal experience and using distressingly inadequate language, readers may find this attempt emotionally disturbing. In the end, I hope the words justice, mercy and grace have a much more profoundly impactful and deeply personal meaning.

Session 1. Things that randomly happen. The unfairness of it all. The concentration of hunger, thirst, and fatigue (D&C 18:11; Mosiah 3:7); sickness and infirmities (Alma 7:11–12; Matt 8:17) to the point of marring his visage beyond human form (Isaiah 52:14).

Session 2. Man’s inhumanity to man; suffering at the hands of others. “We esteemed him smitten, stricken of God”—wounded, bruised and beaten. The scriptures suggest brutality far beyond what was done to him by the Roman soldiers (Isaiah 53:4–5) that I broadly extend to the vast means by which humans abuse one another, hating their own blood (Moses 7:32-33).

Session 3. Personal sins; deep sorrows regretting what we each did to ourselves, to our God and to others. Crushing griefs and sorrows (Isaiah 53:4) in anguish for the iniquities (Isaiah 53:6), wickedness and abomination of his people (Mosiah 3:7) to the travail of his soul (Isaiah 53:11). Exquisite suffering in body and spirit (D&C 19:16–18; Alma 11:40–41).

This book is about what’s not there in the four Gospels’ account of Jesus’s atonement. That I have left some space between the words for the reader to interpret should not be too surprising. Please join me in removing some mystery from the missing atonement accounts.

—IRH Princeton, New Jersey Christmas 2020