Matthew 26:36-41

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”  37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. 38 Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.”

39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”  40 And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?  41 “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Jesus and His disciples came to the garden of Gethsemane. And when they arrived Jesus felt the need to pray; so He took with Him Peter, James and John and went a little further to pray, leaving the others. Then He felt an even deeper need to pray and went on by Himself. Hence, as it seems, there were three groups: the main group of disciples (minus the three), a little further there was Peter James and John, then further, only Jesus. All three groups were to be praying.

Notice that Jesus trusted Peter (and also James and John) to pray more than the others. But they turned out not to be trustworthy. They fell asleep. Notice also that in Mark’s gospel Jesus called Peter Simon. This I think was an indication that Jesus was frustrated with him—that he was not living up to his chosen name (Peter, the rock). But regardless of Jesus’ displeasure in His disciples, He continued to encourage them to keep watching and praying.

The gospel of Luke only recorded how an angel appeared to Him to strengthened Him. It may occur to you (as it does to me) what He needed strength for, and how could an angel help Him. Well, I don’t think angels have any difficulty with temptation; I think they are always strong and incapable of sin. They may not even understand it. Their mission is to help and encourage people with whatever they can do according to the will of God. I think what they did for Jesus was just to encourage Him to keep praying. And He did pray very fervently and was sweating drops of blood.