Did Jesus go to his death in anguish, as in Mark, or calm and in control, as in Luke?

Each Gospel shows both the anguish and the resolve, and in the same order. Mark’s Jesus is not only distressed. Having prayed for the cup to be taken away, he submits: “nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36). He then wakes the disciples and goes to meet his betrayer (“Rise up, let us go”, 14:42), stays silent before the false witnesses, and answers the high priest openly, “I am” (14:62). Luke’s Jesus is not only calm. He too prays that the cup be removed, which is the prayer of a man who dreads what is coming (Luke 22:42). Luke notes that the disciples slept “for sorrow” (22:45), and he alone records Jesus saying, earlier, “how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” (Luke 12:50).

The same is true on the cross. The cry in Mark, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, is the first line of Psalm 22, a psalm that moves from desolation to trust and praise, and even in it Jesus calls God “my God”. Luke’s last words, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”, come from Psalm 31:5, another psalm of a man in distress who entrusts himself to God. Both sayings were spoken: the cry at the ninth hour and the commendation at the moment of death (see ‘What were Jesus’ last words on the cross?’). Luke’s other sayings are of the same kind. Jesus tells the women, “weep not for me, but weep for yourselves” (23:28), as he is led out to be crucified, and he prays for his executioners (23:34) and promises paradise to the dying thief (23:43) while hanging on the cross. These show forgiveness and faith in the middle of suffering, not freedom from it. Mark chose to show the depth of the suffering, and Luke the faith and forgiveness that ran through it.

Real anguish and a settled will are not opposites. The letter to the Hebrews speaks of the same Jesus offering prayers “with strong crying and tears” and being heard (Hebrews 5:7). Jamieson, Fausset and Brown put it well: Gethsemane was a struggle between two views of one event, not between a reluctant will and a willing one.

A difference of emphasis

Luke’s shorter Gethsemane scene and his choice of sayings from the cross suit his purpose. He presents Jesus as the innocent, righteous sufferer who forgives and trusts to the end, a theme that runs through his account of the trials and of the centurion’s words. A difference of emphasis between two writers is not a difference of fact.

Luke 22:43–44, the angel and the sweat like great drops of blood, are missing from some of the best early manuscripts, including Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus, as Adam Clarke noted. They were known in the second century to Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, and most manuscripts have them. The prayer “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34) is also missing from some early manuscripts, among them Codex Vaticanus and Codex Bezae, though most have it. Ehrman holds that Luke 22:43–44 were added later; other scholars think they were removed. The answer above does not depend on these verses: without Luke 23:34, Luke’s other sayings (23:28, 23:43, 23:46) still show faith in the middle of suffering.