Not My Will

Last week we studied the somber last meal of Jesus and his disciples before his crucifixion. This morning, our story takes its final turn towards the cross. The cross is a picture of distress, anguish, and pain. It is so horrific that the Romans didn’t even write about their favorite method of torture. The only accurate records of it are contained in the Gospels. It is so terrible that we developed an adjective from it. The word, “excruciating”, literally means “from the cross.” This suffering begins, not in the trial, not on the Via Delarosa, not on Golgotha. It begins in the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus prays for strength and submits to his Father’s will. Let’s study that together by reading Mark 14:32-42. From this text, see two points: The Anguish of the Son and the Apathy of His Followers.

First, from verses 32-36, see the Anguish of the Son. Mark records that Jesus and his disciples go out to the Garden of Gethsemane, which was an Olive Orchard on the mountain peak opposite of the temple mount. Jesus calls on his disciples to pray with him, and he bears his soul to his closest disciples. Mark uses three adjectives to describe how Jesus feels in this moment. He says that he was greatly distressed and troubled and his soul is very sorrowful even to death. The Greek for “distressed” means to be terrified or overwhelmed. “Troubled” means full of anguish. And, “Sorrowful” means “surrounded by grief.” These adjectives are notable because Mark is not a man of many words. Yet, here, he wants the reader to understand the depth of Jesus’ sorrow. There are many reasons for this sorrow. For one, one of his twelve closest disciples, Judas Iscariot, is on his way with a mob to arrest him. The rest of his disciples will soon scatter in fear, with their leader, Peter, even denying him three times. The people of Israel, his own race to whom he came, will reject him and call for a zealot named Barabbas to be released in one breath while calling for his crucifixion in the other. Then, there is the physical anguish of the cross. Over the course of the next 24 hours, Jesus will be beaten with 40 lashes, mocked with a crown of thorns, marched through the streets of Jerusalem carrying his cross beam, nailed through his hands and feet to a cross, and suspended for all to see while he suffocates to death between two thieves.

Yet, for all this anguish, these are not the sorrows that Jesus dreads. In verse 36, we have his prayer to his Father, and in that he prays, “If it is possible, remove this cup from me.” To what cup is Jesus referring? This cup is the cup of God’s wrath, which is a familiar analogy in the OT. In Psalm 75:8, David warns of a cup of wrath that God has prepared for the wicked, and they will drink it in full. Jeremiah warns, in Jeremiah 25:15, of the cup of the wine of wrath that God will force the nations to drink. And, Isaiah 51:17 prophesies of Jerusalem drinking the cup of his wrath. The greatest sorrow of this moment for Jesus is not the betrayal, the denial, or the physical pain. The greatest sorrow is in the coming wrath of God. Think on this. Jesus is the incarnate, eternal son of God, who has been with the Father from all eternity. The relationship between God the Father and God the Son has been one eternal, unbridled bond of love. There is nothing in the Son that is deficient because the Son is one with the Father, God of God, light of light. There has never been a moment of disappointment between them. At his baptism, the voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” At his transfiguration, the same voice said, “This is my beloved son, listen to him.” Yet, on this dreadful evening, Jesus will take on the wrath of God, not for his own sin, but for ours. He will become the spotless Passover lamb that dies to cover our sins. He will become the scapegoat on which the sins of his people are laid, cast out from the presence of God into the darkness of death.

Facing this dreadful sentence, Jesus prays, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours be done.” In this prayer, there appears to be a Trinitarian conundrum. We believe and confess that the Son and the Father are one in essence. They are of the same mind, though separate persons. Yet, here, they seem to be of two minds. Jesus, the divine son, prays for a possible way out of this. Does this mean that Jesus does not have the mind of God? What we see here is not a division between Father and Son, but the real and necessary obedience of the Son to the will of the Father. To be our substitute, Jesus must do what we cannot. He must be obedient to God in all things, even the things that don’t make sense or seem impossible. We’ve seen this test before. In Genesis 22, after years of waxing and waning in faithfulness, God calls Abraham early one morning to rise, gather his son and materials, go to a mountain that he will show him, and on that mountain, offer his only son. Abraham is unquestioning in his obedience, and Isaac is too. They go to Mount Moriah, and there Abraham builds an altar, Isaac lays on the wood, and Abraham raises his knife. At the moment that Abraham would strike, God stays his hand and says, “Now I know that you are faithful, because you would not withhold your only son from me.” The Danish philosopher, Soren Keirkegaard, was amazed by this story because it revealed a way of truth that the world can’t understand. He called it “relating absolutely to the absolute.” You see, there are several reasons we might be motivated to be obedient. For one, we might be obedient because it is in our self-interest to do so. You know, you don’t steal because you might go to jail. We also might be obedient because we can see some personal benefit in it. Many people have tried to find this in the cleanliness laws of the OT, saying that they really are laws of sanitation – so it’s good to wash your hands, not because it was a sign of purity, but because it kept you from getting sick. We might pursue obedience because of its benefit to society. Many promote marriage or laws against gambling for just this reason. While these motivations for obedience aren’t wrong, they aren’t true, faithful obedience. True obedience is that which is motivated by no other reason than our love of God. Nothing about God’s command to Abraham made sense. It certainly didn’t benefit Abraham or Isaac or society. Yet, Abraham does it because he believed God was good and had come to trust him unquestioningly.

This is the obedience required of all of us, and yet we fail every day in that obedience. So, Jesus must offer to God this absolute obedience. He must go to the cross, not because it is the way of personal gain, and not because it will benefit society, but because it is the will of his Father. And, this obedience must be real. It cannot be a cosmic drama portrayed by an angel pretending at humanity. It must be a real, flesh-and-bone human, born of a woman, born under the law. In this moment, the baby born to Mary who cried at her breast now cries to his Father in the garden.  In this moment of real sorrow, he prays, “not my will, but yours be done.” 

In Jesus’ perfect obedience, we have a contrast with our unwillingness. For that, see my second point, The Apathy of His Followers, from verses 37-42. Jesus asked his closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, to pray with him, yet three different times he finds them asleep. Jesus scolds them, saying, “Could you not watch for one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” See, first, that the disciples do not recognize the severity of the situation. They had not accepted the word of their Lord, who had repeatedly warned them that he would face crucifixion. They doubted him and even rebuked him for saying such things. They saw no need for anguish, no need to pray. Instead, they were fat and happy, full of a great meal and ready to sleep. This is why Jesus says that their flesh is weak. When he says this, the word he uses for “flesh” is sarx, which doesn’t refer to the body itself, but to the sinful nature that has been affected by sin. Our nature is set against the things of God in so many ways. Certainly, we have sinful desires that draw us into sin. We have lust and greed and selfishness. But, these are not the desires that make the disciples weak in this moment. Rather, their temptation is apathy. They just don’t care about the things that grieve Jesus. Their sin is not a sin of commission (it’s not something they choose to do). Their sin is a sin of omission (something they ignore). Much of our own sin is just that – apathy for the things of God.

In hearing that, you might think, well, we just need to care more. We need more motivation. We need to get off our rear ends and do something. Yet, this is not what Jesus calls his disciples to. The solution to weak flesh is not trying to do better. The solution is found in prayer. So, Jesus tells his disciples, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” We do not overcome the weakness of our flesh through more fervor, we overcome it by abiding in Christ, by praying in our weakness, by seeking his power through prayer. And, the greatest hope for the weakness of our flesh is not found in ourselves, it is found in Jesus Christ, who was obedient in all things, even in the midst of his sorrow.