"If You Are Willing"

“Father, if you are willing, please don’t make me drink from this cup. But do what you want, not what I want.” Luke 22:42

It is nearly impossible to come up with a personal example of what it felt for Jesus the night He faced the looming cross. He knew, as everyone else in his time, the torturous methods used by Rome in exterminating offenders. He was fully aware of the horrors that could possibly play out before even the first nail was shoved through his hands. He faced His skin being stripped from His back, blow after blow, from the metal and bone tied into the whip known as the “cat of nine tails”.

The cross did not take Jesus unaware; throughout His entire public ministry He constantly alluded to the suffering that awaited Him in Jerusalem. Each step, even during the times of great acclaim and popularity, was aimed at the fateful Friday when the pain of the world and its sin would be come together in a single critical mass of His own body. Love compelled Him to go; the pangs of death and suffering gave Him momentary pause.

Before the trial of trumped up charges, Jesus walks to the Garden of Olives with His disciples. They have gathered there often before, it would not be hard for the authorities to find Him. But perhaps Jesus needed the comfort of the familiar; a place where He and His disciples had previously shared worship and prayer together. And there it was that He poured out His soul.

Apart from the prayer of Jesus in John 17, nearly all of Jesus’ recorded prayers are quite short. Admittedly, the narrators may have condensed a longer petition, but there is still something to learn from how honest and pointed Jesus prayed. In His agony He wastes no time with traditional or expected preludes. He dives in; the result of both familiarity and trust.

Knowing that Jesus, the perfect Son of God, could come to Father God and express His inner distress to the point that His sweat appeared to be drops of blood should encourage us. How much more do we, in our human imperfections, have reason to cry out when the world no longer makes sense, or the path of obedience seems also to be the pathway of pain? Jesus has gone before us, pouring out His heart to Father God, and so grants us permission to do the same.

How tender and intimate is this moment. “Father”, He cries out. I can still here my own children’s voices at times when they thought I had lost them. “Dad! Where are you, Dad?” Even in agony, the Father and Son’s unity remains unbroken because of love.

“Don’t make me drink from this cup.” In the end, I do not think Father God ever did make His Son drink. It was Jesus’ choice. There is no doubt that it was God’s will for Him to save mankind on the cross; yet it fell to Jesus’ own decision to submit to that will. He declares His own distaste for the task ahead. Again, Jesus sets us free to pray with utter honesty. “Father God, I don’t want to do this thing. It is too hard. It is too painful. I don’t know if I can finish the task.” He frees us to tell Father God all our reasons for hesitancy. To find the comfort of God, we must be honest with Him.

“But do what You want, not what I want.” This, I think, may be the most powerful prayer in all of Scripture. Jesus faces unspeakable horrors and pain. The agony He will experience escapes our ability to imagine. He also knows His own closest friends will not walk to the end with Him, many of them fleeing into hiding. And, in the darkest moment of all, He will feel that even His own Father has forsaken Him. “But…not what I want…but what You want.”

That prayer is why we now can have unhindered access to Father God ourselves. The passionate wrestling of Jesus that night, by Himself, three times over while His three friends slept out of fear; that wrestling won the day. From that moment on, though it appeared otherwise, Jesus was fully in authority. The doubts poured out and His Father’s will fully accepted, Jesus now took each step knowing He was fulfilling the destiny that had been eternally planned: The Lamb slain from the foundations of the world.

Let no one tell you that Christians never suffer. Don’t let them persuade you that wrestling with personal doubt is somehow a sign of immature faith. Let Jesus’ prayer that night reach into your own heart of doubts and let it teach you to come to Father God honestly. If you are facing a decision and doing what God wants appears to bring hardship, pray like Jesus. Tell God your concerns, but, then, walk straight into God’s will, knowing that Father God will never forsake you. He never forsook His Son, and neither will He turn His back on You.

And, just remember; Thursday Jesus prayed, Friday He was crucified and died. But Sunday was just around the corner!