He told them, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, "My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from Me. Yet I want Your will to be done, not Mine." Matthew 26:38-39
If you knew that you were about to suffer an innocent death, what would you spend your last few minutes doing? Would you be pleading for your life, doing everything you could to prove your innocence? Would you spend time with the people you love, telling them how much you love them, and sharing any last words before you leave them? Would you enjoy a last meal at your favorite restaurant? As we consider Jesus' death and resurrection, have you ever wondered what Jesus was thinking and what He did the moments before He was arrested and crucified on the cross? The Bible goes into great detail of exactly what Jesus was doing and saying the moments before His arrest.
Matthew 26 explains that leading up to His arrest, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane with His disciples to pray. Did you know that at this time, Jesus was deeply grieved "to the point of death" (verse 38)? At this moment, the weight of everything that was happening and would soon take place must have weighed so heavily on Him. The best thing for Him to do, at this time, was to talk with God the Father. As He prayed, He made a request to God the Father that displays His humanity and His complete obedience to God the Father: "If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from Me. Yet I want Your will to be done, not Mine." As much as Jesus wanted to bypass the agony of the cross, He wanted the will of God the Father more. What a beautiful picture we have of both Jesus' humanity and obedience. Jesus prayed this prayer three times and then acknowledged that His time had come to be arrested and eventually killed on a cross. He trusted God the Father, even if the answer to His prayer to find a way to bypass death on a cross was "no."
When we jump so quickly to Jesus' resurrection, we forget to acknowledge the agony He underwent to get to the resurrection. As much as He was fully God, He was also fully human. He had human emotions and feelings, and He felt the sting of everything He went through, physically and emotionally. Despite these things, He did it because He knew the outcome: the conquering of sin and death and salvation of all who place their faith in Him.
As we consider the intense agony Jesus faced as He was praying to God, we must remember that He went through all of this for us, so that we could be rescued from our sin and have eternal life with Him. Take a moment to pull out your list of people in your life who don't have a relationship with God and spend some time praying for them right now. Pray that God would continue to work in their lives and make Himself known to them. Pray that they would be receptive as He works in their lives. Thank Him for the sacrifice Jesus made, acknowledging the deep agony He felt the moments leading up to His death.
Read Matthew 26:36-46 (NLT)
Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”
Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, “My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done.” When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open.
So he went to pray a third time, saying the same things again. Then he came to the disciples and said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But look—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”
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