Creator, Father, King #227

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.

THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE was dark. Unusually dark.

Yes, it was nighttime. But this wasn’t simply the lack of sunlight. This was different. This was a spiritual darkness. Shadows fell heavy across the garden. Evil was in the air.

Leaving his disciples behind, Jesus walked farther ahead, fell on his face, and began to pray. His body shook with sorrow.

“My Father!” he cried out. “If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

Light briefly broke through the gloom as an angel appeared to strengthen him. Jesus prayed more fervently. His sweat fell like great drops of blood, splattering salty red on the ground. The time had almost come (Matthew 26).

Jesus knew the answer to his prayer. He had, in fact, planned it in heavenly councils in eternity past. He would have to drink the cup and all of its bitterness, down to its very dregs.

What’s It Mean?

The “cup of suffering” Jesus referred to was a metaphor describing God’s just, yet terrifying, wrath toward sin, harkening back to Old Testament prophecies that employed similar imagery (e.g., Isaiah 51:17-23; Jeremiah 25:15-29).

This was God’s wrath toward our sin, mind you. As the spotless Lamb of God (1 Peter 1:19), Jesus deserved none of it.

Interestingly, Jesus prayed for another way to save mankind. Was he showing ungodly fear or cowardice? Not at all! But he was human. The incarnate Christ was fully God but also fully man, and in those dark moments in Gethsemane, even the divine Son needed angelic encouragement to help overcome the overwhelming anguish associated with “becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13, ESV).

But there was no way other than the Cross. This was the plan that the Father, Son, and Spirit had determined in eternity past. Knowing this, Jesus ultimately prayed for the Father’s will, which he always accomplished (John 8:29). Our sins demanded the payment of a life (Romans 6:23). So the Son of God, in perfect human form, would die in our place.

Shortly after he left Gethsemane, Jesus took the cup of God’s wrath toward sins—your sins—and drank all of it . . . every last drop.

All because he loves us dearly.

Now What?

Read the garden of Gethsemane accounts in Matthew 26:30-56; Mark 14:26-52; Luke 22:39-54; and John 18:1-12.

Did You Know?

In Luke 22:44, Jesus might have experienced a rare condition called hematidrosis, where capillaries burst under extreme distress, causing a person to literally sweat blood.