Reflection

Every week in church and maybe more often than that for some, we pray the

Lord’s Prayer and in it we pray, ‘your will be done’. We can rattle this

off without thinking about what it really means. Here, Jesus knows exactly

what it means.

His time has come and he and the disciples go to the Mount of Olives to

pray and this time it will be the last. He tells his disciples to pray that

they won’t fall into temptation and he tells them to do it again in verse

36. I know that if I was there and was about to see Jesus arrested and

killed, I would be tempted to just lose heart, walk away, and give up. But

Jesus’ command is to pray.

After telling them the first time, Jesus goes around the corner, kneels,

and prays. He knows what is ahead of him. He knows that the Father’s plan

for salvation means he will be humiliated, experience terrible suffering,

and experience the wrath of the Father. It’s going to be excruciating and

so he asks the Father to take the cup away, to take away the wrath and all

that is ahead. He’s in agony! But his prayer doesn’t end there. He ends by

saying ‘yet not my will, but yours be done’. Jesus submits himself to the

Father’s will even if it means going ahead with the plan for salvation

through the cross. He prayed again through tears, through weakness, and

through trouble.

This is what it means to pray and live out ‘your will be done’. It means

God’s will above our comfort, God’s will above our money, God’s will above

our careers, God’s will above our best laid out plans, and it could mean

God’s will above our lives. But why should we follow God’s will? Because he

is God and because he knows what it is like. Jesus has wrestled with this

question, experienced everything we could ever experience and more. Our God

is the one who serves us even to death because of his love for us. May his

will be done. MC

Questions

Where in your life may you not be submitting to the will of the Father?

Prayer

Our Father in heaven, how can we thank you enough for Jesus? Thank you that

he submitted to your will even to the point of taking your wrath that we

deserved. Help us to seek your will above all else, to live it out, and

please expose our hearts for where we aren’t submitting to it. In Jesus’

Name, Amen.