“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Luke 22:42 ESV

These are the words Jesus prayed to the Father as his arrest, trial, and execution were drawing near. Luke also tells us that He was in such distress that His sweat became like drops of blood and an angel came down from Heaven to strengthen Him.

What we have here is a picture of pure natural human emotion and distress. I think that sometimes it is easy to forget that Jesus felt love, hurt, anger, pain, anguish, joy, happiness, and all the other emotions that humans feel. I think that sometimes, at least for me, because Jesus was God, it is easy to overlook the fact that Jesus felt real anxiety in the garden and real pain on the cross. Jesus was also fully man and as such He was not simply going through the motions, this was all just as real to Him as it would be to any of us. He wasn’t God pretending to be a man.

As a man He did not want to go through what He knew was coming, but in the end Jesus submitted to the will of the Father, even to the point of death.¹ Even though it is not often taken to this extreme, we are also asked to submit to God² and I believe it is this idea of submission that frightens so many people when they contemplate the idea of God.

People are afraid of complete submission to a higher power in a world where everybody takes whatever they can get. I think this is why the thought of a God who judges is so offensive, or off-putting, to so many people. To submit to God’s will is to admit you are not in control and that makes people fearful. People are fearful because this means they will be held accountable for their actions, and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

This is why the ideas of subjective truth and subjective relativism are so enticing to people, it is the idea that you can’t be held accountable for your actions because your truth is different than somebody else’s truth. “Did God actually say…”³

People don’t want to believe there is anything or anyone greater than themselves, because in the end people want to be their own gods. It is the same temptation Adam and Eve faced in the Garden of Eden.⁴

The very idea of submission goes against man’s nature, no that’s not quite right, this idea goes against our fallen nature. This is because we are focused on worldly things but we should keep our minds set on heavenly things.⁵ “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26 ESV)

This type of submission will make you feel vulnerable at times, it is true, but God has promised us that if we follow His will we will one day enter the kingdom of Heaven.⁶ And we have the promise that in that kingdom God will be with us to “wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”⁷

It is a truly beautiful picture and it was all made possible because Jesus submitted to the will of the Father in the garden. At His name every knee should bow…⁸

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1. Philippians 2:8 ↩︎
2. James 4:7 ↩︎
3. Genesis 3:1 ESV ↩︎
4. Genesis 3:5 ↩︎
5. Paraphrase of Colossians 3:2 ↩︎
6. Matthew 7:21 ↩︎
7. Revelation 21:4 ESV ↩︎
8. Philippians 2:10 ↩︎