LS-43-Gethsemane's Prayer
Gethsemane’s Prayer And He went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.--Matthew 26:39.
Again and again He withdrew from His disciples, and prayed, saying the same words. It is a heart-rending cry. We remember the travail of soul from which it came, and our hearts are moved to pity and sorrow as we read the sobbing petition.
What was the cup He did not wish to drink? That it was involved in the experience of the morrow, with its mock trial, its raillery, its scourging, its crown of thorns and the cross, there is no doubt. Not that those things constituted the bitterness of the cup. There was sin in it--not His, but ours--for He was made sin for us, and His pure soul recoiled from it. Was the prayer answered? Certainly the cup did not pass from Him. It was pressed to His lips and He drained it. Yet we are assured that when He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, He was heard in that He feared (Hebrews 5:7). The cup was not taken away. But He received the needed strength to drink it. An angel came from heaven, and strengthened Him (Luke 22:43).
Thus in the supreme crisis of His life did our Saviour give us our deepest insight into the meaning and mystery of prayer. Prayer is not merely a petition. Our prayers are usually requests for desired blessings, but true prayer is more than that. Sometimes we seem to think of prayer as an attempt to induce God to do something He otherwise would not do. But that is not prayer. Prayer is the effort of the soul to enter into communion with God, to understand His will, and realise His purposes. Dr. O. O. Lang says: "Prayer means the uplifting of our souls in desire, affection, and will to God as the supreme end of our life. If our prayers are to be the means whereby we secure our abiding in Christ, their main object must be not to get what we want, but to give what God wants--a life surrendered to Himself."
God is Love. He is merciful and gracious, and full of compassion. No prayer of ours could make Him more tender and kind. He wills the best for us. His purposes are always just and right, and for Him to act contrary to Ills will would be to contradict Himself. Thus our prayers, expressing our own desires and aspirations though they do, must be the conscious movement of the soul towards God, if they are to avail anything. Deeper than all our own expressed desires, comprehending all and subduing all, must come the complete surrender: "Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt."