Ruminating in the Word of God: Impassioned submission.

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him and what came to my mind and heart in Luke 22:42,

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will,
but yours be done."

I sometimes find it difficult to read the emotional intensity
surrounding the events I read of in Scripture. Like most, I certainly
want to gain an accurate understanding of a text to have a better
"feeling" of what is going on in the events being related. This is an
area of my Bible reading I find that makes me most dependent on prayer
as I enter its pages. I want to know, to feel, to understand what it
is I am reading about. The quote of the Lord in the above text can be
read in different ways. "Father, if you are willing, take this cup
from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" can be taken as a simple
routine kind of a request, as often heard in church services, or it
could be read as the anguished plea of a heart torn asunder,
contemplating all that will be involved in the physical torture and
the horrific separation and estrangement from his loving Father that
his Father's judicial demand for sin payment will involve.

As it happens, in this case, as the text sits today, it is easy to
read into the Lord's prayer the latter emotional and spiritual
backdrop to the event given the following two verses. In verses 43 and
44 we read, "An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened
him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was
like drops of blood falling to the ground." While we are told that
early manuscripts do not contain these verses, setting aside that
issue for now, they clearly point to the intense struggle our Lord had
as he anticipated his arrest and crucifixion. Our Lord was in need of
strengthening, he was in anguish and, physically, he sweat as though
he was bleeding.

In an event that all creation would only see once forever, God's Son
gives himself to die a miserable death to secure freedom from the
eternal consequences of the sins of all mankind. Knowing his Father's
justice and the horrific price that must be paid to make a way for
mankind to enter into eternal life, he asked that he might be spared
what was to come, and yet... to that very thing he bowed to his Father
in submission.

I don't read into the Lord's request a desire to not secure payment
for mankind's sin. In Luke 19:10 we read that his purpose in coming to
planet Earth was to seek and to save what was lost. My thought is the
nature of the payment that would have to be made was at the heart of
his request. I certainly could be wrong about that, but in any event,
I can't help but note how he couched his request, "yet not my will,
but yours be done." No greater an intentional sacrifice could possibly
be made, and it was not made in the context of a theological ivory
tower or a stately furnished church staffed with clergy donned in
flowing robes. Far from tidy and civil, this was an intensely
passionate event of the most horrific of any experience one could
endure and yet, an event with the most wonderful of any outcome
mankind will ever see for himself. All sins paid for!

This is impassioned submission!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com