Irony Becomes Her

No other way

...and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ...

He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. (Matthew 26:37-44)

We know the rest of the story. The cup was drunk. Every anticipation of suffering that the "sorrowful and troubled" Jesus had came to pass.

Even though he asked the Father three times to take it away.

God wants to give good gifts to his children, especially his only begotten son. It must logically follow, then, that there was no other way for the cup to disappear than that Jesus should drink it.

We pray "your will be done" at our peril. If we mean it, we may literally be asking to be crucified. Praying it without meaning it is hypocrisy.

I rejoice in Jesus' example of repeatedly asking for mercy in the face of undeserved and unimaginable pain. Permission to beg, from an authoritative source, means much to me, even when the request is denied. "Your will be done" is not the only allowable part of the prayer.

But when there's no other way for him to make me the woman he wants me to be, to work my existence "according to the counsel of his will," will I tell him NOT to break my heart and pierce my side? No -- unless I undergo this test, all my professions of faith in him and love for him are meaningless.

I also choose to take joy in a privilege Paul identified, that of following in the steps of the one whose name is above every name. It is grace, and only grace, to be so taken hold of -- and raised up!

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. (Philippians 3:10-12)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:5-7)

posted by Lynn @ 1:48 PM