Matthew 26:42

Matthew 26:39 , Matthew 26:42

Submission a Progress.

To enter fully into the mystery of Christ's agony is not given to the living. But even the faint distant glimpse which we catch of it causes to rise upon this life of ours a marvellous light. The mourner has felt it so, and the sinner has felt it so, and the tempted has felt it so, and the disconsolate and solitary man has felt it so, and the dying man has felt it so. Consider the example, the model, the type of suffering, which is here set before us in Christ.

I. All sorrow, all suffering, even if it be anguish, even if it be agony, is a cup. It is something definite something of a certain size, measure, and capacity something which may be compared to the contents of a vessel; and that vessel prepared, presented, administered, by the hand of God Himself.

II. Again, concerning the cup itself, you may pray. Though it is of God's sending, yet He will be inquired of, He will be applied to, He will be entreated, concerning it. If ever there was a cup which could not be prayed against, it was the cup of the sinbearing. And yet Christ prayed even against it.

III. But how pray? In what spirit, Christ being still our Teacher? (1) As to a Father. "O My Father." Never is a childlike spirit so needful as in regard to suffering, and in regard to prayer concerning it. (2) Again, with an "if." If it be possible. Then it may not be possible that the Gup should pass. And you must recognise this possible impossibility. (3) Once more, with an earnest confession of the comparative value of two wills your will and God's. If the two clash, have you made up your mind to wish, cost what it may, that God's should prevail?

Our Lord's second prayer asks not at all for the removal of the cup. The first was prayer with submission; the second is submission without even prayer. There was progression, even in this solemn hour, in the discipline of the Saviour's obedience. He was learning obedience. Beyond the submission of the will lies the silence of the will; beyond the desire to have only of God's will the desire that God only may will, whether I have or have not. The first prayer, the former text, was the one; the second prayer, the latter text, was the other. All of us have wishes, have desires. How shall these pass into our entire good, into our final perfection? (1) We must turn them into prayers; (2) we must pray in the spirit of submission.

C. J. Vaughan, Last Words at Doncaster,p. 165.

References: Matthew 26:39; Matthew 26:42. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xiv., p. 283.Matthew 26:40. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 20; Ibid., Plymouth Pulpit Sermons,5th series, p. 187.