They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”
Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:32–36)
Jesus spent the final hours of his life before he was arrested in prayer, talking to his Father. This was not an easy prayer for him to pray, and we see that even the perfect Son of God was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” As he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, he began by addressing God as “Abba Father.” That Aramaic term for father pointed to a relationship that was close, familiar, and intimate. Jesus approached his Father without formality and then poured out his heart in brutal honesty. He asked God to “take this cup” from him and save him from what he was about to endure.
But in the same prayer, Jesus submitted to his Father and yielded his will in favor of God’s.
Jesus held nothing back, sharing his anguish and his desires with God, and submitted to his Father’s will. He didn’t temper his feelings, but he also didn’t surrender to his feelings. He surrendered to his Father because he trusted the love God had for him was greater than what he felt in that moment. His identity was grounded in the relationship he had with his Abba Father.
Jesus’s prayer was composed of both honesty and surrender. That’s the kind of closeness God wants to have with us, and that’s the intimate relationship Jesus died to give us with our heavenly Father. You can bring all of your feelings, fears, and desires to God in full honesty—he wants to hear them—and you can surrender your will to him with full confidence that you are loved by him.
