Matthew 26:38

Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here and watch with me. And he went forward a little and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup, pass away from me: Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.

This prayer is remarkable for many reasons. The use of "MY Father is significant because, whereas Christ taught his disciples to pray "Our Father," he himself used the first person possessive singular, "My"! God is the Father of Christ uniquely. Christ who said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," did not lose any of his divinity even while suffering the humiliation of agony and death. Even in that extremity there was seen at every instant some overwhelming evidence of his divinity. The one purpose of Christ's coming into the world was to make an atonement, through death, for man's sin; but as the agony approached, his human nature found the ordeal abhorrent and repulsive. This very human prayer gives an insight into the sufferings of Christ and should enhance human appreciation of his unselfish deed. Even in that chilling scene in Gethsemane, Christ prayed, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt." This clearly shows that the humanity of Christ, for the moment, was not fully in tune with the will of the Father, through the weakness of all flesh; but it was quickly brought into complete harmony by means of the prayers in Gethsemane.

If it be possible! Are not all things possible with God? Yes, and no! It was possible, of course, for God to take away the cross; but to have done so would have taken salvation away from humanity. The dreadful, soul-shaking truth is that not even God could redeem man without the sacrifice of himself (in the person of Christ) to pay the penalty of man's redemption. God had "passed over" the sins of countless generations, knowing what he at last would do; but then the time had come for God to "show his righteousness" (Romans 3:25,26) in having so done. Satan marshaled every possible force to thwart God's purpose. Having found it impossible to murder the Lord, which he had repeatedly attempted, there remained only two means of possible victory for the evil one. These were: (1) he might cause Christ to sin, and (2) he might induce Christ to refuse the cross. In this latter means lies the explanation of the utter repulsiveness of the death which confronted Christ on Calvary. Satan exhausted diabolical cunning in that awful event, foretold from the beginning (Genesis 3:15), in which he would bruise the heel of the seed of woman. No refinement of sadistic lust or barbarous cruelty was overlooked. Christ was to die the worst death any being ever suffered on earth. Would the Saviour, rather than endure it, renounce his mission? To have done so would have been, in a sense, honorable as far as Christ was concerned; but the race of men would have been lost. Only his great eternal love for man brought him through the depth of humiliation and temptation that swept over him in that chilling scene in Gethsemane.