Something on Luke 22:42

Jeremy is interested in knowing a little bit more about Luke 22:42; it reads, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” It's a little tricky, isn't it?

Here's what I'm sure of . . .

Jesus is God. That's true. But, Jim McGuiggan is right to remind us and insist that we should go another step and say, “Jesus is God being a man.” Oh, that's right! Jesus isn't “just another boy,” but He is God, the Father, as He reveals Himself as being a human one.

See, sometimes, we use “analogies” to relate things. If we're not sure how to do something, we may use a more relatable method to explain. Or, if we don't know what a word means, we use another similar word to give the idea or the sense, the meaning. Well, here's God, the Father, and He knows that He needs to “reveal” Himself to the human family, but there is – pardon the expression – a “disconnect” between God and humanity, and the best way for God to “connect” to us is to become one of us, which is precisely what we have in Jesus of Nazareth. He, Jesus of Nazareth, is the boy through whom God decides to live as a human.

For what it is worth, I DO understand the difficulty (philosophically) with all of this, but just because it's difficult doesn't mean that it's not the case. There's more of an argument to be had here, for sure; however, that's not our purpose here . . . The New Testament insists that Jesus is the embodiment of the Father (John 1:1-5,14; 5:17,18; 10:30), so if we're about taking the New Testament's witness seriously . . . well, there you have it.

Now, why do I say all of that?

Well, Luke 22:42 is one of those cases where the HUMAN Jesus asks about evading the horrific business of the cross. He knows what's coming (see John 18:4). An “escape route” would be nice if He, the human Jesus, could get one . . . but He also knows the big picture of God's plan for human, global redemption. If there's another way, another means, to “atone” for – to handle – the “sin problem,” then Jesus'd appreciate God's choosing it instead.

But, the DIVINE Jesus knows, we now know . . . and I get the impression that the HUMAN side of Jesus knew, too, what was coming . . . and what HAD to be coming . . .

See, God, the holy and loving Father, HAS BEEN, IS and WILL ALWAYS BE committed faithfully to doing His part to redeem our fallen world. And, when “the cross” came out as the means whereby the world would be saved, it was NOT one plan of several . . . it was THE ONLY PLAN that could actually handle the sin problem.

It wasn't God's wrath that simply obliterated “sin” – by the way, “sin” is an action, it doesn't exist apart from sinners who commit such, it isn't a transferable, biological object – God's attack on “sin,” then, had to go deeper than that . . . No, God didn't “get His gun off” and finally find selfish satisfaction in sadistically punishing the child, Jesus. “Wrath” didn't “appease” or “satisfy” God . . . but something did. Instead, God WAS “satisfied” or “appeased” not by the pain or suffering that Jesus went through but it was because of the LOVE showed by Jesus to such an extent! Yes, that amount of LOVE was always what God wanted to see from a human being . . . why, in Jesus' self-giving on the cross, we have an expression that gets close to – no, that's not quite right! not “close to”! – it WAS!!! – it WAS “GOD BEING A MAN!” In Jesus, we have an expression of self-giving love that IS the Father acting out as one of us, a human! When God was “satisfied” at the cross, it was because, finally, someone (Jesus) had come along, taken the divine call to “be the image of God” (Gen. 1:26,27), which Adam and the rest of us failed at doing, and lived it out perfectly! In Jesus, we have the perfect image of God (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:4,6; Heb. 1:1-4)!

Now, back to Luke 22:42 . . .

When Jesus asks for another way, He's pleading (from a human angle?) if there's an alternative to the cross . . . it's almost rhetorical . . . do you think that He knows what's coming, even from a human angle? (It'd be difficult not to read the situation, even from Jesus' human standpoint.) Maybe, Jesus isn't actually asking as much as He's simply pleading, reaching out to His Father, just opening up His human emotions?

But, whatever precisely Jesus means, we're sure of this . . . He, like His Father, is committed to doing His part to redeem the human family. Even if it means going to the cross . . . It's “Thy will not mine.” What if we got that mindset, attitude, approach deep into our veins and lived it out? What if, even in our darkest hours, we (human beings) lived sacrificially and selflessly, committed ourselves, like Jesus, to doing whatever we could to do our part to redeem our fallen world?

Even if it meant going to a cross??? “Not my will but Yours . . .”

And, that, by the way is REAL POWER living itself out as a human. A worldly materialist would've thought that “a God” would have blasted sin out of existence, never died in the first place, etc., etc., etc. But, Jesus has that way of “reorienting our vision” and transforming our perspective to see REAL POWER, REAL DIVINITY, in a new light, instead of through our blurred and dusty lenses. Now, in the mindset, attitude, approach of Jesus (“not my will but yours”), we see “GOD BEING A MAN” – now, we see that REAL POWER looks like self-restraint, self-giving, selflessness and sacrifice. Here, in the mindset of Jesus, we see “GOD BEING A MAN.” In Luke 22:42, we're seeing the HUMAN Jesus and the DIVINE Jesus as ONE.

So, again, we ask ourselves, if we're seeking to follow our example, Jesus – and if we to wanted to bear REAL POWER and bear REAL GLORY and act like the One who really was DIVINE – “What if, even in our darkest hours, we (human beings) lived sacrificially and selflessly, committed ourselves, like Jesus, to doing whatever we could to do our part to redeem our fallen world?”

Even if it means going to a cross??? “Not my will but yours . . .”