³⁹And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will”… ⁴²He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.”… ⁴⁴And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more.

What was Jesus thinking?! How could He, as God, speak of His will in a way that seems to indicate it was not in sync with the Father’s will? He had said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), which most theologians interpret as a statement of unity in purpose. Indeed, Jesus had this clearly in mind when He said to His disciples, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38). Add to this, we know that Jesus was God come in the flesh. So how could Jesus pray as He did—not just once or twice but three times?

We err to think that we can fully understand the eternal God entering into His creation, taking on a created body while remaining fully uncreated deity. Further, it makes sense that our puny little minds can’t possibly understand how the Creator of everything in the universe could experience a creaturely death. And finally, how could God, who is pure and holy in His very essence, take on our sins and die in our place? The mysteries will occupy our minds for eternity, never getting old as we discover new depths of our eternal God and His ways.

Among the many things we could ponder, and I am thinking here of Jesus’ actual prayer, that He is asking the Father, “If it is possible” He doesn’t ask, “If it is possible for You to do this …” but asks a rhetorical question of the possibility of bypassing “this cup.” He does not ask the Father to remove it but whether there is any other way of accomplishing the task before Him. He knows the answer is that this is the only way. But why then ask if He knows what the Father’s will is, knowing that He would comply with it?

We may never fully understand this, but a few observations may be helpful. Three times demonstrates to us the earnestness of His prayer. His submission to the Father is explicit. His prayer is not a façade; the strain on Him is genuine, as He confessed to His disciples: “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death” (Matt. 26:38). We are left to wonder what was it about His imminent death that would cause the incarnate Jesus Christ to put His own will in juxtaposition with the Father’s will, to cause Him to react so strongly as to consider a possible way out of the crucifixion?

Was it the fear of death? No, because He knew that the resurrection would follow three days later. Was it fear of Satan? Of course not, for with a simple word, He could say, “Begone,” and the tempter would leave. Was it the weight of our sin that tempted Him to hesitate going to the cross? No. Whatever He saw in the cross was not a surprise to Him in this last hour. Jesus knew from the beginning that His purpose in coming was to redeem us from our sin.

I believe we are closer to the answer by considering why He uses the imagery, “let this cup pass from me” and “unless I drink it….” Let us remember that this is a picture used by the prophets for God’s wrath against sin:

Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself! Arise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the Lord’s hand the cup of His anger; the chalice of reeling you have drained to the dregs. (Isa. 51:17)

For thus the Lord, the God of Israel, says to me, “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. (Jer. 25:15)

Jesus Christ, as God in the flesh, would know how terrible God’s wrath recoils against humankind’s sin. Only He can fully comprehend how awful it would be for us to fall into the hands of an angry God! God knows His own anger! The only thing that could possibly cause Jesus to wince in the face of the cross is the full force of God’s judgment on all of humanity, every human being who ever lived.

His thrice-repeated prayer tells me all I need to know. Jesus saw the cup of God’s wrath about to be poured out on Him, like a cauldron boiling over, with Jesus standing in the direct line of flow between God’s anger and us. And He winces at the magnitude of it all. One might even consider whether this would have caused a strain in the Trinity, where the Father turns His anger on the Son. Such things are too difficult to understand, for it seems that the incarnation and the atoning death of the God-Man Jesus Christ for us bring us face to face with a depth of mystery where eternity and creation collide, with an explosion far greater than the power of all the suns and stars of the universe combined. And He was willing to take the full blow that should have landed on me! What an amazing Savior we have in Jesus Christ.

Thank you, Lord, for pulling back the curtain and allowing us to see from what we have been saved. Because He took our condemnation, we are no longer condemned. And because He rose again, we are now forgiven.