Let This Cup Pass

When Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, "Father, if it be Your will, let this cup pass from Me," most people think that He was referring to death on a cross. They think that this prayer was an expression of the human side of Jesus recoiling from the horrors of crucifixion. However, there is a better view that fits the facts of Scripture and which gives a richer picture of what really happened to our Savior so long ago.

What happened to Jesus in the garden that night is that death came to Him prematurely and overwhelmingly. He was in agony and suffering to the point of sweating drops of blood. He was about to perish and He knew it, which is why He begged three times for His disciples to pray with Him. And unless an angel had come and ministered to Him, He would have died a lonely death in a garden rather than a substitutionary death on a cross. If He had died there in the garden, all the plans for the salvation of the world through the cross would have been forfeited. A Jesus who died in the garden would have been a tragic figure rather than the Savior of the world. Let's look at the facts about what happened that night in the garden of Gethsemane.

First, we know that Jesus was in need of support during a great time of stress. He asked His disciples to pray with Him, not just once, but He asked them three times. His burden had grown so heavy that He sought the company of friends to help Him get through this trial. He wanted their prayers, but as we know, they failed Him when they fell asleep in sorrow.

Second, we know that Jesus was in the midst of a great internal struggle as He approached the hour when He would bear the sins of the world on the cross. There in the garden, Jesus was already beginning to feel the weight of mankind's sins, and it was crushing Him even before a hand of violence was ever laid on Him. Luke said that "He was in anguish and his sweat was like drops of blood" (22:44), and Matthew records Jesus as saying, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death" (26:38).

Third, we know that an angel came from heaven and "strengthened Him" (Luke 22:43). The ministry of angels in the life of Jesus is interesting. They announced His birth; they strengthened Him after His forty day ordeal in the desert when the devil tempted Him; and in the final days of His life, an angel was with Him in the garden strengthening Him so that He would not die prematurely when the agony of sin began to descend upon Him.

Fourth, we know that Jesus prayed in the garden for the Father in heaven save Him from death, a death that was about to swallow Him at any moment: "Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me." Yes, the cup was the cup of death, but it was not a death on the cross that Jesus had in mind when He prayed those words. Rather, Jesus was asking the Father to let Him live long enough to go to the cross and bear the punishment for the sins of mankind. He was asking God to allow Him to fulfill His purpose for coming to earth in the first place, rather than perish one day too soon. The plan of salvation through the cross had been established long before the world was even created (Ephesians 1:4), and Jesus knew that He was about to fall short of carrying out that plan because He was on the point of death there in Gethsemane.

Fifth, we know that Jesus never wavered from the prospect of death on a cross. He had repeatedly told His disciples that it was always His intention to go to Jerusalem in order to be crucified for the sins of the world: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day” (Luke 9:22, see also Matthew 16:21 and Mark 10:45). The disciples were slow to understand this idea, and in fact, rejected it completely. Peter even “rebuked” Jesus to His face for insisting that He would end up on a cross someday soon (Mark 8:31-32).

Sixth, we know that Jesus specifically rejected the idea that He would ask the Father to release Him from the plan to die on the cross: "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again” (John 12:27-28).

Thus, if Jesus, in the garden, were asking to be released from the prospect of death on a cross, then He would be undoing everything that He said He had come to earth to do. Jesus knew that His death on a cross for the sins of mankind was a fulfillment of Scripture, and He was not only willing to be crucified, but He was adamant about it. Jesus did not change His mind about dying for mankind when He asked for the cup to pass from Him - to do so would have been a self-betrayal of all He had ever said and done.

Finally, we know that Jesus survived His ordeal in the garden and that He gave His life on the cross for the sins of the world. The author of Hebrews referenced this in chapter 5:7 "In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety." Here, the Bible tells us that God the Father answered the cry of Jesus from the garden, and with the help of an angel, the cup did indeed pass by Jesus that night.

What a Savior!