This morning, many different things that we are required to do may not be pleasant. Discipline is never a pleasant thing, but it is needful for our well-being. Likewise, when going astray, reproof is profitable for us as it hides a multitude of sins and saves us from death. But, Peter wrote to not glory in suffering for our faults (for that is our just reward). But, it is glorious and well-pleasing to God if we suffer when we do well. For example, if I committed a crime and I did not complain while feeling the just enforcement of the consequences of my crime, I should not be commended. However, if I endure suffering for the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ without complaining, that is worthy of commendation. 

Our Lord never once shirked His work of redemption. He did not complain about it, but endured the shame and reproach of the cross for the joy that was set before Him. In this verse, He declared that the hour approached for His being delivered into the hands of wicked men for the crucifixion. But, He also declares that He will not complain or ask for something different. He knew exactly what would happen, and it troubled the perfect GodMan to know He would suffer these things. However, even as bad as things were going to be, He never prayed for them to be taken away.   

Even in the garden before His apprehension, His prayer was not to be delivered from this suffering, but His prayer was to finish the work. The cup that He had to drink for us was approaching, and He was ready to be offered through the eternal Spirit without spot to God. However, He prayed still that the Father's will be done. Christ was ready for that time, and for that hour He came into the world. To say that Christ asked or beseeched His Father to remove the cup so that He would not have to drink of it implies, at least, that Christ's will and the Father's will were not in agreement. However, they are one, and the perfect obedience of Christ was not robotic, but rather harmonious with the desires of the Almighty.   

We can also consider in this verse that Christ came into this world for that hour (that He spoke of repeatedly). He did not waste time at any juncture. There was never an idle thought or wayward step. Everything had a purpose. Had Christ not kept the law to a jot and tittle all the while leading up to this very hour of which He spoke, He would not have been a suitable sacrifice. So, everything that He did and said culminated at the hour of deliverance for our sins and transgressions that reached a level of horror displayed on Calvary's hill like no other. Nowhere in time will ever have that many sins directed and punished in so compact a space of time.   

How do you measure an eternity's worth of suffering in a finite space of time for multiple persons in one Person? Such a thing is impossible for this feeble mind to fathom. However, He did not deter His path, and He redeemed us from all the curse of the law. When He drank the bitter cup, He drank the fulness of it. He did not leave a portion for us to drink, and to speak of such frustrates the grace of God. But, thanks be unto Him that His purpose and grace has delivered us, and we trust it will yet deliver us into the heavenly portals of majesty and wonder to be satisfied with the very likeness of our Redeemer!

In Hope,

Bro Philip