Matt 26:30–56 — Your Will Be Done: Anguish And Surrender In the Garden

Anguish in the Garden

The title of the sermon today is Your Will Be Done, Anguish and Surrender in the Garden. Of course, that is taken from the words of Jesus himself in verse 42. Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, my father, if this cannot pass, unless I drink it, your will be done.

In this section of the Gospel of Matthew, that is in Matthew 26 and 27, we are in what is called the Passion Narrative. There is always a question about whether we should include the Resurrection in Chapter 28 as part of the Passion Narrative. In a sense, it is not, because this is the sufferings of Christ. But in a sense, it is, because that is the important conclusion to the sufferings of Christ, is that he was raised from the dead and vindicated. But in the technical sense, we are looking at the passion narrative, passion meaning the narrative of Christ’s sufferings, of his suffering, not only on the cross, but even in the preparation and lead up to that, as we see in our text today, in his anguish in the garden as he is preparing for the cross.

The Passion narrative in Matthew 26 and 27 has three major sections or acts. Act 1 is Jesus preparing for his death. Act 2 is Jesus on trial and being condemned to death. And then Act 3 is the narration of the actual crucifixion and death of Jesus. We are still in Act 1, that is Jesus preparing for his death.

In this section today, we read about how after the Lord’s Supper, after the Last Supper, Jesus predicted that his disciples would fall away. Verse 31, Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night. Jesus predicts this because he knows that this is what the scripture teaches. He quotes from the prophecy of Zachariah. I will strike the shepherd, that is Christ, and the sheep of the flock, that is the disciples, will be scattered.

Although Jesus does give a note of hope after that. He says, but after that, after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. And we are not going to really deal with that today, but put a little note in your mind because this is going to be picked up again in Matthew 28. Remember in Matthew 28, When the angel appears to the women, the angel says, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, he is going before you to Galilee, just as he had said. And so this is referring back to this text here in Matthew 26, verse 32. Already the resurrection of Christ is in view. Already there is a hopeful outcome to this passion and suffering. But at this point, the primary focus of the narration and the text is on the anguish and the suffering of Christ as he prepares. But interestingly, interestingly, our text has a dual focus.

Now you might think, if you were the one writing the gospel, you might think that all the focus should just be on Jesus? Everything that we are reading about is about Christ. It is His work, He is the Savior. He is the one that is coming to lay down His life and to save His people. And so all the focus of the story and the narration should be just upon Christ and what He does and how He goes to the cross willingly. in obedience to His Heavenly Father. But our text has a dual focus. It not only focuses upon Christ, not only shines the spotlight on Him as the Redeemer and the Savior, it also is very interested in the disciples and their reactions to everything that is happening.

In fact, this foretelling here, this prediction of the disciples’ failure is an important part of the story. Jesus says, you will all fall away. Of course, Peter thinks that he will not. He is boastful. He says, even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. But we know that in reality, he falls flat on his face, and he does indeed deny the Lord. We come then to this section of the text, which is Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Verse 36, Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane.

And he said to his disciples, Sit here while I go over there and pray. and taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.” The two sons of Zebedee are James and John. You recall that they were mentioned a few chapters earlier in Matthew chapter 20. because we are told that the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her two sons, and she asked that her two sons would be able to sit, one on his right hand and one on his left, in his kingdom.

And Jesus is has to explain to the disciples once again that the kingdom comes through suffering and that the kingdom is not about glory and honor. He said, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So we have here these three disciples of the twelve. and if we leave out Judas of the 11, we have these three disciples, Peter, James, and John, being the particular ones whom Jesus takes with him into the garden. Why these three? Well, these are the same three that have struggled to accept the reality of the suffering Messiah. We saw that with the two sons of Zebedee in chapter 20. Peter also, remember after the first passion prediction of Jesus in Matthew 16, when he says that the Son of Man is going to go and be betrayed and killed, and on the third day rise again, how does Peter react in Matthew 16, verse 22?

He says, no, Lord, this is not going to happen to you. You are not going to suffer. And Jesus has to turn to him and say, get behind me, Satan, because you are setting your mind on the things of man and not on the things of God. This is my whole mission, is to come and suffer and to lay down my life for the salvation of my people. And so both Peter in Matthew 16, 22, and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John in Matthew 20, verses 20 and following, They are the ones who are struggling to accept the reality of a suffering Messiah. Of course, the other disciples struggle as well, but these three in particular in our story. And so that is why Jesus brings these three with him to the garden, that they might witness what he is about to suffer, that they might also be a comfort to him and be companions to him. to watch and to pray with him. Of course, they utterly fail in doing that. They fall asleep? They just cannot handle it. They just fall asleep.

But he wants these three disciples to come and to witness what is about to take place here. It says at the end of verse 37 that he began to be sorrowful and troubled. And then in verse 38, he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death, even to the point of death. It is an amazing thing that our text describes Jesus, whom we know is the divine son of God, who can walk on water, who can cast out demons, who can raise the dead, who is the omnipotent creator of all things, It describes him in such frail and human terms.

He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Now we might be able to accept the word sorrowful. He is sorrowful because of the suffering that is about to come upon him. But it is interesting that our text uses this word troubled. we are troubled here really it does involve some degree of a very human sense of being perturbed, of being unsettled, of being in inner turmoil and anxiety.

And it is a little bit difficult for us to speak about our Savior in these terms, because we know that He is not only divine, but He is also perfectly sinless? And so, when we use this language of Christ being in anguish, and troubled, and perturbed, and maybe even having some somewhat inner turmoil in His soul, It almost sounds sinful. It almost sounds like, no, we should not speak that way about Christ. And yet our text does. Our text presents him as a very human person. This is something important in the history of the church concerning the nature of the incarnation.

There was a false teaching in the early church that said that Jesus is truly divine, but then when he became a man, what he took on was simply a human body, but not a human soul. And in place of the human soul was his divine person, the divine person of Christ substituted for the human soul. But according to our text here, he says in verse 38, my soul is very sorrowful. My soul is experiencing human emotions of turmoil and anxiety and being troubled.

He not only is true God, he is true man. And all that is involved in being true man, not just having a human body, but having a human soul as well and a human will. He is true God and true man in the fullest sense of the word. He has a true human soul.

And this is very important because without it then he would not be able to be our sympathetic high priest. Remember I mentioned that in the assurance of pardon in Hebrews chapter four and verse 15. We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but rather we have one who is tempted and tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. We always have to add that last part, yet without sin. So everything we are describing here about the inner turmoil and anxiety and sorrow of Jesus, it is without sin, it is sinless.

And yet it is also very human and something that we can relate to in our text. What a wonderful high priest we have. Thank the Lord that the eternal son of God, that he did not just simply become man in the sense of taking a human body, but that he became fully human in every way just as we are, so that he could go to the cross for us, so that he could sympathize with us in our weaknesses, so that he could be our mediator and our savior.

Now there is another important aspect of the texture, which is that not only was he troubled, but he was also very sorrowful. Sorrowful even to death. Usually when we think of sorrow, we think of sorrow that is looking back over something that we lost? If we lose a loved one, or if we lose something important to us, we have grief and sorrow over that loss. In this case, the sorrow of Christ is looking forward or looking ahead to something to come, which is he is staring in the face the reality of his coming suffering and death. His sorrow is not a retrospective sorrow of loss, but a prospective sorrow of knowing what is about to happen, knowing the pain that he is about to undergo. And what is that pain? What is that suffering that he is about to undergo?

We could look at it from a human point of view and say, well, he is about to be betrayed by one of his disciples. We could talk about the disciples fleeing and abandoning their Lord. Jesus is certainly afraid of that to some degree. He is looking at that pain and suffering of the human loss, of the betrayal and the disciples leaving him. We could also focus on the fact that the Jewish leaders who are about to betray him and arrest him, that they hate him with a murderous hatred.

All of that is suffering that he is about to encounter. And yet, all of those things pale in comparison with the ultimate suffering that he is about to encounter, which Jesus describes as drinking the cup that the Father has given to him. Verse 39, going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. The cup that he must drink is the anguish of experiencing the equivalent of hell for the sake of his people.

We see that for a number of contextual clues that tell us that. Number one is the fact that he says there, he is sorrowful even to death. So the sorrow that he is experiencing is the sorrow of knowing that he is about to die. And this death that he is about to die is not just an ordinary death, it is not just a peaceful death on your deathbed, nor is it even a painful death of being tormented by some illness. It is the death of being put to death, of being accursed, of being condemned to death by the judgment of God.

Another thing that helps us to see that this cup that he is referring to here is referring to the anguish of experiencing the equivalent of hell for his people, is the fact that this agony in the garden here, where Jesus calls out and says, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, is a foretaste and a little foreshadow of what is going to happen in a few hours.

And the next day, we are on Thursday night, somewhere around midnight? But the next day, Friday afternoon, he is going to be hanging upon the cross and he is going to also cry out again in Matthew 27, verse 46. About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, eli eli lama sabachthani, that is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And so the agony in the garden and the prayer of Jesus to my Father, my Father, if it be possible, let this cut pass from me, is already looking ahead to that ultimate cry.

It is called the cry of dereliction. That is the cry of being abandoned by his heavenly Father. And so this is clearly more than just simply the agony and the anguish and the pain of being betrayed by Judas, of being abandoned by his disciples, of being hated by the Jewish leadership. This is ultimately a transaction between the Father and the Son. That is the true cup, that is the true pain that Christ is looking at as he is in his sorrow. Not a sorrow that is retrospective and looking to the past, but a sorrow of looking to what is about to happen, what is about to unfold as he is staring in the face the reality of being abandoned even by God the Father.

Jesus alone can fulfill this mission. The disciples cannot share this burden with him. That is why Jesus goes a little farther in verse 39. Going a little farther. He brought the three with him because he wanted them to witness this agony. He wanted them to also be companions with him, to stay awake and pray with him. But he has to go even beyond them. He goes a little farther in front of them because he alone can fulfill this mission that stands before him.

The disciples can only perhaps be there for moral support and pray, but they cannot do this. They are not being called to drink this cup. Although Peter thinks that he can. Peter is delusional and he thinks that he is going to die with the Lord, but we obviously know that that is not the case.

From Pleading to Surrender

This is something that only the Son of God can endure and experience. Notice the progression of the emotional life of Christ in our text. It begins in verse 38 with honesty. It progresses in verse 39 to pleading, and then it concludes in verse 42 with surrender. Honesty. He begins with honesty. He begins with just simply being troubled in turmoil and having this anguish of soul because he is, in a sense, afraid. He is afraid of what he is about to experience. But then it moves to the second stage of pleading, pleading with his Heavenly Father.

Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Although even there in the pleading, he adds that addendum that we must all add in all of our prayers? Whenever we are pleading with God for something, we always have to add that addendum. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. We have our desires and what we want. We always have to add, Lord, we are submitting to your will. Not as we will, but as you will.

So it begins with the honesty of that turmoil, then it progresses to pleading, but then finally you see the surrender in verse 42. Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed. My father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. Notice the emotional transition from the beginning of our text in verse 38 with emotional turmoil and sorrow, and even to some degree fear, if you will.

Christology in Narrative Form

Of course, in a sinless way, we always have to add that, but that is the emotional turmoil that it begins with, and then the text ends, by the end of these three prayers, it ends with calm resolve and surrender to the will of God. What can we derive from this text?

First of all, in terms of doctrine, there is some really important, wonderful, beautiful things in this text. We are used to thinking of doctrine from the point of view of, let us say, the writings of the Apostle Paul or the letter to the Hebrews, where doctrine is being written out for us in an essay form. The Apostle Paul is describing for us all the theological truths and telling us about how Christ died for our sins and so on. But doctrine, and even Christology, that is the doctrine of the person of Christ, can also be communicated in narrative form. And that is what the Gospels are. The Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four Gospels at the beginning of the New Testament, they are doctrine, they are Christology in narrative form. not in the doctrinal propositional form of the Apostle Paul, but in narrative form, as we observe what is happening, as we see the story unfold before us.

And I think, to be honest with you, this particular passage, this one paragraph here of the agony and surrender of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, might be one of the clearest windows in all of the gospel narratives to the doctrine of who Christ is, the person and work of Christ. Notice how you have all of these things all interconnected here. You have the reality of the incarnation, that he took a true human soul into union with himself. You have the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, because not only is he a true man, but he is also true God.

How is that implied in the text? Because of the way he addresses his father, my father. He addresses the father twice as my father. Remember in the Gospel of John, whenever he would refer to God as his father, the Jewish unbelieving Jews were offended at that. He calls God his own father. He is making himself equal with God.

So we see the deity of Christ in our text. We see the humanity and the deity. We see these two natures of Christ inseparably united. In addition, we also see, so that is Christology. He is both God and man in one person. But we also see the work of Christ as this mediator who is both true God and true man.

What is he doing? He is bearing the wrath of God. He is enduring the personal wrath of God. Notice that our text speaks of the wrath of God as this cup. In the scriptures, often the cup is a cup of wrath that God is pouring out upon the nations, upon those that reject him. Christ himself has got to drink that cup of God’s wrath. We are even told in verse 31, where Jesus is preparing before the agony in the garden and he is telling the disciples that they are going to fall away, We were even told that the father is going to strike the shepherd. That is the wrath of God being executed against his own son. So we have this Christology, the two natures of Christ. We have the work of Christ, which is that he is bearing the wrath of God on behalf of his people. But we also even have the obedience of Christ.

The Son is submitting his will to the Father. He is submitting to the Father, not as the eternal Son, but as the incarnate Son. Christ as the second Adam, who is submitting his human will to the divine will of God the Father. And so we see both his active and his passive obedience. And we see how they are perfectly intertwined together. It is almost like the same thing?

Because he is obeying the Father by accepting this cup of suffering? And so his passive obedience is also active because he is suffering willingly. He is voluntarily submitting to the Father’s will for him that he obey by going to the cross and bearing our sins and bearing the wrath of God for us.

All of these different doctrines, the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity even? Father and Son, the Spirit is not mentioned, but the Father and the Son, the first two persons of the Godhead. The doctrine of the atonement and the work of Christ and the active and passive obedience of Christ.

It is all, all these spokes of theology are all centered in here upon this hub right here in our text. as we observe Christ in anguish in the garden, and as he prepares then for his arrest, which happens immediately after? Right as he was still speaking in verse 47, Judas came along with the the officers from the chief priests and the elders of the people to arrest him and take him into custody and to begin the next stage of the Passion Narrative, Act II, the trial and condemnation of Christ.

Now, as I said before, it is so interesting to see that our text is not only about Christ. There is a dual focus in our text. Yes, there is all this wonderful theology about who Christ is, his two natures, his work, his active and passive obedience, but there is another element to the text, which is there is a very strong focus upon the disciples and their role in this and their reaction to this. It reminds me of Philippians chapter two.

Remember in Philippians two, you have that, what is called the Christ hymn, Philippians two, five through 11, where Paul talks about Christ and how he humbled himself, he emptied himself to the point of obedience and all that, and then God highly exalted him. And of course, we could spend hours and hours and weeks just drawing out all the rich theology and Christology and atonement theology from that one passage, but what is so interesting to see is that Why does Paul put that in there? He puts it in there in the context of making an exhortation to the Philippian Christians to not think too highly of themselves, but rather to care for others, and to love others, and to be humble? And then he quotes that whole Christ-Him as an argument.

Let this same attitude be in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. There is a dual focus there as well. There is the Christology, all about Christ, the spotlight on him, but there is also this application for us as Christians of how we should follow Christ and imitate Christ in union with him. And so there is some applications we can draw from our text.

And I would like to draw them out from the words of Jesus in verses 40 to 41, where Jesus directly addresses the disciples. And he exhorts them, he says, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, so could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Watching and Praying with Christ

Three applications from the words of Jesus himself. Right in the midst of all this Christology, Jesus himself is speaking to his disciples, exhorting them, calling them? The first application is to watch with Christ. Notice how Jesus says there at the beginning of verse 40, well, the second half of verse 40, but the beginning of his exhortation to them.

He says, so could you not watch with me, with me? Why does he add that phrase, with me? Remember, he took three of the disciples with him into the garden. Even though it is his mission and his mission alone, yet he brought them with him. Why does he want them to be with him? Because he wants them to see what is happening. He wants them to behold what he is doing for them. He wants them to have their minds focused upon his work. How do we apply that today as Christians?

We are not there in the garden with Jesus. Well, we see Jesus and his actions and his agony in the garden in the written text. We see it in the gospel record, the written gospels. This particular one, the gospel according to Matthew, is given to us to be an encouragement to us as disciples. And so we are to prayerfully meditate upon Christ’s work, Christ’s person and work, as unfolded for us in the gospel narrative. And so we are to be with Jesus. We are to stay awake, keep watch with Jesus, and to behold him as written for us in the gospel record.

That is the first application. Prayerfully read the gospels. Secondly, the second application is we are to cry out to God in prayer in the midst of our trials. That is what Jesus says, does not he? Go back to our text, to the part of the text that we are focusing on here. Verse 41, watch and pray. Those are imperatives.

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. Remember that word temptation is one of those words that has two meanings. Sometimes it means test or trial. Sometimes it means temptation in the sense of being tempted to sin. Obviously for Christ, he was not tempted to sin, but he was still undergoing a trial. And so for us, when we undergo trials, trials also become an opportunity for sin, an opportunity for not following God’s will. Notice that Jesus here, in calling the disciples to watch and pray so that they may not enter into temptation, notice that he gives, in his own prayer life, he gives them an example of prayer.

And you might say, well, wait a minute. This does not really make sense because the prayer of Jesus here is unique. This is the eternal son of God who is both God and man in two natures and one person who is going to the cross. So why should I look to this as an example?

Well, notice how it is so interesting that in the language that Jesus uses in his prayers, that he is echoing the language of the Lord’s Prayer back in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus gave the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew chapter 6 to his disciples. Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, and so on. Notice the three echoes of the Lord’s Prayer in Jesus’ own words. First of all, he says, my Father. That is echoing the language of our Father.

Secondly, he says, pray that you may not enter into temptation. That is directly echoing the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And then thirdly, when Jesus says, your will be done, that is directly echoing the language of the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so, the prayer of Jesus here, and the language that Jesus is using in this text, while it is, of course, unique, and he is the only one that can go to the cross, we cannot do that. Yet, at the same time, there is this interesting dual focus in our text. Not only Christology, but also discipleship, and giving us a model for prayer. What do we learn from this? Prayer does not change God’s mind, rather, It is the means by which we change our mind and submit to God’s will.

When you are facing a major trial or test in your life, the temptation is to respond to that in a unbelieving way, to respond with doubt, to respond maybe with anger against God, to not want to trust God, through this trial, or maybe even to try to come up with some alternative way to escape the trial that is not God’s will. And so the second application is, in the midst of your trials, cry out to God in prayer, using the words of the Lord’s prayer, and also following the example of Christ himself.

His example is unique. His example is once for all. We cannot go to the cross like he, but his example is still there for us to follow in our own relationship with the Lord, in our own discipleship. So the three applications. First, prayerfully read scripture. Be with Jesus. Watch him, observe him through the pages of the written gospel. Secondly, cry out to God in prayer in the midst of your trials. And use that as a means not to change God’s mind, but to surrender your will to God’s will.

And then third, The third application from our text is what Jesus himself says at the end of verse 41. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. So the third application is acknowledge the reality of your flesh. Do not think that you are so spiritual that you do not have to deal with your flesh. Do not be like Peter, who boasted, I will never deny you, Lord. I am so spiritually strong that I am even willing to die with you. And then, of course, he fell flat on his face. The Lord wants us to acknowledge the reality of our flesh, to know that our flesh is weak.

As the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall. But then that drives us again back to the first two applications? Our flesh is weak, but we can follow Christ into the garden by prayerfully reading scripture, and we can cry out to God in prayer in the midst of our trials, and move, as Jesus did, from turmoil and struggle to surrender and obedience through prayer. Let us pray.

Lord, how we thank you for You are a perfect obedience to your Heavenly Father. We so often tremble in the face of suffering, and we try to find a way to avoid it. But how we thank you that Christ has done what we could not do. Our flesh is weak, but He is the strong and mighty Savior. We thank you for His perfect obedience and surrender to your will.

We ask the Lord that you would help us to follow him, to follow him in prayer, and as we go through difficult trials in our own lives, to learn how to surrender our will to your will, and to say, your will be done. These things we ask in your name, amen.