When out of the woods He came.^
* Bishop Barry. * Sidney Lanier.
ST. MARK 425
III.
His Acceptance of the Fathee's Will.
"Howbeit not what I will, but what thou wilt."
1. Not what I will. — It was His meat and drink, as He Himself has told us, to do His Father's will and to finish His work. We can understand Him doing the will of His Father with gladness when, in accordance with it, He had miracles to perform, Divine blessings to spread abroad, and His own perfectly pure and good life to live. We can also understand Him bravely doing it when, with His soul which loathed evil and every kind of wrong, He bore up unflinchingly against the wrongs and the evils with which He was Himself assailed. But Jesus' subjection went far beyond this when He took the cross from His Father's hand, and meekly said as He did so in Gethsemane, "Not what I will, but what thou wilt."
The consent of His will was absolutely necessary. So He said Himself of His life, " I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." That consent, again, was needed at every point. At any moment His own words might have been realised, "Cannot I pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels ? " That consent, further, had to be given under a perfect fore-knowledge of all that it implied — every pang of suffering, every cruelty of triumphant evil. In these points, as in all others. His was the one perfect sacrifice, laying a will, itself absolutely free, at the feet of His Father. Doubtless we may follow Him — we must follow Him — but it is afar off.
^ We read of a martyr of the English Eeformation, before whose eyes at the stake was held up the pardon which awaited his recantation ; and who cried out in an agony which he found fiercer than the fire itself, " If ye love my soul, away with it." And the secret of such agony, as also the essence of sacrifice, lies in the submission of the will — in the subjection of that mysterious power, which in man, weak and finite as he is, can be (so God wills it) overcome by no force except its own. "Sacrifice and burnt offering thou wouldest not. Then said I, Lo ! T come to do thy will, 0 God." I am content to do it.*
^ Bishop Barry.
426 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
What a contrast within the space of a few hours ! What a transition from the quiet elevation of that, " he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father ! I will," to that falling on the ground and crying in agony, " My Father ! not what I will." In the one we see the High Priest within the veil in His all- prevailing intercession ; in the other, the sacrifice on the altar opening the way through the rent veil. The high-priestly " Father ! I will," in order of time precedes the sacrificial " Father ! not what I will " ; but this was only by anticipation, to show what the intercession would be when once the sacrifice was brought. In reality it was that prayer at the altar, " Father ! not what I will," in which the prayer before the throne, " Father ! I will," had its origin and its power. It is from the entire surrender of His will in Gethsemane that the Hight Priest on the throne has the power to ask what He will, has the right to make His people share in that power too, and ask what they will.
2. What Thou wilt. — Out of that agony — borne through the power of intense prayer of supplication — came forth submission to the will of the Father. Not the acceptance of an inevitable fate, against which it is vain, and therefore foolish to strive — such as a mere Fatalist or Cynic might show. But the submission, first, of a perfect faith — sure that whatever our Father ordains must be well — sure that He will not suffer one tear or pang that is not needed for Salvation — sure that whatever He lays on us. He will give us comfort and strength to bear. " Not my will, but Thine be done — Thine the all- wise — Thine the all-merciful — Thine the almighty will." But, even beyond this, there is the submission of love. There is an actual delight in sacrifice of self for those we love, which, in the world as it is, makes men count inevital)Ie suffering as joy, and, out of that suffering for others actually begets a fresh access of love to them, which is itself an exaltation and a comfort.
^ Christ's prayer was not for the passing of the cup, but that the will of God might be done in and by Him, and "He was heard in that he feared," not by being exempted from the Cross, but by being strengthened through submission for submission. So His agony is the pattern of all true prayer, which must ever deal with our wishes, as He did with His instinctive shrinking, —