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present them wrapped in an " if it be possible," and followed by a "nevertheless." The meaning of prayer is not to force our wills on God's, but to bend our wills to His ; and that prayer is really answered of which the issue is our calm readiness for all that He lays upon us.^
3. It is best so. The cup did not pass from Him because it was not possible ; but yet in two ways, far above our ways, His prayer was granted. It was granted first of all — (the whole history of the Passion proves it) — it was granted in the heavenly strength that was given to Him to bear all the pains and sorrows that were laid upon Him. As afterwards He said to His great Apostle, " My grace is sufficient for thee," so, now, God's grace was sufficient for Him. There appeared, we are told, an angel from heaven strengthening Him ; and in the power of that strength He rose from His knees, no longer sorrowful, no longer bowed down with terror and trouble, but calm and cheerful, ready to go forth and meet His enemies, ready to bear all the taunts and pains of His trial and crucifixion, ready to answer a good confession before Pontius Pilate, and to pray for His brothers, and to think of His mother and friend, and of His companions in woe, and to look back on the finishing of His mighty work, and to commend His soul to His Father — more majestic, more adorable, more Divine than He had ever seemed before.
Let us fix our thoughts on that second and yet grander mode in which our Lord's petition was answered, even according to those sacred words of His own, which are the model of all prayer, which are the key and secret of this Divine tragedy — "Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done." That is the sum and substance of the whole narrative of the Passion. Not the substitution of the will of Christ for the will of the eternal God, but the substitution of the will of the eternal God for the will even of His most dearly beloved Son.
*|| There is a friend of mine, a dear and brilliant friend, whose name would be honoured by you all if I were free to mention it. He told me the other day the darkest chapter of his life. He told me how his whole life lay suddenly broken off in disaster : his work ended, his heart broken, himself in hospital suffering
' A, Mftdaren.
428 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
cruel paiu. And then he said: "Oh, Dawson, what visions of God I had as I lay in hospital ! what a sense of eternity, and the reality of things spiritual ! I tell you, if I knew to-day I could gain such visions of God and truth only by repeating my sufferings, I would crawl upon my hands and knees across this continent to get that disease ! " Ah ! there lies the justification of our Gethsemanes. We need the utter loneliness, we need the separation from friend and lover, to make us sure of God. " And Jacob was left alone," says the older record : " and there wrestled a man with him till the breaking of the day." Even so — till the hreaking of the day, for the divinest of all dawns shines in the Gethsemane of sacrifice.^
4. How blessed was the Eesult. He prayed His way to perfect calm, which is ever the companion of perfect self- surrender to God. They who cease from their own works do " enter into rest." All the agitations which had come storming in massed battalions against Him are defeated by it. They have failed to shake His purpose, they now fail even to disturb His peace. So, victorious from the dreadful conflict, and at leisure of heart to care for others, He can go back to the disciples.
And so you find that from this moment Jesus moves to His end in majestic calm. The agony is passed, and it is passed for ever ; He knows the darkness to be but the shadow of God's wing. He speaks henceforth as one who sees the dawn, and has the light of dawn upon His brow.
And how great is the Encouragement. Christ's agony is the very consecration of human suffering, the fresh spring of human hope. There is no depth into which we can be plunged that He has not fathomed, no gloom into which we can be cast that He has not illumined. There are trials harder to bear even than death itself, but Christ has known their bitterness, and if we recognise the source of sin from which they first flowed. He can turn those bitter waters into rivers of comfort.
^ We very properly distinguish in ourselves two wills, the one of natural inclination, the instinctive will, if you please ; the other the deliberate purpose and choice of the moral and rational nature. Our first effort must be the complete surrender of our deliberate rational will to God, to work ever in submission to His gracious ordering for our lives. Then the constant discipline of
^ W. J. Dawson.
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