A Human Question and A Divine Response

In preparation for Easter Sunday, I have been meditating on some passages that are focused on Jesus' last hours. One of the passages is Matthew 26:39-42, Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane. He prays in verse 39, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." And then later, in verse 42, after rebuking his disciples for sleeping, he prays again, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done." He prayed with such earnestness that sweat fell as blood (Luke 22:44). I do not know of too many other passages that show the explicit humanity of Jesus with such force. You have human weakness in Christ that drastically needs the help of the Father. You have pleading to search for other ways of passing the cup of wrath. But within the this human display is a divine response by Christ. How?

There is an impression of a heavy weight that Christ is getting ready to bear and it is drastically affecting his condition. Not only do we see the explicit humanity of Jesus, but we also see the absolute contrast of our filthy sin and the spotless Lamb of God, God Himself. His almost crippled posture displays the absolute priceless Son of God readying himself to become a curse on behalf of us. Truly, he had become "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Is. 53:3). But with a face set like flint he definitively and divinely responds, "Your will be done." The Sent One of God obediently looks to what his true food was, "to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work" (John 4:34).