Faith & Love: A One Year Bible Reading Plan - Part 8Sample

Did Jesus really have to go to the cross to save the world?

Hello. I am Christo Fourie, and I am the ministry leader for our morning service at Doxa Deo Fichardt Park in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

In Luke 22:42 we read these heart-wrenching words of Jesus:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me — nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42)

Jesus prays these desperate words in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He was accustomed to draw aside to speak with the Father. This time, though, it was different. Jesus was about to be arrested, interrogated, martyred, and crucified. And He knew it.

His disciples sympathise with Him and so they accompany Him. But Jesus asks them to stay at a distance and to pray for themselves while He goes off to wrestle in prayer.

“Father, if you are willing,” Jesus prays, “take this cup from me.”

What is this “cup” and why did the moment rest so heavily on Jesus? Was it only – and this would be enough to make the bravest of us cringe in fear – because He was about to undergo unimaginable humiliation, rejection, and pain?

Partially, yes. In our modern era of technological advancement, many attempts have been made to investigate, discover, and explain just how excruciating the suffering of the crucifixion would have been.

But the “cup” Jesus was praying about was nothing less than the full force of the wrath, or righteous anger, of God against sin. Since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, an atoning sacrifice was needed that could forever break the curse of sin and restore the once unblemished relationship between God and mankind.

Hundreds of years before this moment in Gethsemane, the prophet Isaiah writes about what the crucifixion would achieve:

But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. (Isaiah 53:5)

See, in His humanity, the thought of what was about to take place was unbearable to Jesus. Yet because He was also, at the same time, the Son of God – God’s Sacrificial Lamb, who was sent as a ransom for the sinful lostness of humankind – He was able, willing, and determined to go through with it.

May this knowledge cause you to break out in spontaneous worship!