When God Says No: A reflection on Matthew 26:36-46

"My Father, if there is no other way than this, drinking this cup to the dregs, I'm ready. Do it your way." Matthew 26:42, The Message

Even though it's Christmastime, my devotional reading from the Bible these days is coming from the latter end of Matthew's Gospel. Matthew 26 would be a chapter to read during Easter Week as opposed to the days leading up to Christmas. For most of that chapter concerns the last night of Jesus' life on earth.

It's the high holy days in Jerusalem and the city is full of pilgrims from all over the then known world who have come home to celebrate Passover, the feast the Israelites have celebrated time out of mind of their deliverance by God from generations of slavery in Egypt. As he eats the sacred meal with his disciples he changes the meaning of it. Instead of looking backwards with thanksgiving for their redemption from the Egyptians for now on they will eat together “the Lord's Supper” speaking of a greater deliverance from the bondage of sin. He then drops something of a bombshell: one of them, his close circle of students and friends, will betray him before the night is out and he will be arrested, tried, tortured and killed. It's a lot of information to process and all the disciples in shock reject that they will deny him. Judas is among them and before the meal is concluded he quietly slips out to make a bee line to the Temple guard to reveal where Jesus is.

Having concluded their Passover meal, Jesus quitely leads his group of friends back into the night, across the Kidron Valley and up the Mount of Olives. There's a quiet olive garden that Jesus likes to visit when they have opportunity to visit Jerusalem. He is going there to
pray. The way Matthew tells it, he is the only one in their party who has a clue as to what is about to go down. He knows that even now a

Judas and his posse

party of soldiers led by Judas is heading their way to arrest him within the hour. And he knows what will follow once they take him into custody. He tells his disciples to keep watch with him and then he steps further into the grove and begins to pray as he has never prayed before. He doesn't revel in the idea of torture nor at the prospect of a violent death and so he prays: "My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. Do it your way" (26:39, 42, Msg). So, "if there is any other way to redeem mankind get me out of this...but if not, I'm ready to see this through regardless of what it will cost me."

All of us have prayers that have yet to go unanswered. I know I
certainly do. I have prayed for people who are seriously ill for God to heal them and they have died anyway. I continue to pray for people I know who do not profess faith in Christ or walk with him and they seem about as far away from him as they always have been. My wife and I have been praying for our adult children to find life partners and they all remain years later very much single. Who doesn't love the story of Daniel in the lion's den (Daniel 6) when Daniel, because of his loyalty to Yahweh, is thrown to the lions? The next morning, however, he comes out of the pit without even a scratch on him because God shut the lions' mouths. But there are other people throughout history who have been just as faithful as Daniel was and when it's their turn to be thrown into the lion's den God doesn't shut their mouths. They become breakfast, their prayers and faithfulness to the contrary. It is truly a mystery sometimes trying to figure out just what God is up to. I'm sure all of us who think on these things can relate.

If you're a Christian you probably have run into the phrase, “All things are possible”. It's taken from Matthew 19 and is a quote of Jesus, yet only part of it. As he's teaching his disciples how difficult it is for a man who loves riches to enter heaven, his disciples reply: “Who then can be saved?” to wit Jesus replies: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (v. 26). In other words, when any person regardless of what they're carrying turns to the Lord anything is possible be they a rich dude or a poor addict. It doesn't mean that if we pray hard enough, believe hard enough, trust hard enough we will get the things we hope and pray for. Whatever that is it's not love and trust which is what our relationship with the Lord is meant to be.

Jesus asked the Father for a way out – if there was another way that fulfilled the meaning of his life. After all to do the Father's will was his primary desire and goal. The writer of Hebrews says this about that moment: “...he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Heb 5:7). So he was heard as he cried out to the Father in the garden but the answer was still 'no, there is no other way.' One guy put it this way:

Jesus had prayed, 'If it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done' (42), and the Father took him at his word. The prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane shows that we can be close to God, live a holy life, and pray with faith, earnestness and expectancy, and yet not get what we ask for. It is a profound mystery before which we must bow. Michael Green

Jesus' life was one of love and obedience. He is our example to follow when heaven seems to say 'no' to our prayers, even when prayed with the most sincerest of attitudes. Or the answer may be 'not yet' for reasons that are not ours to know. Both the 'no' or the 'not yet' require us to trust him all the same. “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him...” (Heb 5:8-9). So we pray on, submitting ourselves to God's will for our lives. 

Through my chaplaincy at the Barron County Jail I have prayed with a number of inmates who are hoping for an Alternate To Revocation (like being sent to a center for treatment). Instead, the judge sends them to prison. As a pastor I have also felt the heartbreak of a spouse whose partner does not want to be reconciled to them as they file for divorce. A job falls through or a house that seems a sure thing is sold to another and on the list goes, one disappointment after another. In those moments of 'no' can we believe that though the answer we have is not what we sought it is an opportunity to learn obedience and trust and have our character transformed even further as submit ourselves fully to Him?

 

Tidings of Great Joy: An Advent Meditation

 "Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough."

"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough."

Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Humbug!" (from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens)

It has, it seems, been a year for the history books: rioting in major cities across America, division and rancor across the Union that hasn't been felt in at least a generation, a disputed election, and the flotsam and jetsam of a global pandemic that continues to polarize people into various camps which divide along the virtues of wearing face coverings or not, of worshiping in person or doing the same virtually, of elected officials ordering shut downs or private citizens defying the same. Who is right and who is wrong depends largely upon what circles you run in. But no matter what with the kind of year it's been, it's all too easy for the dormant Scrooge within us (or the Grinch if you prefer) to be decidedly sour and obnoxiously loud as we approach the twenty-fifth of December.

What do we have to be merry about? When the CDC is recommending we all stay put this Christmas and avoid travel, when the President-elect plans to issue a federal mandate to wear a mask “for 100 days only” on the first day of his administration, when Covid continues to creep and crawl all around us now infecting people we know as well as ourselves, its all too easy to shout Scrooge's reply to his nephew's seemingly pollyanish view of the world: “Merry Christmas! What right have I to be merry?...”

Except this: Once upon a time in Bethlehem in Judea, Jesus the Christ was born. God became flesh and blood and “moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, The Message) for one purpose and one purpose only: to save us from our sins.

If we're honest, the world has always been a pretty dark place (I think the last 100 years of history speaks loudly to that fact). There have been wonderful moments to be sure but there seems to be no end to the cruelty and ugliness that we humans can think up or mete out on one another. Despite the fact that there are a lot of nice people in these here parts, the verdict of heaven is that we are utterly and completely lost and cannot fix ourselves (our best efforts to the contrary).

But at Bethlehem, God entered the mess our world is and came near to us in Jesus. Years later Paul the Apostle would describe Christmas in this way: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” 2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV). In ways that are difficult to quantify, Jesus imposed limits on his divine nature for a season and became one of us for the purpose that we might become sons and daughters of God through faith in him. His sacrificial death on a Roman cross paid the debt of sin we could not pay off in a million years and he offers us life eternal in exchange for our simple trust in him.

What right have we to be merry? Here are reasons enough! So on the days leading up to Christmas should Scrooge rear his ugly face and scream his sarcastic accusation we have every reason to smile and say back to him what his nephew retorted, "What right have [I] to be dismal? What reason have [I] to be morose? [I'm] rich enough."

No wonder one of the words found in the lexicon of heaven regarding Christmas is “joy”. As the angel spoke to the shepherds outside of Bethlehem that night, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11-12, KJV). That's good news, maybe the best news, and should give us reason enough to rejoice in God's goodness and love for us as we wish all we know or meet Merry Christmas!