Moment of Meditation: Remove This Cup from Me (Mark 14:36)

riginal Broadcast: Lent 2009

Monthly Theme: The Passion according to St. Mark

And [Jesus] said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You.
Remove this cup from Me.
Yet not what I will, but what You will."
(Mark 14:36)

"Remove This Cup From Me"

Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane a great prayer, a dark prayer. A prayer even though He already knew the answer. In His sorrow, He looks for a way for salvation without the Cross. Jesus isn't backing out. He's giving us yet one more example of how we should pray.

Many times our prayers consists of "I want" statements. I want a bigger house. I want a better job. I want my kids to act like civilized human beings. But we often forget one major clause to put in our prayers: "Yet not what I will, but what You will." St. James, the brother of our Lord, writes to the Church this very same thing: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'--yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that'" (4:13-15).

Everything for which we pray we must pray, first of all, that God's will is done. Jesus does this as He is waiting for Judas to come and hand Him over. Jesus knows the struggles and the pain that awaits Him over the next several hours, but even He, the Son of God, leaves everything in the hands of His heavenly Father. If Jesus does this in His darkest hour, shouldn't you as well? Amen.