Matthew: God‘s Plan

Title: God's Plan

Matthew 26:30-46

“Remarkable is Jesus’ prediction of the complete collapse of the whole church (“you will all”) right after his complete gift of himself to the whole church (“drink of it, all of you,” v. 27). “Though there will be but one traitor, they will all be deserters” (Henry, 393, emphasis added). Did Jesus know before the Supper that his disciples were this unstable? Would he have given them all forgiveness if he had known that they would all fall? We know the answers. Jesus gives disciples his Supper knowing not only what they have been but what they will be.”  - Dale Bruner

“Why should (or would) a person presume so much on the capacity of his (or her) nature? It is wounded, hurt, damaged.... It needs a true confession, not a false defense”  -Augustine

“He takes the three... in order that those who saw the glories [at the Transfiguration] might also see the griefs [at Gethsemane]”  - Dale Bruner

“It teaches the church at least three important truths: Jesus’ true humanity, his free obedience, and his real courage. If Jesus had not been confused by what was happening, could he have been truly human? And if Jesus had not been truly human, that is, an entire human being with not only a body like ours but also emotions and a mind like ours, could he have been our representative before God? Take away Jesus’ humanity and you take away humanity’s salvation. (“What was not assumed was not redeemed,” the fathers said.) Gethsemane’s emotions do not shame Jesus’ humanity, they prove it; they tell us that Jesus drank our cup to the lees, that he really was one of us, that he knew what it was to suffer, to be down, and in some ways even out. Might we reverently say that in Gethsemane, with its carefully chosen words for Jesus’ emotions and mind, that Jesus knew what it was to be emotionally crushed and mentally “crazy,” at least for awhile? This would mean that Jesus knows what we go through at our limits, and knows this not just “divinely” but also humanly. Does this lowness make him less appealing? Does this “baseness” diminish deity?” 
- Dale Bruner

“He had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” —Hebrews 2:17-18

“Jesus did not know this wonderful theology and so prayed here not only for a knowledge of God’s will but for a knowledge of what might be possible for God. Hadn’t Jesus read his Bible enough to know these things? The truth of our text is that the Son of God himself in his human condition lay on the ground dumbfounded before the sometimes unfathomable will of God. This poverty of spirit seems closer to God than a richness of spirit that knows God’s secrets." 
- Dale Bruner

“One actually has the privilege of seeing Jesus’ will move in these petitions. In his first prayer, Jesus’ will moved visibly; there he asked, if possible, for the cup to be removed, but then added his proviso. In this second prayer Jesus does not ask for the cup’s removal, as if he is saying, “I’m beginning to think that you don’t want that cup to go away except by one route—my drinking it.” Jesus’ will moved from a nine, ten, or eleven o’clock position to a twelve o’clock position in his Gethsemane prayers. (Jesus’ will seems never to have been at six o’clock, in opposition to God. But the church learns from his first petition that the human will can ask honest questions “at ten o’clock,” so to speak, and still be within the magnetic field of God’s will.) 
Even in the first petition, in its second half, Jesus asked for God’s perfect will—“yet not as I want, but as you want.” But full humanity means seeking (not always fully having or knowing) this perfect will. The full humanity of even Jesus was not on automatic pilot at perfect twelve o’clock. Gethsemane is full of instruction to the church, for it teaches her not to ascribe to Jesus a divinized, ghostly humanity, as she can sometimes do by speaking too sweepingly or easily of Jesus’ sinlessness and perfection. The Gospels, remarkably, avoid speaking directly of Jesus’ sinlessness because saying too much here can say too little. A superman is not a man; an inerrant Jesus who is never at even eleven o’clock turns Jesus into a machine; a Jesus effortlessly at twelve dehumanizes Jesus. Gethsemane says humanity. Yet Jesus is still the sacrifice without blemish required by the law (Lev 1:3), for human questing is not sin.” 
- Dale Bruner

(We believe in) the Lord Jesus Christ,
      the only Son of God,
      begotten from the Father before all ages,
           God from God,
           Light from Light,
           true God from true God,
      begotten, not made;
      of the same essence as the Father.
      Through him all things were made.

      For us and for our salvation
           he came down from heaven;
           he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human.
           He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;
           he suffered and was buried.
           The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.
           He ascended to heaven
           and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
           He will come again with glory
           to judge the living and the dead.
           His kingdom will never end. 
                       - Nicene Creed