Reliving The Passion #14

Mark 14:35–36

And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.”

“Lord,” the disciples had asked in an earlier, easier time, “teach us to pray.” And Jesus had answered by teaching them certain words: “When you pray,” he said, “say…”

The prayer he spoke then we call The Lord’s.

But Jesus teaches the same thing twice. And the second lesson is not words only; deeds make up the prayer as well, and passion and experience—the whole person dramatically involved.

Words alone might be as hollow and irrelevant as pingpong balls. But now the Lord reveals how prayer can be the expression of an event already in progress; it is human experience finding its voice—and by that voice directing itself wholly (the whole experience, action, emotion, thought, desire, body, and spirit) straight to God.

Behold: what takes place in the Garden of Gethsemane is the Lord’s Prayer actually happening, as though the earlier words were a script and this is the drama itself:

—Jesus cries his deepest and desperate desire: that the hour, by the power of his Father, pass away from him. This is the living substance of the sixth petition: Save us from the time of trial.

—Jesus pleads three times, “Remove this cup from me,” the plea of the seventh petition: Deliver us from evil.

—But under every request of his own, he places an attitude of faithful obedience to his Father, saying, “Yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.” Here is the third petition, which prepares us properly for any answer God may give all other petitions: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

—Implicit, hereafter, in his entering into “the hour” of trial after all is his personal conviction that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.” Jesus, now more than ever in his ministry, is the living embodiment of the second petition, Thy kingdom come. Right now, his acceptance of the Father’s will is the coming of that kingdom here!

—And he begins both prayers the same. But whereas the first might have seemed a formal address to “Our Father,” this latter cry is a howl, a spontaneous, needful plea: “Abba, Father!” Here is a child who cannot survive apart from this relationship. By crying “Abba!” he hurls himself at the holy parent: he runs like a child; like a child he begs attention; but also like a perfect child he trusts his daddy to do right and well.

When Jesus teaches us to pray, he does not teach plain recitation. Rather, he calls us to a way of being. He makes of prayer a doing. And by his own extreme example, he shows that prayer is the active relationship between ourselves, dear little children, and the dear Father, Abba.

Who can pray The Lord’s Prayer now with words and not with the heart’s experience?

Abba!

Dear Father in heaven,

Whose name is so holy!

Bring your kingdom here;

Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven;

Give us today our daily bread;

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us;

Save us from tests of our righteousness;

Deliver us from every evil.

Yours is the kingdom, the power and glory, forever!

Amen, amen.