Even Jesus Craved God

Intro
Last week we talked about how our lungs crave air. Just like our lungs with air, our soul craves God—Fresh, life-giving. . . God. We ache for an encounter with Him. Tonight, we’re going to look at an intimate moment between Jesus and God, one in which Jesus shows us that He too craved God, just like we do.

The Word:
Mark 13: 32-42 – In the Garden of Gethsemane

Part I:
Luke says that it was Jesus’ custom to come here regularly. It was familiar to Jesus, a favored place to come to enjoy the fellowship of his Father. It was a place to plead with the Father for his disciples and the other riff-raff that Jesus drew to himself.
But Jesus was under a very different burden on this night. “He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake” (verses 33-34).

If you have gone through the experience of losing someone close, you know that grief is a “whole body” experience. It’s your mind and emotions and body and soul experiencing the searing pain of having a piece of yourself ripped out.

Jesus’ intimacy with the Father was being torn apart at Gethsemane because the Father was laying on the Son the sins of all humanity. Jesus was taking onto himself the anger of God aimed at you and me. Every unkind thought and word and deed ever committed by humanity past, present and future was being ascribed to the Son of God as if he had done them all.


“And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, ‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want.’” (verses 35-36).
Notice that word 'Abba.' When we translate that into English, the closest we can get is with our word 'Daddy.' Not father or dad but daddy, a word that emphasizes the most intimate of moments between a child and their father.

So imagine that scene. Jesus desperately craving more time with His Father, knowing the intense separation that was to come, under such distress that His blood was mingling with His sweat and tears, and He cries out with everything in Him. "DADDY! ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WITH YOU! TAKE THIS CUP FROM ME!"

But then He adds at the end of His prayer, "Yet not what I want, but what you want." Not my desires but Yours. Not my wants but Yours. Not my plan but Yours. Not my will but yours.

Even at this point in Jesus' life, His cry was still YOU WILL BE DONE.