These are real fears, born out of legitimate concerns. Yet left unchecked, they metastasize into obsessions. The step between prudence and paranoia is short and steep. Prudence wears a seat belt. Paranoia avoids cars. Prudence washes with soap. Paranoia avoids human contact. Prudence saves for old age. Paranoia hoards even trash. Prudence prepares and plans.
Paranoia panics. Prudence calculates the risk and takes the plunge. Paranoia never enters the water.
The words plunge and water come to mind as I’m writing this chapter while sitting on the edge of a hotel swimming pool. A father and his two small daughters are at play. He’s in the water; they jump into his arms. Let me restate that: one jumps; the other ponders. The dry one gleefully watches her sister leap. She dances up and down as the other splashes. But when her dad invites her to do the same, she shakes her head and backs away.
A living parable! How many people spend life on the edge of the pool? Consulting caution. Ignoring faith. Never taking the plunge. Happy to experience life vicariously through others. For fear of the worst, they never enjoy life at its best. By contrast, their sister jumps. Not with foolish abandon but with belief in the goodness of a father’s heart and trust in a father’s arms.
Such was the choice of Jesus. He did more than speak about fear. He faced it.
The decisive acts of the gospel drama are played out on two stages: Gethsemane’s garden and Golgotha’s cross. Friday’s cross witnessed the severest suffering. Thursday’s garden staged the profoundest fear. It was here, amid the olive trees, that Jesus
fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting Him might pass Him by. ‘Abba, Father,’ He cried out, ‘everything is possible for You. Please take this cup of suffering away from Me. Yet I want Your will to be done, not Mine’. — Mark 14:35–36 NLT
Gospel writer Mark paints the picture of Jesus as pale faced and trembling.
Horror... came over Him. — Mark 14:33 NEB
The word horror is “used of a man who is rendered helpless, disoriented, who is agitated and anguished by the threat of some approaching event.”2
Matthew agreed. He described Jesus as depressed and confused (Matt. 26:37 3), sorrowful and troubled (RSV), anguish[ed] and dismay[ed] (NEB). We’ve never seen Christ like this. Not in the Galilean storm, at the demoniac’s necropolis, or on the edge of the Nazarene cliff. And never, ever have we read a sentence like this:
He sank into a pit of suffocating darkness. — Mark 14:33 MSG
This is a weighty moment. God has become flesh, and flesh is feeling fear full bore. Why? Of what was Jesus afraid?
It had something to do with a cup. “Please take this cup of suffering away from Me.” Cup, in biblical terminology, was more than a drinking utensil. Cup equaled God’s anger, judgment, and punishment. When God took pity on apostate Jerusalem, He said,
See, I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger... the goblet of my wrath. — Isa. 51:22 NIV
Through Jeremiah, God declared that all nations would drink of the cup of His disgust:
Take from my hand this cup filled to the brim with my anger, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink from it. — Jer. 25:15 NLT
According to John, those who dismiss God
must drink the wine of God’s anger. It has been poured full strength into God’s cup of wrath. And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb. — Rev. 14:10 NLT
The cup equaled Jesus’ worst-case scenario: to be the recipient of God’s wrath.
He had never felt God’s fury, didn’t deserve to. He’d never experienced isolation from His Father; the two had been one for eternity. He’d never known physical death; He was an immortal being. Yet within a few short hours, Jesus would face them all. God would unleash His sin-hating wrath on the sin-covered Son. And Jesus was afraid. Deathly afraid.
And what He did with His fear shows us what to do with ours.
He prayed.
He told His followers,
Sit here while I go and pray over there. — Matt. 26:36
One prayer was inadequate.
Again, a second time, He went away and prayed... and prayed the third time, saying the same words. — vv. 42, 44
He even requested the prayer support of his friends.
Stay awake and pray for strength, He urged. — v. 41 NCV
Jesus faced His ultimate fear with honest prayer.
Let’s not overcomplicate this topic. Don’t we do so? We prescribe words for prayer, places for prayer, clothing for prayer, postures for prayer; durations, intonations, and incantations. Yet Jesus’ garden appeal had none of these. It was brief (twenty-six English words), straightforward (“Please take this cup of suffering away”), and trusting (“Yet I want Your will to be done, not Mine”). Low on slick and high on authentic. Less a silver-tongued saint in the sanctuary, more a frightened child in a father’s lap.
That’s it. Jesus’ garden prayer is a child’s prayer. Abba, He prayed, using the homespun word a child would use while scampering up on the lap of Papa.
Prayer is the practice of sitting calmly in God’s lap and placing our hands on His steering wheel. He handles the speed and hard curves and ensures safe arrival. And we offer our requests; we ask God to “take this cup away.” This cup of disease, betrayal, financial collapse, joblessness, conflict, or senility. Prayer is this simple. And such simple prayer equipped Christ to stare down His deepest fear.
Do likewise. Fight your dragons in Gethsemane’s garden. Those persistent, ugly villains of the heart—talk to God about them.
I don’t want to lose my spouse, Lord. Help me to fear less and trust You more.
I have to fly tomorrow, Lord, and I can’t sleep for fear some terrorist will get on board and take down the plane. Won’t You remove this fear?
The bank just called and is about to foreclose on our home. What’s going to happen to my family? Can you teach me to trust?
I’m scared, Lord. The doctor just called, and the news is not good. You know what’s ahead for me. I give my fear to You.
Be specific about your fears. Identify what “this cup” is and talk to God about it.
Let’s pull back the curtains to expose our fears, each and every one. Like vampires, fears can’t stand the sunlight. Financial fears, relationship fears, professional fears, safety fears—call them out in prayer. Drag them out by the hand of your mind and make them stand before God and take their comeuppance!
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