Last night we read the Christmas story in Luke, and the Lord opened my eyes to something new. Jesus’ life and death began with essentially the same prayer.
In Luke 1 when the Angel Gabriel told Mary she would have a baby as a virgin, she replied, “let it be to me according to your word.” Essentially, “Your will, not mine.”
Then, as recorded in Luke 22:42, right before his death when he was in the Garden praying and struggling with the knowledge of what was about to happen, the rejection, torture, suffering and death, Jesus prayed “…nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.”
These bookmark prayers sum up Jesus’ whole life on earth, beginning with leaving the glory, power, position, pleasures and comfort of Heaven to come and be confined to the body of a new born babe.
Then to live on the earth in the midst of sin, evil, cruelty, sickness and death, rejection and unbelief. In that painful situation, He only did what the Father told Him. And in the end endured shame, ridicule, beatings, crucifixion and death—all because He loved us, because He replaced His will with the Father’s will.
His prayer is a Christmas gift to us, one for us to use then all year long: “Not my will, but yours be done!”
Merry Christmas.
Picture: a Christmas greeting from one of my T friends quoting Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” Christ Jesus.