“Not
My Will, But Thine, Be Done”
Lesson 25 – Matt. 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46
Several
years before Elder Orson F. Whitney was ordained an Apostle, he received a
vision of the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane. Elder Whitney’s description
of his vision:
“I
seemed to be in the Garden of Gethsemane, a witness of the Savior’s agony. I
saw Him as plainly as ever I have seen anyone. Standing behind a tree in the
foreground, I beheld Jesus, with Peter, James and John, as they came through a
little … gate at my right. Leaving the three Apostles there, after telling them
to kneel and pray, the Son of God passed over to the other side, where He also
knelt and prayed. It was the same prayer with which all Bible readers are
familiar: ‘Oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;
nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.’
“As He prayed the tears streamed down his face, which was toward me. I
was so moved at the sight that I also wept, out of pure sympathy. My whole
heart went out to him; I loved him with all my soul, and longed to be with him
as I longed for nothing else.
“Presently He arose and walked to where those Apostles were
kneeling—fast asleep! He shook them gently, awoke them, and in a tone of tender
reproach, untinctured by the least show of anger or impatience, asked them
plaintively if they could not watch with him one hour. There He was, with the
awful weight of the world’s sin upon his shoulders, with the pangs of every
man, woman and child shooting through his sensitive soul—and they could not
watch with him one poor hour!
“Returning to his place, He offered up the same prayer as before; then
went back and again found them sleeping. Again he awoke them, readmonished them,
and once more returned and prayed. Three times this occurred” (Through
Memory’s Halls [1930], 82).
This
lesson and lesson 26 are about the Atonement—Jesus Christ’s voluntary act of
taking upon himself death and the sins and infirmities of all mankind. This
lesson focuses on the Savior’s experience in the Garden of Gethsemane, while
lesson 26 discusses his Crucifixion. It is important to remember that the
Atonement included the Savior’s suffering both in the garden and on the cross.
President
Ezra Taft Benson taught:
“In Gethsemane and on Calvary, He worked out the infinite and eternal
atonement. It was the greatest single act of love in recorded history. Thus He
became our Redeemer—redeeming all of us from physical death, and redeeming
those of us from spiritual death who will obey the laws and ordinances of the
gospel” (The
Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson [1988], 14).
The Savior took upon himself our sins and
infirmities.
Luke
22:39-40 Jesus
asked his Apostles to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Luke
22:40 Note
that He asked the Apostles to pray that they might not enter into temptation.
Matt.
26:38, 41
Jesus asked Peter, James, and John to “watch with me” in the Garden of
Gethsemane. Here, the word watch means to stay awake; (see footnote 38b).
2
Nephi 4:28; Alma 7:22; Alma 32:26-27 The command to watch, or stay awake, is repeated in
these scriptures to help us as we strive to live the gospel—that we might not
“droop in sin”; that we might awaken to our sense of duty to God and walk
blameless before Him; that we might arouse our faculties and experiment on
Alma’s words and exercise a particle of faith.
Matt.
26:39, 42, 44 Jesus was willing to submit to the great suffering he knew he would
experience in the Garden of Gethsemane because he wanted his Father’s will to
be done.
We
can learn humility from the Savior’s prayer in Gethsemane. Consider carefully
how you have been blessed as you have submitted to Heavenly Father’s will.
Luke
22:43
After Jesus said that he would do Heavenly Father’s will, “there appeared an angel
unto him from heaven, strengthening him”. This teaches us about our Heavenly Father in that
He will strengthen us as we humbly do his will.
D&C
19:16-19; Luke 22:44; Mosiah 3:7; Alma 7:11-13 The Savior experienced pain
and bleeding at every pore, agony, great anguish, afflictions, and the pains of
our infirmities in Gethsemane.
Elder
James E. Talmage taught: “Christ’s agony in the garden is unfathomable by the finite mind, both
as to intensity and cause. … He struggled and groaned under a burden such as no
other being who has lived on earth might even conceive as possible. It was not
physical pain, nor mental anguish alone, that caused him to suffer such torture
as to produce an extrusion of blood from every pore; but a spiritual agony of
soul such as only God was capable of experiencing. … In that hour of anguish
Christ met and overcame all the horrors that Satan, ‘the prince of this world,’
could inflict. … In some manner, actual and terribly real though to man
incomprehensible, the Savior took upon Himself the burden of the sins of
mankind from Adam to the end of the world” (Jesus the Christ,
3rd ed. [1916], 613).
Elder
Neal A. Maxwell said: “As
part of His infinite atonement, Jesus knows ‘according to the flesh’ all that
through which we pass. (Alma 7:11-12). He has borne the sins, griefs, sorrows,
and … pains of every man, woman, and child (see 2 Nephi 9:21)” (Ensign,
May 1987, 72).
We need the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Alma
34:9
explains why we need the Atonement of Jesus Christ—“else all mankind must
unavoidably perish”.
Blessings
are available to us because of the Savior’s atoning sacrifice. We can receive
these blessings:
Elder
Marion G. Romney explained that through the Atonement, all people are saved from physical
death and the repentant and obedient are also saved from sin: “It took the atonement of
Jesus Christ to reunite the bodies and spirits of men in the resurrection. And
so all the world, believers and non-believers, are indebted to the Redeemer for
their certain resurrection, because the resurrection will be as wide as was the
fall, which brought death to every man.
“There is another phase of the atonement which makes me love the Savior
even more, and fills my soul with gratitude beyond expression. It is that in
addition to atoning for Adam’s transgression, thereby bringing about the
resurrection, the Savior by his suffering paid the debt for my personal sins.
He paid the debt for your personal sins and for the personal sins of every
living soul that ever dwelt upon the earth or that ever will dwell in mortality
upon the earth. But this he did conditionally. The benefits of this suffering
for our individual transgressions will not come to us unconditionally in the
same sense that the resurrection will come regardless of what we do. If we
partake of the blessings of the atonement as far as our individual
transgressions are concerned, we must obey the law. “… When we commit sin, we are estranged from God and rendered
unfit to enter into his presence. No unclean thing can enter into his presence.
We cannot of ourselves, no matter how we may try, rid ourselves of the stain
which is upon us as a result of our own transgressions. That stain must be
washed away by the blood of the Redeemer, and he has set up the way by which
that stain may be removed. That way is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel
requires us to believe in the Redeemer, accept his atonement, repent of our
sins, be baptized by immersion for the remission of our sins, receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, and continue faithfully to
observe, or do the best we can to observe, the principles of the gospel all the
days of our lives” (Conference Report, Oct. 1953, 35-36).
These
lessons are posted on the Internet at http://www.neumanninstitute.org