Facing Jesus #4 - God the Father
Matthew Mark Luke John
Words of Jesus are underlined
How did God the Father face God the Son in the mystery of the Holy Trinity? How could He say “No” to His Son as He watched and heard Him ask for another way for our salvation? How could He leave His Son on the cross as He cried out: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” He did it all for you. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”
How do you face your salvation and your Savior? How do you face Someone who “so loved the world” and you in it?
Jesus Prays for Himself, His Disciples, and All Believers
Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you gave him authority over all flesh, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus Christ. I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed. “I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, because I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me.
“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours. Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled. Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
“I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation. Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.”
Jesus Agonizes in the Garden
Then they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he told his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. He said to them, “I am deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.” Going a little farther, he fell facedown and prayed, “Abba, Father! All things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.”
Being in anguish, he prayed more fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Again, a second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”
After leaving them, he went away again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more.
The Crucifixion of Jesus
When they arrived at the place called The Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.”
From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over the whole land. And at three Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lemá sabachtháni?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
After this, when Jesus knew that everything was now finished that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he said, “I’m thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was sitting there; so they fixed a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it up to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.”
Suddenly, the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth quaked, and the rocks were split. And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” Saying this, he breathed his last.
(John 17:1–26; Mark 14:32–34; Matthew 26:38–39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:44; Matthew 26:42, 44-45; Luke 23:33-34; Mark 15:34; John 19:28-30; Matthew 27:51; Luke 23:45-46 CSB17)
How does it feel to know that Jesus prayed to God the Father for you?
Knowing that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit had planned for our salvation before the beginning of time (2 Timothy 1:9), why did Jesus still pray to find another way?
In what way(s) was Jesus truly abandoned?
If there was another way, don’t you think God the Father would have found it?
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