Jesus Accepts His Suffering
Our Lord went forth from the city and across the brook Cedron to Gethsemane, but not for the purpose of concealment, as John 18:2 clearly shows. How characteristic it was that He should meet the band and ask that He should be taken, while the disciples should be permitted to escape! Was not this what He was ever doing-meeting peril, temptation, and death, that the great company whom He was bringing to glory might be saved? What meekness and majesty are here! Meekness-that He should subject Himself to the binding thong; majesty-that He should be able to use the unspeakable name of God-I AM, for the word “ He ”is not in the Greek.
The cup probably referred to the anguish caused to His holy nature in being numbered with the transgressors, and bearing the sin of many. There was much in it from which His spirit recoiled, but He chose to do the will of God, however the flesh might start and shrink. Let us ever take the cups of life's pain and sorrow direct from the hand of God, not seeing Judas, but the Father.
Joseph told his brethren that it was not they who had sent him to Egypt, but God. David would not have Shimei silenced, because he felt that God had allowed him to utter his anathema. Here our Lord reposes absolutely on the Father, who loved Him before the world was made.