<p>26:42&nbsp;<i>Again a second time he went away and prayed, saying</i>- This is saying the same thing twice. We are enabled to imagine the Lord again walking away from them, as if Matthew&rsquo;s camera is located amongst the disciples and focused upon the rear view of the Lord Jesus.</p><p><i>My Father, If- </i>The Lord in Gethsemane took a long time to pray the simple words: &ldquo;Father, if ....&rdquo;. It was long enough for the disciples to fight a losing battle against drowsiness and fall fast asleep (the Greek implies). But how do you pray? With simple, staccato words and phrases like His? Or do you desperately seek for words, any words, just to make it seem you prayed, trying to be like the more mature brethren you hear praying at gatherings? Or after many years of prayer, can I ask, are you just churning out the same old phrases and ideas, with little meaning put into the words...? If the Son of God Himself prayed in such simple terms, surely we ought to likewise.</p><p><i>This cup</i>- The use of &ldquo;this&hellip;&rdquo; suggests the Lord had so clearly in mind the course of events which were to follow. &lsquo;<i>The&nbsp;</i>cup&rsquo; would have been less specific, as if He simply knew that an ordeal was ahead. But &ldquo;<i>this</i> cup&rdquo; suggests He knew what the cup was specifically, and was holding that understanding in His mind as He prayed to the Father.</p><p><i>Cannot pass, except I drink it</i>- The same word translated &ldquo;possible&rdquo; in :39 &ldquo;If it be possible&rdquo;. Both Father and Son clearly were aware that all things are possible for the Father, and yet those who seek to do His will must accept that He will not use that possibility in a boundless sense. The contrast is between the Father&rsquo;s will / desire on one hand, and His boundless potential possibility on the other. If we seek to do His will or desire, to please Him, as the Lord did, then the fact He can potentially do anything for us somehow recedes in significance. We above all wish to please Him. Therefore the fact He could save us from any pain no longer weighs so heavily with us. It is primitive indeed to complain that God could have stopped a certain painful course of events. He indeed could have done. But the issue is, whether or not we wish to do His will, to please Him, to do His work in this world. This is the significance of the Lord saying &ldquo;Your will be done&rdquo;.</p><p><i>Your will be done-&nbsp;</i>He had the authority to call down legions of Angels to change the course of events- implying the Father would have allowed that. All things were possible to God. The fact this possibility remained for the Lord suggests that the prayers in Gethsemane were really the Lord coming to the conclusion that He Himself wished to go ahead with the cross. It wasn&rsquo;t so much that He asked for the cross to be taken away from Him, and the Father said &ldquo;No&rdquo;, and He meekly accepted it. Prayer functioned for Him as it often does for us- a means of dialogue with God and thereby with ourselves, the process of which in itself provides the answers to our deepest questions. The will of the Father is never presented in Scripture as immutable and some predestined code which we are to follow. Rather is God open to change in response to the cry of His beloved people. So the Lord&rsquo;s conclusion &ldquo;Your will be done&rdquo; is not a shrugging acceptance that in this case, He couldn&rsquo;t change some preordained will of God; but rather a willing desire on His own part to do the ideal wishes / will of the Father. The Lord&rsquo;s statement was therefore His own conclusion, His own decision to continue in the way of the cross, even though the practical realities of what it meant were now becoming more practically apparent to Him than ever before. No wonder the Father sent an Angel to strengthen His beloved Son in this fine resolve. See on 26:54&nbsp;<i>But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled?</i></p>