Thy Will Be Done

Matthew 26:26-46

Today is Maundy Thursday.  It’s the first of the great three days of the Paschal Triduum, the final three days of Lent: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, that is the Vigil of Easter.  Tonight we remember our Lord’s institution of Holy Communion at the Last Supper.  Where he instructed his disciples to eat and drink a meal of his body and blood in remembrance of him.  Then, according to the Gospel of John, he washed his disciples’ feet and proclaimed a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them.  It is from this idea of a new commandment that we get the word “maundy” from the Latin for commandment or mandate, that we name this day after.  John’s Gospel is the only one to include the foot washing, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke all present Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane.  A profound moment where Jesus wrestles with God’s will and prays: “Father, if it is possible remove this cup from me. Yet, not my will but yours be done.”

For years I have found this moment of Jesus praying in Gethsemane to be the most powerful image in all of scripture.  For me there’s no other scene that affects me so deeply.  Part of my practice this Lent has been praying with this icon of Jesus in Gethsemane.  I’ll put it here for you to look at closely during Communion if you wish. 

In what we’ve just read from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus knows the time has come for him to die.  He knows what’s coming.  And he knows that there still might be time to run away if he wants to.  Maybe he could sneak off in the middle of the night back to Galilee, fly under the radar from now on, and stay away from Jerusalem.  Maybe such a thought crossed his mind.  Let’s lean into the human side of Jesus here.  He knows what’s about to happen and he would rather not do it.  We tend to assume that Jesus always knew and effortlessly followed God’s will.  But if we make that assumption, we neglect Jesus’ very real human nature and dismiss the struggle he had this night.

There’s a neat theological word: dyothelitism.  It means the doctrine of the two wills of Christ.  And this passage exemplifies it.  The doctrine of two wills was affirmed by the church at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681 AD.  And at that Council, it’s counterpart monothelitism (the doctrine of one will) was deemed heresy.  Now I don’t think you’re going to hell if you’ve got the wrong idea about how many wills Christ had, but I do think that understanding the right theology provides us opportunity for transformative spiritual insights.   

We miss the point if assume that because Jesus was the Messiah his obedience to God was automatic, rather than something he needed to wrestle with and discern and commit to.  The Bible makes clear that Jesus never sinned and that he was always obedient to God’s will.  But the Bible also makes clear that this wasn’t always easy or automatic.  Even Jesus needed to wrestle with and discern and make sense of what God’s will was for him.  As evident by the fact that Jesus needed to take 40 days in the wilderness before beginning his ministry.  And by the fact that Jesus often prayed in solitude for direction and discernment.  And by the fact that, in this passage, Jesus took time to pray, discern, and struggle with God’s will in Gethsemane. 

Jesus fully felt all the human instinct of self-preservation, aversion to pain and suffering, the need to defend himself, the human fight-or-flight response.  Jesus wrestled through all of that, understood what God was calling him to do, set aside his human will, and aligned himself with the divine will.  Even when he knew all the pain and suffering that meant for him.  On this night before he died, Jesus brings all his fear and terror and agony before God.  He knows he’s facing the prospect of being tortured and nailed to a piece of wood in a few hours.  And he prays for it not to happen.  And then it does.  He asks God if there’s a way out of this.  And God doesn’t provide another way.

Now it’s hard to say why this was God’s will for Jesus.  The church’s attempts to understand the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ death are called atonement theories. 

The church’s atonement theories are all heavily influenced by the sacrificial traditions of the ancient Israelites.  Paul views Christ’s death through that lens.  And accordingly, much Christian theology follows that lens, but expands it to a much more universal level.  Paul also describes Christ as the Second Adam, reversing the curse of sin brought into the world through the first humans’ disobedience.

The main atonement theory of the early church was that Jesus died as a ransom to the devil to free human beings from being destined to hell.  For the first 1000 years this was the prevailing atonement theory.  Medieval theologians didn’t like how powerful that theory made the devil seem.  So instead they opted for atonement theories that suggest it was God who demanded Jesus’ death because God was so angry at sin that He required a perfect sacrificial victim in order to forgive sin.  This theory puts God in complete control but basically swaps God in for Satan, making God appear very violent, wrathful, and unreasonable.  If God needs punishment before forgiveness, it compromises the loving, merciful, forgiving nature of God that Jesus taught.

A third way to look at it is not that it’s not Satan or God demanding Jesus die, but that it is the will of sinful human beings who “know not what they do.”  In this view, Jesus surrenders to the will of foolish, cruel, sinful human beings and does not resist anything that they do to him.  “Love does not insist on its own way” even when that means great suffering.  This idea is expressed in the Christ Hymn of Philippians 2: that Christ emptied himself of divine glory and power and became human.  Then further emptied himself of everything that makes for a decent human life, and became obedient to sinful human beings to the point of death, even death on a cross.  This interpretation emphasizes the love of God and God’s commitment to us.  But it raises the issue of what cosmic significance does his death have?  It seems like it would need to be God’s plan or Satan’s ransom for Jesus’ death to have universal significance and provide salvation.

And then there’s Luther’s theology of the cross that doesn’t negate other atonement theories but has a different emphasis.  That is, the cross teaches us that God is with us in our suffering.  Christ crucified demonstrates God’s willingness to go to any lengths to be present with us in our suffering.  This may not entirely answer the question of why Jesus died, but it does give us a more accurate depiction of the God revealed in Jesus Christ.  A God who is loving, forgiving, self-sacrificing, and absolutely committed to relationship with us, even if it means death on a cross.

Now that’s a very quick summary of various atonement theories.  Theologians agree that none of them are entirely satisfactory, and that the true significance of Christ’s death on the cross is a mystery beyond our comprehension.  For me, I like to meditate on the simple phrase: “The death of God brings life to the world”.  That sentence invites us to hush the thinking mind and enter into the mystery of it all. 

Now, while atonement theories are beyond human comprehension, the meaning of what happens in our reading tonight—Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane—is very simple.  Both very simple and very profound.  Jesus discerns that this is the path God is calling him to.  Maybe he didn’t know why.  Maybe he didn’t understand theologies of atonement either.  But he understood enough to know that this was the path God was calling him to follow.

Jesus’ complete willingness to follow wherever the divine will led him is one of the primary features of what it means for him to be one with God.  And it is this same surrender of the individual will that Christ calls us to as well.  To surrender our self-will to God’s will.  To align our personal will with the divine will.  To die to ourselves and live for God.  Giving up anything we think we want, and instead desiring what God wants above all else. 

Christian mystics throughout the ages have taught that this aligning our personal will with God’s will is at the heart of the Christian spiritual journey. Everything else flows from that.  It’s the focus of the contemplative practice of Centering Prayer.  Surrendering to God’s will for 20 minutes at a time.  Sitting there in silence, repeating a one word prayer whenever you notice yourself moving off center from your intention to consent to God’s will for that moment.  Spiritual practices like that can help us become more attuned to God’s will for our lives, just like taking time to pray and discern like Jesus did in Gethsemane can help us become more aligned with God’s will. 

And so let us live the prayer “Thy will be done.”  Living the prayer “Thy will be done” means offering our personal will as a sacrifice to God.  Living the prayer “Thy will be done” means sincerely striving that all our activity may be a reflection of God’s will.  Living the prayer “Thy will be done” means inviting God’s activity to be our only activity.  It’s what Paul meant by his metaphor of the church as the Body of Christ.  It’s why the ELCA motto is “God’s work our hands.”  We, the church, and each individual Christian, are called to offer our will to God and be the bodies God uses to be active in the world. 

We are called to follow Jesus in surrendering our self-will, to die to our self, to offer our will as our sacrifice to God.  And we’ll find that, though it may be difficult, it is in surrendering our will to God’s will that we find perfect freedom.  Aligning our will with God’s will means living into who we were truly created to be.  Whenever someone does that, God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.  And even if just for a moment, that’s how we manifest God in the world.  That’s how we incarnate God too.  And when all individual self-wills align with the divine will, that’s when the Kingdom of God is made manifest on earth.  When all human activity expresses the will of God, the world is made whole. 

We, of course, have trouble surrendering our wills to God’s will.  It’s not easy.  It takes a lot of practice and trust.  And none of us will do it perfectly, at this on this side of eternity.  But Jesus did it perfectly.  And that’s all it took for God to set the world right.  Because Jesus did not turn away from God’s will, the world is healed and reconciled with God.  Because Jesus obeyed the divine will, the world is free from the consequence of disobedience.  Because of Jesus, the sinless Lamb of God, the world is redeemed.  Because Jesus, Son of Man and Son of God, said “Thy will be done,” God’s will to save the world is done.  Because of Jesus, we are saved, reconciled, healed, redeemed.  Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.  + 

Pastor Brian | Maundy Thursday | April 2, 2026