Submit to the will of the Lord

In a few days from today, Christians all over the world will commemorate the death of Christ Jesus
on Good Friday (April 7). Hailed and believed to be the Son of God by His followers, God willed Him
to be born - and to be killed brutally - in order to redeem mankind from their lives of sin and deceit.

From the Holy Gospels we understand that Jesus lived the 33 years of His earthly life in full awareness of God’s will for Him.

Jesus is often shown in the Scriptures to be praying to His heavenly Father, meditating upon God’s will in His life. His life’s mission was to do the will of God, His father. This resolution helped Him to live in complete submission to God’s will even if He found Himself often criticized and rejected for His insights and teachings. It was this dogged desire to do God’s will that would eventually give Jesus the courage to endure His brutal death.

We read in the Gospel according to St. Mathew, chapter 26, verse 39 that shortly before His arrest, trials, beatings and crucifixion Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Father, if it’s possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. But let thy will be done rather than mine.”

This prayer, spoken in anguish even whilst His sweat fell as droplets of blood can be considered as the highest expression of submission to God’s will and plan. His trust in God’s will finally gave Him the fortitude and courage to not only bear the brutality of His crucifixion but to even forgive His perpetrators. In the final hour as He hung on the cross dying, He gave up His spirit in total submission to God’s will saying, “Father into thy hands I commit my spirit.”

The most touching and poignant scene of that Good Friday more than 2000 years ago in Mount Calvary situated on the outskirts of ancient Jerusalem is the image of the Son of God hanging on a cross in complete surrender to God’s will.

By submitting thus to God’s will Jesus fulfilled God’s plan of brining salvation to mankind. This Good Friday may we align our prayer to that of Jesus’: “Not mine, but thy will, Oh Lord.”