Powerpoint Pictures: Brussel Sprouts; Messy Bedroom; Child sitting on steps at bedtime; Child doing Homework; Dentist; A sign saying “No”

What things don’t you like doing?  What things don’t you want to do?  Maybe things like eating Brussel Sprouts, tidying your bedroom, going to bed, doing your homework, going to the dentist or being told what to do.

There was something that Jesus did not want to do.

After Jesus told His disciples that they would all fall away (that when He was arrested and put to death they would all run away), He took 3 of them with Him to a garden in the Mount of Olives called Gethsemane.

This garden was where Jesus liked to go and pray, and that what He told Peter, James and John, He was going to do.  He told them to wait while He did that.

“Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.  “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you.  Take this cup from me.  Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:35-36)

In his prayer Jesus says there is something he doesn’t want to do.  He calls it ’the hour’, and ‘the cup’, and asks God if there is a way for him not to do it.

What He talking about?

He talking about His death on the cross, where He is going to be punished by God for the sins of His people so they can be saved.

Jesus did not want to go to the cross.  But then He says, if there is no other way, I will do it.

And we’re going to see that Jesus meant this as the story continues.