Mark14:36 Not My Will

Open for input

Not My Will Working name

Mark 14:36

In the garden, the night before the cross, Jesus called God “Abba” and asked for another way. Then He surrendered to His Father’s will.

Share your input Explore the passage

An idea, not a cap you can order yet.

Not My Will

What Is Your Life Preaching?

‘Abba, Father,’ He said, ‘all things are possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will.’

MARK 14:36 BSB

Explore the passage3 min read

Jump to the challenge

What the passage says

1The Hardest Prayer a Father Prays

It is the night before the cross. Jesus takes His closest friends to a garden called Gethsemane, tells them His soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, and goes a little farther to pray alone. Mark says He fell to the ground.

He calls God "Abba," the Aramaic word a child used for his father. It is close and personal, a family word. Then He asks for another way. In the Old Testament, "the cup" is a picture of God's judgment against sin (Isaiah 51:17). Jesus knows He is about to take that judgment on Himself, and He feels the full weight of it.

He does not hide what He wants. But He ends by placing His will under His Father's. The Son trusted the Father completely, even when the answer was the cross. Because He drank that cup, everyone who trusts Him is brought into God's family. Paul says the Spirit now teaches us to call God "Abba, Father" too (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6).

Abba is what Jesus called His Father. Through Him, it is what we get to call Him too.

How it was back then

Gethsemane means "oil press."

It was an olive grove on the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem. Olives were crushed there under heavy stones to press out oil. Jesus went there to pray on the night He would be crushed under the weight of sin.

It was Passover night.

Jesus had just shared the Passover meal with His disciples, a feast remembering how God rescued Israel from Egypt through the blood of a lamb. Mark says they sang a hymn before leaving (14:26). By custom that was likely the closing psalms of the meal, Psalms 113 to 118.

Jews usually prayed standing.

Lifting hands and eyes toward heaven was the normal posture. Mark says Jesus fell to the ground. That detail tells readers how heavy this moment was.

What "Abba" really means.

Abba is Aramaic, the everyday language Jesus spoke. Mark keeps the original word even though he wrote in Greek, then translates it, which shows how much it mattered to the first Christians. You may have heard that Abba means "Daddy." Scholars have since shown that grown children used it too. It is better understood as a warm family word for father: respectful and close at the same time. Jewish prayers of that era rarely addressed God this personally.

"The cup" had a history.

The prophets described God's judgment as a cup of wrath that the guilty must drink (Isaiah 51:17, Jeremiah 25:15). Mark's first readers would have understood that Jesus was asking whether He truly had to drink judgment that was not His.

What it means for a father

Many men think a strong father never shows weakness. Jesus, the strongest man who ever lived, fell on His face and told His Father exactly how He felt.

Surrender is not quitting. Jesus did not give up. He gave Himself over to a Father He trusted. There will be things you beg God to take away: a diagnosis, a job loss, a child walking away from the faith, a marriage under strain. You are allowed to ask, honestly and more than once. The harder prayer comes next, when you tell Him you will trust Him with the answer.

Your kids need to see that kind of father. A dad who prays on his knees teaches his children where strength actually comes from.

Not my will, but Yours.

Did this speak to you?

The challenge · 7 days

Now it is your turn.

“You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts, known and read by everyone.”

2 CORINTHIANS 3:2 BSB

This week, your kids are reading. Pick one. Do it for seven days. Tell one man you are doing it.

In good company.

“For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”

EPHESIANS 2:18 BSB

Should this be our next cap?

A thumbs down means “not for the next cap,” not disagreement with God’s Word.

Be one of the first to respond.Both counts appear once 25 people have responded.