Mark 14 — Not What I Will, But What Thou Wilt
Two days before Passover, the chief priests plot. A woman at Bethany breaks an alabaster box of spikenard on Jesus' head; He calls it a memorial. Judas agrees to betray for money. At the Last Supper Jesus identifies the betrayer and institutes the cup of the new covenant. In Gethsemane, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt. Judas arrives with armed men; Jesus is arrested. Peter follows to the high priest's court; before the cock crows twice, he denies Him three times and weeps.
“And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.”
— Mark 14:36
- v.1-11 The anointing at Bethany; Judas' betrayal
- v.12-26 The Last Supper
- v.27-42 Gethsemane
- v.43-52 The arrest
- v.53-65 Before the Sanhedrin
- v.66-72 Peter's denial
My blood of the new testament. The blood that ratifies the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31), the lifeblood of the Lamb of God. The cup is the visible sign of an invisible reality — Christ's death for His people.
Shed for many. Particular, not abstract. The blood is poured out for a definite number — His own. The atonement is not a possibility offered to all but a price effective for many.
Abba — the intimate cry of a son. Christ prays in the deepest closeness to the Father while the agony presses. Intimacy with God is not interrupted by anguish; sometimes it is exposed by it.
The prayer is a model — honest about what one wishes (take away this cup), submitted to what God wills (nevertheless not what I will). Christ does not pretend the suffering is preferred; He owns the recoil and yields the verdict.
A bare, devastating verse. All. Every disciple who had said he would die with Him ran. Christ went into the arrest already alone.
But the verse is not about them only; it is about Him. The Shepherd was struck and the sheep scattered, as He had said (v.27). The atonement is for sinners, and the very disciples on whose behalf He suffered ran from Him as it began.
He wept. The sign that grace was still at work. Judas also failed — but he despaired and hanged himself. Peter failed and wept and was restored. The same word that exposed his sin was the doorway back.
Christ had already prayed for Peter's faith (Luke 22:32). The denial did not undo the prayer; it set up the restoration (John 21:15-17). The tears were a downpayment on a service that would feed Christ's sheep.
Verse 36 is the school of prayer when the cup is bitter. Christ does not skip the honest cry — take away this cup — nor does He end there. He holds both — I do not want this and nevertheless not what I will. Pray that way when the trial is real. Tell God what you wish; then yield it. The submission does not require a deadening of feeling; it requires that, beneath the feeling, the will leans toward the Father.
The chapter is the slow gathering of every failure around the One who will bear them. A betrayer at the table, a sleeping inner circle in the garden, a fleeing band at the arrest, a denying friend at the court. He is alone, by design — because the Saviour must be alone in suffering so that none of His people will be alone in death. The cup He prayed about He drank to the bottom for them.
She hath done what she could. Christ's commendation. Not what others could; not what was efficient. She gave the best she had, when she could, while He was still there. He honors that order over calculation.
She perceived what the disciples missed — He was going to die. Her anointing was a confession of His coming burial. Devotion saw what doctrine had not yet caught up to.