What does Matthew 26:44 mean?
Jesus is in emotional turmoil. He is in agony almost beyond comprehension (Matthew 26:37–38; Mark 14:34; Luke 22:44) at the prospect of the suffering He will experience in the coming hours (Matthew 16:21). He knows God's judgment for humanity's sinfulness will be poured out on Him. He knows, also, that He will experience some strain, beyond human comprehension, in His relationship with God the Father (Matthew 26:46) during this time.Christ's response to these unimaginable stresses is a model for all saved believers. After expressing what He is feeling to His closest disciples, Jesus moves off by Himself to pray. When He prays, He lays face down on the ground in a position of absolute humility and respect.
His prayer is specific. He tells God the Father what He wants: for this suffering to pass by Him, if possible. In the exact same moment, however, He also submits to the will of God the Father, declaring His willingness to experience whatever God wills (Matthew 26:39–40). It's noteworthy that Jesus does not make this prayer once. He prays in this same way three times in a row. He repeats what He has already prayed.
This is not because God doesn't know the desires or the heart of His own Son. Jesus repeats this act because giving our requests to God is a way of sharing the mental and emotional burden with Him. Paul commands this exact process for anxious believers (Philippians 4:4–7).
We are not Jesus, of course, and there is a mystery here. The Son of God is making a request of God the Father to avoid the cup He has come to earth to drink. He is also submitting, willingly and obediently, to whatever the Father chooses. What is the relationship, exactly, between these two who are also one? It may be beyond our human capacity to understand on this side of eternity. What we do know is that Jesus, as One fully human (Hebrews 4:15), is expressing His very human emotions in a perfectly sinless way.
Matthew 26:36–46 follows Jesus and the disciples into a place called Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives. He takes Peter, James, and John aside from the main group, then prays to God the Father in indescribably intense anguish. He prays a sincere wish that what's about to happen would not be necessary, but entirely submits to the will of God the Father. The disciples cannot stay awake, despite being roused more than once by Christ. Jesus prays three times, before pointing out Judas, the betrayer, who is coming with a crowd to arrest Him. These events are also depicted in Mark 14:32–42 and Luke 22:39–46.
The Jewish religious leaders further their plots to arrest and kill Jesus, finding a willing traitor in Judas Iscariot. A woman anoints Christ with oil during a dinner at Bethany. Next, Jesus and the disciples hold the Passover meal in an upper room where Jesus predicts His arrests and introduces the sacrament of communion. Then Jesus prays in unimaginable agony in the garden of Gethsemane before being betrayed by Judas and captured. The disciples scatter. Before the high priest, Jesus explicitly claims to be divine. They convict Him of blasphemy and sentence Him to death. As this happens, Peter denies knowing Jesus and runs away in shame.
