Holy Week - Wednesday

Reading: Matthew 26:36-46

I love to watch Star Trek. One favorite characters is Spock. Spock is half Vulcan and half human. Now Vulcan's never display any emotions. One of the sub-plots in Star Trek is Spock learning to deal with his human emotions. Spock often works at suppressing his emotions so that he is totally calm and logical.

This is how I have often pictured Jesus. Always calm and logical.

For this reason I have often struggled with this passage in Matthew. Here we see Jesus being deeply distressed and even agitated. Look at how he prays. Jesus knows that it is the Father's will that he die in Jerusalem. After all that is one of the reasons he came to earth. But he prays from his emotions that God find a different way. This is not being calm. I am not sure it is even logical to ask God to do something different when you know what his will is.

Jesus prays with his emotions. He does not suppress them. Perhaps Jesus is fully human (and not half Vulcan). Of course Jesus does remain submitted to God.

When we pray do we pray with our emotions? Or do we sometimes just suppress them and pray what we think God wants to hear?

Let us pray from our hearts, well remains fully submitted to our loving Father.