Luke 23:1-25

Your Will Be Done

In his book Love Wins Rob Bell asks the question, “Does God always get what He wants?” While Bell doesn’t try to completely answer the question it is clear that, at least in the short run, God does not always get what He wants.

Did God want us to fall in the garden through unbelief? No, but we did. Did He want Israel to refuse to enter the Promised Land when they first came to its borders? Did He want Saul to fail as king through cowardice? Did He want Israel to fall into idolatry? No. No. No. Amazing. The Almighty God ruler of everything doesn’t get what He wants. Why?

Bell asks a second question. “Do we get what we want?” That’s a complicated question and once again Bell doesn’t really try to nail down an answer. He just simply points out that it seems that God will let us get what we want. At first that sounds crazy but look at this passage.

OK, Herod didn’t really get what he wanted. Jesus wouldn’t do any tricks for him, or even answer his questions. Pilate didn’t really get what he wanted either. He wanted to set Jesus free. However, they both got a nice consolation of having a powerful enemy turned into a friend. (My friend Kenn Stilger pointed out to me last week that even in this desperate hour Jesus was bringing about reconciliation.)

The priests and Jewish leaders wanted Jesus crucified. Barabbas wanted to be set free. The crowd wanted Jesus crucified. And God let them have what they wanted. The same reason that we were allowed to fall in Eden; the same reason that Israel was allowed to rebel at the border of Canaan and Saul was allowed to fail and Israel was allowed to fall into idolatry was at work here.

The ironic thing was that Jesus had just prayed, “Thy will be done.” And this passage closes with “(Pilate) surrendered Jesus to their will.” It is God’s will that we be free to accept or reject Jesus. Wow. I don’t have all the answers to how this all plays out in the cosmic scheme of eternity but I do know this; right now, right where we are, God is saying, “Your will be done.” Those who are wise are turning back to Him and saying, “My will is to surrender to Your will.” And so the question for each of us is, “Whose will be done?”