The Willing Surrender
P. Brooks, D. D. Matthew 26:53 Think you that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." The glory of Christ is in His willing surrender of that which belonged to Him, and which He might have always had and enjoyed. The multitude whom the chief priests had sent was arresting Jesus. Then one of His disciples drew the sword. Jesus bade him put his sword into its place again. He tells His eager followers that if He wants He can protect Himself. "Thinkest thou," etc. The helpless prisoner looked up and saw the air thick with angels hurrying to His relief. A word from Him and they would have been His warriors. He had the power, but would not use it. The nobleness of this surrender of Jesus; no man becomes really noble who has not its repetition in himself. To give up some precious thing which is legitimately yours; to shut your eyes upon visions of glory, or safety, or luxury, which you might make your own without blame, that is one of the marks of nobleness. The man who is taking all that he has a right to take in life is always touched with a shade of baseness. Let us study the nobleness of voluntary surrender. I. WE WANT TO FEEL HOW DEFINITE AND DISTINCT IT IS. There are base imitations of it. There are two kinds of renunciation of things which have this origin in unworthy motives. 1. The first is the renunciation which comes from idleness or lack of spirit. There will always be people who might be rich, learned, famous, who despise these things simply because of the trouble they involve. The surrender they make is a loss not a gain; it has nothing in common with the Divine relinquishment of Jesus. 2. The second of the two base forms of voluntary surrender is what we may call the ascetic form. It includes the renunciation of legitimate enjoyments, that we may be chastened by disappointment. Now turn back to Jesus. When He said, "I will not call the angels," it was no pusillanimous submitting to His fate; nor was it any unnatural submitting of Himself to suffering that He might be cultivated and purified, or that the release from suffering when it came might be more sweet. It was the quiet surrender of what was His, because He could not have it and yet do His work and save the world. No man in this world has a right to all his rights. Here is really the key to the question of voluntary abstinence from certain innocent indulgences for the sake of others. Voluntariness lies at the root of it all. We talk of the glory of resignation to the inevitable; but the true glory is in resignation to the inevitable. To stand unchained, with perfect power to go away, and so standing to let the fire creep up to the heart — that is the truer heroism. Christ knew what it was to gain the life He lost, to have the thing that He surrendered. When He refused to call the angels to His help, the strength which was the meaning of the angels was surely entering into Him, and making Him ready for the battle which He was just about to fight. (P. Brooks, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? WEB: Or do you think that I couldn't ask my Father, and he would even now send me more than twelve legions of angels?