The writer of Hebrews writes: “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.  Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:7-10).

This is what is happening in Gethsemane.  Jesus asks for the cup to be removed; the Father doesn’t answer.  He prays three times, and the Father does not deliver Him from death.  He will have to drink the cup; the only way for the cup to “pass away” is for Jesus to drink it.  He submits to the Father, praying the prayer that He taught the disciples, “Thy will be done.”  He denies Himself, and takes up His cross, in submission to the Father’s will.

But the author of Hebrews seems to be reading an alternative account.  The author of Hebrews says that “He was heard because of His piety.”  As we read Matthew, we conclude that the Father did not hear or answer.  There’s no voice from heaven, no splitting of the sky, no sudden rescue, no invasion of 12 legions of angels.

Hebrews is right, of course: Jesus is delivered from death.  The Father does hear Him.  Jesus is delivered from death, however, only after going through death.  He does not sidestep the grave, but is taken to it.  He learns that the way to life is not a straight line; the way to life deviates through death.  The way of Jesus is not a straight way, but a crooked way, one that always passes through darkness before it leads on to light.