I Got This One, Lord!
(John 13: 8-10; 37-38; John: 18 :10-11;25-27; Mark 14: 36;39)
When my daughter Christina was four, we needed to go somewhere and I wanted to help her tie her shoes. As I bent over to help, she said, “No daddy, I want to do it myself”! As she tried, her fingers became tangled in the shoelaces. She finally looked up at me and said, “Daddy will you help me”?
As believers, our relationship with the Lord can mirror this event with my daughter. We feel confident that we can handle a choice, direction, or decision on our own, without His help or intervention. The confidence can also translate into, “I want to do it myself Father” or better said, “I got this one Lord”!
As I think about it, “I got this one Lord” essentially suggests four things; that we do not need His help, that we want to handle it on our own, that He needs to learn to trust that we can handle this, and we want to do what we want to do!
As we celebrate Passion Week, and more specifically, the events the evening of the Last Supper (Maundy Thursday) and the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, we will notice that within less than 12 hours Peter boastfully told Jesus three times in so many words, “I got this one Lord”!
Scene 1: They are sharing the meal together when Jesus suddenly wraps a towel around his arm and begins washing the disciple’s feet. The eleven disciples silently watched on as Jesus takes on the role of the house servant, saying nothing, while impetuous Peter asserts, “Will you wash my feet, Lord? Never”! In essence, he is suggesting that he knows what is kosher and appropriate and this is how things should be. In other words, “I got this one, Lord”.
Jesus then tells Peter two things: a) You will not understand until later what I am doing now by washing your feet, and b) if I do not wash them you will have nothing to do with me. Peter replies, “Lord, not only my feet but my head and hands.”
Scene 2: During the meal, Jesus explains that he will not be with them much longer, referring to his time to suffer at the hands of man and give His life. Peter then tells him “I will go to death with you”, and the Lord replies, “Peter, before the rooster crows three times you will deny me.”
Peter is suggesting that I will protect you Lord, and with me by your side, no harm will come to You. In other words, “I got this one Lord, no worries”!
Scene 3: Jesus is beside the twisted olive grove of the Garden of Gethsemane. He asks his disciples to watch and pray as He is “overwhelmed with trouble and sorrow”. As times goes by, they all notice a company of no less than 200 Roman soldiers and other Jewish leaders coming into the Garden to arrest Jesus. When Judas identifies Jesus with a betrayer’s kiss, Jesus is grabbed, and Peter tries to cut the assailants head off, misses, and cuts his ear off instead. Jesus tells Peter to put his sword away, picks up the man’s ear, and puts it back where it belongs, saying, “shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me”?
Again, Peter tries to take charge of the situation and assumes the role of one who is in complete charge of what is going on. It is as if he is telling Jesus, I am here to protect you and determine the ultimate outcome of what is going to happen here. In other words, “I got this one, Lord”.
Scene 4: And of course, finally, Peter is now warming himself around a fire while Jesus is arrested and brought to Caiaphas’s house to be questioned. Peter is likewise questioned by those present about him being with Jesus in the garden and being one of His followers. Three times he denies their accusations saying he does not even know what they are referring to. Then the rooster crows just as his Lord had predicted.
Again, Peter takes control of the situation by maneuvering and dodging their questions as if to say, “I managed the danger to the best of my ability with no other intention than to control the situation”. In other words, “I got this one Lord”.
In each scene, Peter takes charge and assumes control. In each scene, Peter is corrected by the Lord as a reminder the He is Peter’s Lord and Savior, that HE holds the reigns of control and authority over everything Peter goes through.
In our final scene, let us observe the silhouette of our Lord Jesus as he claws the dirt of Gethsemane; as His troubled soul agonizes over the possibility of bearing the sins of the world at the cruel and heartless execution of the Roman cross.
Jesus pours his heart out to His Father and briefly requests that if there is any way for the Father to remove the pending cup of suffering from him, to allow it. In his next breath he then cries, “not my will but thy will be done.”
This is the opposite of “I got this one Lord”! Jesus is showing us, as His followers, how to submit to God when our circumstances are out of our control.
The better mindset (and prayer) is to humbly cry “YOU got this one Father, your will be done in my life”!
Oh, and by the way, when my daughter, in her exasperation finally said, “daddy will you help me tie my shoes”, I smiled like it was music to my ears. My little girl admitted that she needed my help and was willing to depend on my assistance.
Guaranteed, the Lord also delights when we express our dependence on Him and truly believe, regardless our trial or heartbreak, that “He’s got this one”!
Bless His Name Forever!
Bill Gallagher
