Holy Saturday

March 31, 2018

“Could you not keep watch with me for an hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
Matthew 21:9-11 (NIV)

I have wondered over the years how they could possibly have gone to sleep when he needed them so badly.  When he was struggling with what he knew he had to face – denunciation by his followers, degradation by the masses, the horror of crucifixion – I ache to think how it must have hurt him to find them sleeping! Only recently have I realized there’s more to these verses than can be seen in a cursory reading.

I just hate to think that he had to face that with no human friends to support him. And I’m pretty sure, as I remember that he was very human, that coming back to where they were and finding them asleep was painful. He had told them over and over that death awaited him in Jerusalem. He had told them in no uncertain terms as they celebrated Passover that the lambs brought into the city were not enough, that he would be their lamb. Lambs died at Passover! Didn’t they hear at all that he was going to die?

Then he went away (as he always did when things were happening) to pray, taking only Peter – who promised never to deny him – and James and John – who were prepared to sit at his right and left hand. He left them and went even further to pray alone. The gospels tell us that he sweated blood! That’s pretty intense! The most important hour of his ministry was coming, and those whom he loved most slept! How sad!

But there is something that we often miss. Yes, he did ask them to pray. But it was not for him! It was for themselves! For themselves! He would face the horror of a mock trial, of scourging, of crucifixion, but he asked them to pray for themselves so that they would not fall into temptation! But they didn’t pray! They slept. And into temptation they fell just a few hours later.

When we realize this, the whole passage seems different, doesn’t it? Yes we are often guilty of not being fervent in prayer when he calls us to some need in the lives of others. Yes, we fall asleep at night before we get to the final “amen.” Yes, we lose our sense of concentration when someone else “leads us in prayer,’ the kind that requires nothing of us but to sit still and listen! But this is different. We fail to pray for ourselves to remain faithful! We fail to ask God to keep us strong in adversity. I fail to realize that unlike Frank Sinatra, I must not decide to “do it my way.” And I – we fail.

Prayer: Father, Father! How foolish we are! How often we overestimate our own abilities to remain faithful! How quickly we condemn those sleepy men in Gethsemane and fail to see how careless we are to pray! Forgive us for trying to get through life on our own resources! Help us to depend more completely on you and your guidance. Amen.  

Holy Week Devotional
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, March 2008,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator

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