First, let me say that I completely understand how Peter, James, and John must have felt. It was a warm, Spring evening out among the olive groves. It must have been pitch black, and they had just come from a large Passover meal. I, personally, have a difficult time staying awake under much less comfortable circumstances. This is one of the reasons I generally avoid corporate prayer. Get me with my head bowed and my eyes closed, and I can’t promise you that I can stay awake unless there is a very loud “Amen.” Therefore, I feel pretty confident in saying that I would have been one of the disciples with my robe wrapped around a rock, very audibly snoring and “resting my eyes.”
So while these Bible verses seem pretty simple, they have always been difficult ones for me to read because I see them as the beginning of the end of a very special relationship with Jesus that I feel that I would have cherished. Up to this point, the disciples would have been able to see themselves as some combination of students, friends, and chosen insiders who were all in the process of becoming something special, something much closer to God, and when Jesus asked something of them, there was a pretty clear expectation that they would fail, be forgiven, learn something cool, and move on. But this was different.
It is easy to look at the disciples as common, flawed, human beings (people like us) who are given an extraordinary chance to be with Jesus (us on our better days). And though Jesus asked them to do things throughout their time with Him, this is really the only time when he actually needed them. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matt. 26:38). This is the first time since Jesus’ birth that the separation between God the Father and God the Son seems absolute. William Lane, a New Testament scholar, says that here, in Gethsemane, God had already begun to turn his face away. The judgment for our sin had already begun. Before the first nail was driven into his body, Jesus’ soul was being abandoned by God. (qtd. in Greear)
Jesus, here in the Garden, may have understood one more element of what it meant to be human: fear and guilt. What do his closest friends, who He had only asked for company and prayer, provide him with? Selfishness and snoring. Three times.
Thus begins the falling away. Once the world finally turns on Jesus, his closest friends turn to profit, violence, fear, cowardice, and neglect. So, also like us.
But, as my former, favorite childhood minister, Pastor Earl, used to say… Sunday’s coming.
Sunday is Coming
We are entering the time of year of rebirth. It is no coincidence that Easter, Spring, new plants, baby lambs, hiding eggs, pastel colors, etc. all show up in these same weeks. (The rabbit…I have no explanation for) Fortunately, I live in a part of the country where for about five months of the year, it is necessary to have my golf clubs and my snow blower ready at all times. So, it is possible for me to see these darkest times of denial and death and the brightest moments of resurrection as a single and singular occurrence. Jesus came in his resurrected glory to the same men who slept, ran, denied, and hid.
——– Important side note: I am aware that there is an important aspect of this story that I am ignoring: the women. Matthew makes clear that Mary Magdalene, Mary, mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee, were at the Crucifixion and were the first to testify to the risen Christ. My not telling their story is not connected to their gender. I at least feel confident that I, as a good reporter, would, at least, have asked James’ Mom’s name. I don’t make them a part of this story because as much as I would hope that, had I been there, Matthew would have written “The Women and Bill,” I feel much more confident that I would have been cowering somewhere with Peter. End of side note—————-
All of these men received the opportunity to start over. Much has been made of the fact that Jesus asks Peter three times whether he loved him and to “feed my sheep.” (John 21:17) and how it mirrors the three times Peter denied even knowing who Jesus was, but this not only mirrors the three big sins of Peter’s denial, it mirrors the three ‘lesser’ sins that Jesus begged Peter, James, and John to just stay awake with him in the garden. The grace and mercy of God come to us not once upon our salvation but continuously as we need it. In one of the great Biblical ironies, chapter 3 of the Book of Lamentations tells us that “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” (22-23) Every morning, we can start anew; every morning, we can awaken from a night away from Christ into a day into His service; every morning, we can stop running away and stand into his light; every morning can be Easter.
Works Cited
Greear, J.D. “What Really Happened in the Garden of Gethsemane.” J.D. Greear Ministries.
30, Mar. 2018.
