Mr. Hall was in church every Sunday. He sat in the same pew near the front and every week he went to sleep, sometimes even before my sermon! Someone once asked him why he came to church if he was going to go to sleep. He replied, “I just want God to know which side I am on.”
The three disciples went with Jesus to let Him know which side they were on. Peter had just said, “Even if I must die alongside you, I won’t deny you.” Oops.
Do you remember the lesson a few weeks ago when Jesus asked James and John if they could drink the cup He was about to drink (Matthew 20:22)? Now, Jesus is wondering aloud in His prayer if the cup of suffering might be taken away before He has to drink it (Matthew 26:39). There is a beauty of authenticity in Jesus’ desire to escape the impending cross. He doesn’t say “Hooray! I get to suffer just to show much good I am! Hooray! I get to suffer just to show how obedient I am! Hooray! I get to suffer just to save sinners!” He does not seek the cross, but He does not turn from it. He prays, “Not what I want, but what You want...not my will, but Thine” (Matthew 26:42). There is a sense in which all of the teachings of Jesus become more believable because of the genuineness of this moment. If He is truthful about His feelings at this moment, how true He has been in times of lesser stress!
And the three disciples sleep. People these days brag about having been at a World Series game or at the Final Four basketball tournament. Do you think the disciples bragged about being with Jesus at this pivotal moment in the story? Me thinks not. If they wanted to show which side they were on, it begins to look like they play for “the other team.”
Judas walks up (Matthew 26:47). And the plot thickens. It moves unfailingly toward the cross (Matthew 26:47-27:50). “Then, he died” (Matthew 27:50). You’d think that would be the end of the story, but (spoiler alert), it isn’t.
Because I know “the rest of the story,” it is easy for me to think that I would have been faithfully awake with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is easy for me to think that I would have been a consistent and loyal follower. Truthfully, even knowing how the story ends, there is too much evidence of my “sleeping on the job” to think that this account would be any different if you substituted my name for James or John. Are you awake?
What Someone Else Has Said: In Philip William Otterbein (Board of Publication, Evangelical United Brethren Church), author Arthur Core quotes Otterbein: “Where in us has Christ destroyed the power of death?”
Prayer: As you prepare this lesson, let your prayer begin: “Awaken me, Lord...”
