Lent Guide: In the Shadow of GethsemaneSample

Keep watch

Gethsemane

The grass never sleeps.

Or the roses.

Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.

Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,

and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,

and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did,

maybe the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move, maybe

the lake far away, where once he walked as on a

blue pavement,

lay still and waited, wild awake.

Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not

keep that vigil, how they must have wept,

so utterly human, knowing this too

must be a part of the story.

-Mary Oliver

Matthew 26: 36-45

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.

• When you realise who Jesus really is, He becomes the great treasure you discover that you leave everything for. It is his inner world (what He thinks, feels, wants), the awareness with which He lived, that amazes me. The possibility that a part of that could be mine makes my heart beat faster. Dallas Willard describes it like this: “… a spirit-driven process of formation of the inner world into the image of the inner-being of Christ.”
• To live watchfully is to live with a sharp, broad consciousness. My life becomes big, meaningful and it fills me with gratitude and wonder.
• I am taken to a place where I gain a deep desire to live like Him, but I realise that I won’t be able to do it on my own… He would have to help me.