Week 4: Why are you sleeping?

If only for once it were still.

If the not quite right and the why this

Could be muted, and the neighbor’s laughter,

And the static my senses make –

If all of it didn’t keep me from coming awake-

Then in one vast thousandfold thought

I could think you up to where thinking ends.

I could possess you,

Even for the brevity of a smile,

To offer you

To all that lives,

In gladness.

-Rainer Marie Rilke

Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives. There he told them, “Pray that you will not give in to temptation.” He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

At last, he stood up again and returned to the disciples, only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief. “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation.”

-Luke 22: 39-46 (NLT)

We are now with Jesus just before his arrest. He knows His time has come to die and He is experiencing intense emotions. This is the only place where it is said that He was in a great struggle, filled with agony. This is where He becomes very vulnerable and reaches out to His followers who are with Him and asks them to stay awake with Him because He is suffering greatly. He tells them that He is sorrowful and anxious (Matt 25:37,38). They fall asleep and cannot be there for Him. He again asks them to stay awake and pray with Him. But… they fall asleep again… from sorrow. He wakes them again and asks them: “Why are you sleeping?” (Luke 22:46). Jesus invites them to be like Him:

• To learn and practice habits for spiritual purposes (e.g., moving, going to the garden, creating a space, making time for it, fighting sleep, praying, etc.)
• To become aware of everything that is and that is happening. This is a great moment in which they find themselves and they are unaware of it. The Father is busy with His plan of salvation.
• To give and cooperate to make the will of the Father happen.

You are invited to be with Jesus this week and learn with Him to wake up and just be.