Watch And Pray

Watch and Pray

Matthew 26:36-38, NIV

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.” 37He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Setting the Scene

The Gospels of John and Luke tell us that Jesus and his disciples regularly visited Gethsemane. That’s why Judas knew where to lead the group that came to arrest Jesus. If Jesus spent his days in Jerusalem during the last week, then a stop in the olive grove on the other side of the valley between the city and the village of Bethany may well have been a nightly routine. It is certainly where Jesus took the disciples after his last supper with them.

Once they were in the grove, Jesus had eight of the disciples stay close to the entrance while he moved deeper among the trees to pray. He took James, John, and Peter with him, the same three who had accompanied him on the mountain when he was transfigured (Matthew 17:1-13). Those with him could clearly see that Jesus was “sorrowful and troubled.” While there had been other times in their experience when Jesus had been troubled, this must have been disconcerting to the disciples. Then Jesus told the three who were with him, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Jesus literally said, “I am very sad” or “grieved.” This haunting revelation by Jesus takes us back to Isaiah’s words about the Servant of the Lord whom God would eventually send to his people: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem” (Isaiah 53:3, NIV). Whatever part of suffering and pain Jesus did not yet know, he was about to experience.

Jesus asked the three, “Stay here and keep watch with me.” The term he used means “keep awake.” Jesus wasn’t asking them to do one thing while he did another; he was asking them to pray alertly as he was praying. It is not likely that Jesus closed his eyes during prayer, nor that he instructed his disciples to do so. We’re told that before he raised Lazarus from the grave, “Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me’” (John 11:41, NKJV). John 17:1 describes how Jesus began his high priestly prayer: “Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: ‘Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You’” (NKJV). The keeping awake and watching that Jesus had in mind was prayer.

In those crisis moments, Jesus turned to prayer and he enlisted others to join him. He expressed his dependence on God and his dependence on others. He went to the Cross alone, but he invited others to walk there with him as far as possible. As we will see, that wasn’t very far.

Getting Personal

From what you know of Jesus, what was causing him to grieve so deeply?

Do pressures and trouble make you more or less likely to turn to God for help? Why?

On whom can you depend for support in prayer?

People we depend on often let us down (and we let others down), but that’s not necessarily a compelling reason to stop depending on them. Even though Jesus knew the shortcomings of these disciples, he trusted them in his hour of need. It was the only way they would eventually learn to be trustworthy. The most important lessons are rarely learned on the first try!

Talking to God

Praise the Lord that he gives his followers multiple opportunities to learn and obey, and that he understands your human frailty. With humility, ask him to improve your ability to follow him well, day by day.