It comes up this time every year–the faithless, sleepy disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. With friends like these, who needs enemies, right? Run the loyalty theme through scripture like a magnet, and all kinds of other stories clap to it – that Peter denied him, that Thomas failed to take him at his word, that Judas betrayed him. What is wrong with these people and why couldn’t they follow one simple instruction? I know if God clearly, like, really clearly instructed me to do something I would do it in a heartbeat…a heart beat…in a—What was that you wanted, Lord?

I ask myself: why did Jesus want the disciples to stay awake so badly? Why is that such an important component of that night and of the Easter story as a whole? Obviously, we get it at one level—those narcoleptics are not just them, they are us. We like sheep have gone astray. We all are the same. We would do the same, if in the same situation. “Oh no, Lord, we would never deny YOU!” Says Peter before he does—three times. Paul’s take on Rome is a picture of us all: “For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God” (3:23). So, why does he want us there when we have so little to offer?

Surely he didn’t need an audience. Jesus performed many miracles alone, and intentionally so. Throughout Mark’s gospel he asks the healed for secrecy. Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone. Even after bringing a dead girl back to life. That would be kind of hard to hide, don’t you think? And in Matthew we are pointedly asked to pray in secret: “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (6:5-6). It’s between you and God, the way it always has been. Don’t be such a Pharisee.

Why, then, does Jesus now want a more public display of his prayer life? Weird. Was it for the company? Dark night, late hours, lonely at the top…? Was it a sort of biblical ‘buddy system’—two by two the animals boarded the ark—Jesus sent the 72 out two by two to begin with, in case one should fall into a pit—is that it? This is a pretty big pit, Lord, metaphorically speaking. How can we possibly hope to pull you out? Maybe Jesus just wanted his buddies around, as do we in our worst times. Humanity craves company.

Courage, then? He needed them in some way for his sake? I think we tell ourselves this when we really want to beat ourselves up and wallow. We let him down. Jesus, of all people—the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace, Chosen One, Messiah. Son of the Living God. Ooops. Sorry, Lord. All you asked was that one simple thing. How could we be so lame? Tomorrow, Lord. Tomorrow, I will get it right/not sin/not fail/make the mark/pass the bar/measure up. I promise. I will please you by…perfecting me. Silly people. When Jesus drank the cup of God even that vile self-loathing was in it.

The story of the night garden and the grieving Lord in a match for his life really illumines our failures—and thus our guilt and shame. Like, if only I coulda been there. I coulda done something to stop it. Not one but TWO insanities: I coulda and I woulda! Then I start to see myself in Thomas, in Peter, in all those fallen and re-fallen in a story that could only unfold the way it did. We were not asleep, we were stuck. Stuck in an empty human moral code of righteousness. Stuck, as it were, in the Law. What, swat the cup from his hands because it is wrong? Slice the ear off a guard because it is unjust? I thought those things got crucified at Calvary.

Jesus wants us there to see, feel, and know the anguish of his utter surrender. That’s the concept behind much of what we do in Lent—the Stations of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa, the retelling of the stripping, beating, scourging, mocking. Front row seat to the Passion. Simon-me Lord, so I can know your pain. Send me a postcard from Cyrene. They say this night was the apex of his humanity—not the Incarnation, not the Crucifixion, but here. Here. Where humanity surrendered to divinity. Is that because it is against our nature to embrace our own death? It’s against our biology. Supposedly. I don’t know about that. Put a speeding train in front of one of my children and guess where my biology would take me? Com-passion. With passion, in ways only Christ can BE with. I do find it comforting to know his most human form of living occupied the same moment in time as his most sacrificial form of loving.

It’s true having Jesus in your life illumines the darkness. Knowing his love and mercy has this effect—to flush out sickness, to expose broken, fractured pieces, as he quietly, invisibly works his healing over those relationships in our lives. Once we have truly turned to him and him alone. Darkness, dear one, is our pride. “Teach us what to say to Him,” cried out Job in the Old Testament, “We cannot draw up our case because of darkness.” Translation: We are mute before the God of all Creation except for one, single strain: Glorify Him.

Sometimes it helps to answer a question by reduction:

Why does He want me there? Is answered by

Why does He want me? Is answered by

Why did He?

Which is answered by going into the Garden on the night before he died for us and surrendering your will. By gazing on the empty cross, the emptied tomb, the hollowed Law and hallowed grave to hear his one-word answer:

LOVE.

Our faithlessness, our self-focus is not a condemnation, but it is a conviction. A reminder that he who does not sleep is working miracles in wondrous ways all the time, and our spirits need to see it, need to know it. Jesus wants us awake to see what was lost found, what was empty filled, what was broken whole, and what was dead live – for the cup that he took, the cup that he drank from was the cup of Redemption. So often we think of Gethsemane as a control story, a contest of wills, because that is our human moral way of ordering the universe. God in his heaven, in charge. We underlings on earth, knowing that and still blindly battling it out for control in every relationship, family, community, and nation. Thinking that it is more blessed to give up. But that was the first garden. Remember? We picked the wrong tree to be as God. This garden is different. More blessed still to believe in the redemptive power of the one who IS God.

Gethsemane is a sacrament. The name literally means “oil press,” and it is believed to have been a grove of olive trees outside Jerusalem where there would have been a press. Here is where our anointed (with oil) Lord went to pray as the story God wrote into the fabric of space and time began to play out exactly as it was written, at once glorifying and crucifying. That would explain the agony. So much agony that his sweat came in drops of blood. And that would explain the importance of staying awake, to watch with Christ, this night.

For:

When you sleep you are alone

When you sleep you are blind

When you sleep you are, naturally, you.

Yet:

When you are awake (with Christ) you are alive to all humanity for the fresh possibility of healing, wholeness, and Oneness

When you are awake (with Christ) you are a visionary whose sight is without division or bounds

When you are awake (with Christ) you are in Him, with Him, of Him and therefore closest to the idea of you that is in God’s own heart.

You are truly alive.

Matthew 26:36-46 English Standard Version (ESV)

36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch[a] with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. 45 Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on.[b] See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”