Jesus gathered his disciples and friends for the Passover. Each year, people of faith reenact and remember the Passover with the Seder both years ago and today. Questions and answers form the home-based liturgy to tell the story of liberation, of God’s great miracles for the Jewish people. Jesus longed to celebrate this tender ritual with his friends and disciples. All ages are always present. In fact the tradition is the youngest child has proscribed questions to ask: why is this night different from all other nights?
From the strange dinner of momentous importance, but interrupted by the talk of denial and betrayal, they headed to the Mount of Olives. Jesus went to Garden of Gethsemane and asked the disciples to pray with him. Peter, James, and John went farther up the hill with him. We, too, take great encouragement from others walking with us in the midst of our trials. Gethsemane means oil press, the place where the olives are pressed into oil(1) . The Mount of Olives was aptly named as olives covered the trees in the garden and on the mountainside. He was pressed in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). The garden bespoke the hard spot Jesus was in.
Jesus wanted to pray there. Dark night with suspicious and paranoid tendencies already around. Shadows of night have a habit of making you question even what you think you know. When you walk in a place where you have never been before, you carefully place one foot in front of another, focusing on the most mundane task of walking, so your mind does not race into the possibility of what is around you.
Can you just imagine that minds were already racing with all that Jesus had said and left unsaid. What did it mean when he asked us to pray with him? Why did we come here? We had just prayed through the Passover meal. What a whirlwind of a week. It was just earlier this week that it seems like the people of Jerusalem had come to realize who this was exactly. They were greeting Jesus with palms and praises. They were calling out for him to save them: Hosanna.
And now, Jesus was crying out in the darkness of night in a garden. Dark is a place of fear, not for those celebrated through the streets of Jerusalem. Dark is a place of the unknown, not for one who knows how it will turn out. Jesus always talked about a day in which he would leave and go back to the Father. However, Jesus often said things that did not exactly make sense, but this could not be shrugged off or disregarded. Thy will be done, he prayed. Something about this night felt real. This was happening. All of the pieces of a nightmare coming together and unfolding before discipled eyes.
Even with all this, they were to pray with him and they fell asleep. Eyes were heavy from sleep, exhaustion, overwhelm and confusion. Today, we know more about our bodies. When we are faced with stress (an acute threat), our bodies enter fight or flight mode. For some of us, our hearts beat faster, our breathing increases, our senses become more focused. For others, we fall asleep. Sleep can seem like a disappointment, and we hear that in Jesus as he reprimands the disciples multiple times for falling asleep while they were to be praying.
Researchers have found that sleep allows your mind sort high priority and emotionally important memories when you sleep. “You can be driven to sleep simply by having a lot of emotional memories to process,” says psychology professor, Dr. Rebecca Spencer. It takes sleep to provide the space needed to sift through the days’ experiences, and make permanent those that matter (2). In the time of prayer, perhaps the disciples, future writers of the gospels and spreaders of the good news were rewriting the oral gospel in their own minds.
As they awake, they hear Jesus begging and pleading with God, for the cup to pass from his lips, but not Jesus’ will, but God’s will be done. What could this mean? Thy will be done seems so open ended. How will God’s will be done?
In fact, Jesus tells them he is deeply grieved. And like today, we do not always know what to say to those who are openly honest with us. When a friend tells us they are not sure they want to live another day, when a caregiver tells us that caring for their beloved parent is almost breaking them, when the news seems filled with heartaches that we can no longer bear. Where do we turn? We turn to God, thy will be done. When we give in, realizing we do not have to have the answer. We may offer resources and pour on prayers for a woman caught in domestic violence who carries fear and love for her beloved who entraps her. We may offer suggestions and a tower of prayerful support for those who struggle with depression and anxiety. Praying God’s will to be done is not avoidance, but rather the best gift of God’s way for those we care for.
Sometimes when we are asked to pray for others, we do not even know how to pray. The disciples did not know how to pray for Jesus, even as they accompanied him there. We do not know how to pray as our friends face the death of child, the complex web of addiction; have to make decisions when no decision is really desirable. The Archbishop Desmond Tutu penned this prayer later transformed into a hymn:
Goodness is stronger than evil;
love is stronger than hate;
light is stronger than darkness;
life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours, victory is ours
through him who loved us.(3)
We may pray God’s will be done as we lift these words for the ones we love.
And when we are the one in the middle of the night in the garden, we ask others to pray with us when we find ourselves negotiating and begging God for something to be different. Consolation is the joint work of community as we walk together in pain and grief, suffering and bafflement. Consolation comes when we offer one another, not just cliché phrases, but tenderness and grace, encouragement and empathy, and extend our hands and homes practically. We know that grief will leave its mark, but so will love.
Marjorie Thompson, author of Soul Feast, uses the practice of imaging intercession. Relax, breathe deeply, and become aware of God’s presence around you. When we are in God’s presence, we are never alone. Think of someone in need of God’s healing of body, mind, soul, or relationship. Visualize the person in the light of God’s presence and healing. See them healed from that which limits them now. Ask that God’s fullness would be known in this person. Thank God for God’s healing and release the person to God.(4)
Many have chosen prayer partners for a season or longer. This is someone who you can regularly turn to ask for prayer for yourself and your needs as well as pray for the other as well. A little later in the service, we will join our voices to pray together for one another. It is our privilege to take the needs of others before God. It is our privilege to take the needs of our world and ourselves before God.
As the disciples were asked to pray with Jesus, we are still called to pray with Jesus. We are called to pray with our brothers and sisters who we love dearly and would do anything for. We are called to pray for our brothers and sisters from whom we are estranged. We are called to pray for our brothers and sisters here in this community as they battle cancer and care well for loved ones with Alzheimer’s, as they raise up children of God, and worry about grown children and their decisions.
We are called to pray for our brothers and sisters across the globe. We are called to pray with our brothers and sister in Syria as they seek just to live, feed their children, and do meaningful work in the midst of the war going around them. We are called to pray for our brothers and sisters in Egypt, at St George’s Church in Tanta and at Alexandria’s Saint Mark’s Cathedral. We are called to pray for our brothers and sisters all around the world where unrest triumphs over education and healthcare, meaningful work and growing families.
We join the disciples of years ago and around the world today who watch and pray, not just for Jesus of long ago in Jerusalem, but also all of the ways in which Jesus’ face is seen in the crushing needs of world today. We pray and keep vigil with the privilege of begin God’s children waiting the coming morn. Keeping vigil always means that morning, hope, and resurrection will come.
This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.
(1) The Jewish Annotated New Testament, edited by Amy-Jill Levine, Matthew 26: 36.
(2) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/why-some-people-respond-to-stress-by-falling-asleep/282422/
(3) Desmond Tutu’s An African Prayer Book, 80.
(4) Soul Feast. Thompson, Marjorie. Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, 41-42.