Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak

 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, "Sit here while I go and pray over there."  And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.  Then He took said to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.  Stay here and watch with Me."  He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will."  Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "What!  Could you not watch with Me one hour?  Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.  The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."  Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done."  And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy.  So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.  Then He came to His disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting?  Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.  Rise, let us be going.  See, My betrayer is at hand."

- Matthew 26:36-46

In our current readings, we are in Jerusalem, and it is Holy Week.  Jesus has given instructions to the disciples to prepare the Passover Meal.  On Saturday, we read that as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."  Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you.  For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.  But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."  And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.  Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:  'I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'  But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee."  Peter answered and said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble."  Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times."  Peter said to Him, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!"  And so said all the disciples. 

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, "Sit here while I go and pray over there."  And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.  Then He took said to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.  Stay here and watch with Me."  He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will."   The cup that Jesus refers to is His impending death, the Crucifixion.  My study bible says Jesus' divine will follows that of the Father, and He willingly goes to death.  But as a human being, his soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death; He wishes to avoid it if it is possible.  It is a mark of humanity to abhor death, a true sign of His human nature.   But He is without sin; He subjects and unites His human will to the Father's divine will.

Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "What!  Could you not watch with Me one hour?  Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.  The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."  My study bible says that the command to watch and pray is the key to Christian spirituality and our struggle against temptation.  To watch is to be alert, awake, vigilant.  The word in Greek can even mean to waken.  Christ's human soul, says my study bible, is strengthened by watching and praying, and He faces death with divine courage.  In contrast to Christ, the disciples sleep.  Body and soul are united; the spirit may be hindered by lethargy.  A willing spirit needs to recognize the weakness of the flesh and struggle against it, relying on the strength and presence of God.  The three disciples He takes aside with Him are the same three who accompanied Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the home of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue at Capernaum.

Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done."  And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy.  So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.  Then He came to His disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting?  Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.  Rise, let us be going.  See, My betrayer is at hand."   We note Christ's repeated requests of the Father, and repeated times at prayer, after finding the disciples sleeping.  To watch and pray is always a good practice.  Repeated prayer -- particularly when making difficult decisions -- is always a good idea.  In this way our faith works to put things in the hands of God, to seek to discern our circumstances and options, and to reconcile fears with what we must accept and respond to.

Christ is our true image of heroic struggle.  Here in the garden of Gethsemane (meaning "oil press") Jesus wages the true struggle of faith, and we understand that it is an internal struggle.  Our struggle in truly in the midst of good and evil, of various sorts of reasons and understanding struggling within us -- even to discern the evil from the good.  That's not an easy task.  Look at the paradox with which Jesus struggles.  The good human impulse to abhor death is healthy.  How can it be good for Jesus to die, and to die on the Cross as a great criminal?  Can this be good for the disciples or for the Church to come?  Every aspect of human psychology will say "no."  But the struggle is within the discernment of soul, flesh, and spirit.  We can't see how things will work together for God's purposes, or for the good.  From our perspective, the "flesh" that is weak struggles with the spirit which unites with that which is outside of time and thus our own experience.  What is perfectly rational for our worldly sense of life and of our experience sometimes must be struggled against in the battle for faith.    Jesus' use of the word flesh here is one that indicates worldly life as differentiated from God's plan or spiritual reality; a difference between what we know of the world and worldly life and the places God would have our faith take us to.  This is what Jesus pushes His disciples to embrace, it is what He actively displays.  And it is, in effect, the great struggle for faith for which we are always in a state of engagement, of battle -- that is "spiritual battle."  In our own struggles for faith, we will find ourselves in places that mirror where Christ is in the garden, this place of the "oil press."  We may think of this olive oil press as symbolic of that place where mercy -- even our salvation --  is worked out, drawn out from within difficult circumstances which threaten to crush who we are and what we understand of our lives.  While we may not face circumstances which will shape and change the future of the entire world as Christ does, we do find ourselves in places where logic and purely rational thinking don't come up with the answers we need.  We find ourselves in circumstances where the possibilities that truly exist within a situation aren't all available to us from our own worldly understanding, where we're drawn forward into a future we can't yet see, through the faith that comes in prayer.  The paradox of life plays out in our lives and experiences too, but it comes down to just this experience of struggle between flesh and spirit.  Where transcendent mercy is found, where faith is, becomes the oil from the press, the one thing necessary that makes all the difference.   In reading today's passage, we already know what is to come and the courage and dignity that Christ will display through all. But this struggle right here in Gethsemane is where it all comes down.  To watch and pray is the command in the true battle of our lives.