Watch and pray

 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 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

On Saturday, we read that as Jesus and the disciples were eating the Passover supper (known as the Last Supper), 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 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."   This cup, my study bible notes, refers to Christ's impending death.  According to His divine nature, Jesus willingly goes to His death; but as human being He wishes He could avoid it.  To abhor death is the mark of humanity.  Jesus prays if it is possible the cup be taken from Him, thereby He gives us abundant proof of His human nature.  However, Jesus is without sin.  He completely 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."  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."  My study bible calls the phrase "Watch and pray" the key to Christian spirituality and our struggle against temptation.  By this, it says, the Lord's human soul was strengthened, and He faces death with divine courage.  In contrast to the Lord's vigilance, the disciples sleep.  As body and soul are united, my study bible reminds us, the spirit is paralyzed by a lethargic body.  A willing spirit, through recognition of the weakness of the flesh, struggles against weakness and relies on God's presence and power.

Watch and pray:  My study bible calls this the great formula -- the key -- to Christian spirituality and our struggle against temptation.  So, in this context, let us think about applications and meanings and understanding in our own lives.  If we examine temptation in the context of today's reading, we come up against something very startling.  As Christ is life itself in His divine nature ("I am the way, the truth, and the life" - John 14:6), it is hard for us even to consider that, in fact, He struggles against His human impulse for life and against death.  But, as He has told the disciples several times already (and also is found repeated in prophecy and in the Psalms) going to the Cross is part of "the way" of the salvation plan for the entire cosmos, all of creation.  It is indeed "the cup" that is before Him.  Earlier, He called it His cup and His baptism.  When Peter suggested that He should never be crucified or killed, Jesus replied to him, "Get behind Me, Satan!"   In popular culture, we think of temptations as things which might give temporary pleasure but in the long run aren't good for us -- like overindulgence in food, or deleterious sexual behavior, or excessive greed (all products of a lack of good or healthy boundaries).  But in this case, Jesus' temptation is something we hold sacred:  the impulse to abhor death and to cling to life.  In Jesus' example, we must face up to the paradoxical nature of our faith, which is a result of its truly transcendent nature.  We serve not simply a good set of ethics or values or rules, but something that supersedes all:  we serve the God who is the source of all life, who is beyond limitations of space and time, and even in this time of temptation in the garden of Gethsemane, the boundaries of what we know as good and evil.  In this case, it is the evil of death itself -- even the work of the devil -- which will be used for God's purposes.  In effect, Jesus' temptation is to resist normal and healthy human impulses in order to follow the will of God and complete the salvation plan for an entire created universe.  He must go to the Cross, and drink His cup and emerge through His baptism.  Without the Cross, there is no Resurrection:  just as without Resurrection, there is no Christianity and no salvation.  Each is essential within the divine plan of God for a world beset by evil and separation.  Jesus must, in effect, transcend His most basic human impulse in order to fulfill His mission as Son.  How can we begin to understand these things?  How can we apply them in our own lives?    We so often think of temptations as having set boundaries and definitions, things that apply within particular structures we can rationalize and condense into formulae.  But God works in ways we can't necessarily calculate.  Naysayers of our faith often call it simplistic or "pollyannaish," but as we read in today's passage, it is anything but that.  St. Paul writes in Romans 11:33-36, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!"  He then quotes from Isaiah 40:12 and Jeremiah 23:18.   It is Jesus who teaches that the work of the Holy Spirit is mysterious indeed (John 3:8), and the Old Testament is filled with stories of evil being ultimately used by God for good, such as the life of Job or of Joseph.  But no truth is more powerful than Jesus' struggle against the temptation to flee death in this story of what transpires in the garden of Gethsemane.  As Adam and Eve failed to resist temptation in the garden of Eden, Jesus is now tested by temptation in another garden.  But this time, the struggle is met with faith against overwhelming pressures and the most powerful human impulse to preserve life.  In this context, Jesus pleads with the disciples to watch and pray, and He gives us the key to all things in our faith.  The disciples fail Him, and sleep although He asks for them to watch and pray with Him as He struggles against His sorrow.  Luke tells us that the disciples themselves "sleep for sorrow" (Luke 22:45).  This in itself could be considered an example of a failure to struggle against something nominally good which in this case acts as temptation (that is, against the sorrow at the approaching betrayal and death of Christ).  What we can take away from today's reading is that our own struggles against temptation, if we take up our cross following in Christ's footsteps, might be anything but clear and simple in actual experience and practice.  Something nominally good can become a temptation or exploited for the practice of evil.  A filial love of a parent, for example, can be abused to exploit loyalty for purposes of greed, sexuality, violence, or otherwise.  In this case the temptation on the part of the child or other family member is to allow one's love for the abuser to override a loyalty to God if in prayer we understand our role must be different from what is demanded within the family.  Such struggles against what is nominally good are not necessarily as strange as we might think, as it was Christ Himself who spoke of being a sword which will come between family members (10:34-39).  Indeed, at the end of that passage, He emphasizes what quite literally comes to pass in today's scene in the garden:  "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it."  Let us consider our own temptations in life.  We may find ourselves, also, in circumstances that are not easy or simple, and the thread of our lives as followers of the way of the Cross difficult and complicated, even struggling with temptations of what is nominally good.  But our key is to watch and pray, and to invite other faithful to help us also through their prayer.  We struggle against things unseen, unclear, things which are not necessarily black and white to the rational intellect and the world of "flesh and blood," but, as St. Paul puts it, "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12).  Let us consider the necessity at all times for prayer -- that we both watch and pray, remaining alert to temptations which may not be obvious to ourselves or to others, even the paradoxical times when our prayer may ask us not to struggle openly against what seems evil or bad.  For it is in this way, and at such times that the light shines in the darkness -- even though the darkness will not comprehend (John 1:5).