Anne Lastman —
Whenever we read the story of Gethsemane, we hear Jesus asking His three friends Peter James and John to wait and watch with Him (Mt: 26:38) and somehow, they don’t. They drift into a slumber under some heavy emotional weight, some heaviness. These three men who had known their Lord deeply and intimately and shared with him what appeared to them to be a Passover meal yet different were unable to “wait and watch”
Jesus, I presume, had hoped that they might have stayed alert and comforted him and prayed with Him, and kept Him company in that “hour” of His own deep loneliness, but they couldn’t. There was a sense of heaviness of heart and body which stopped this from happening. They couldn’t be present to Him and for Him because they had a sense that something unspeakable was about to happen. Something which they could not even comprehend. They couldn’t pray because, it was almost like they had been ‘prayed out.’ and when someone is ‘prayed out’ the most we can do is to rest, while someone else or others are praying for you.
Ostensibly it appears that the apostles let Jesus down, and abandoned Him, and perhaps they did. However, whenever we stand and hold the hand of a dying person, whenever we wait hour after hour after hour with someone to turn the corner. Whenever, we spend hours sponging the dry lips of someone we love. Whenever we pray hour after hour, for healing, if possible, but for God’s will to be done at all times. Whenever, we close the eyes and catch the last breath of a human being who’s leaving for home, then we fulfil the request of Jesus to wait and watch with Him for an hour. (Mt 26:36-46). We fulfill his request to Peter James and John to stay with him. Just be with him. Their presence was needed and, in our day, when we respond to the call to “be with me a while” we act not only on our behalf but for and on behalf of Peter James and John.
The friends of Jesus have been harshly judged for ‘sleeping’ and yet we know how hard it is to wait and wait especially when the heart is heavy and the night and suffering has been long. We know how hard it is when we reach a stage that we cannot pray for someone anymore, and we have to then allow other friends and other loved ones to hold our suffering ones in prayer. I suspect that the friends of Jesus (Peter, James and John) reached a stage where they couldn’t pray or help any more. They could just drift. It has been said that the wine helped the sleep. Perhaps. It helped to dull the aching pain of something different with that night. The beginning of the separation from their loved One, Jesus.
Whenever we can wait hour after hour, whether praying or sighing or holding a hand or sponging dry lips, then we do it to Jesus “whatever you do to the least of my brothers you did it to me” (Mt 25: 31-46) and we do it for the friends of Jesus who had reached a stage where they could not do any it any more. We hold them by praying for them and we keep company with Jesus during the dark night of His soul. And while they slept through pain.
As I reflect on the love of Jesus for His friends who could no longer watch and wait (Mt. 26:41) I am reminded of another long-ago battle. Another garden. Just as that battle was intense with temptation, so again the battle in this garden (Gethsemane) was also intense with temptation. To flee from the coming suffering. To flee from what was to come. For Jesus, the fear and perhaps even the temptation to run from the forthcoming suffering, (but not his own will and desire to run but that the will of the father to be done) and for his companions the temptation and succumbing to the need not to stay awake but to sleep through the pain.
There were battles and temptation waged that night just as the battle and temptation of another garden eons earlier (Eden) but in this garden (Gethsemane) the one tempted stayed firm. Turned his face towards the trust of His father. Unlike eons ago when the temptation to trust was surrendered for something newly promised (to be like God) and which seemed missing from the gifts given to them by their Father. The new vacant promises appeared more promising and appealing than the promise of their Father to walk with him forever in their Garden prepared for them by Him and to walk in His presence.
When in pain, unlike Jesus, we want to run away. We want to have just one minute, one hour, or day without pain because the human person was not created for pain (and it’s so
alien) but was created for joy. Pain is the enemy of joy, bliss. Pain began in that other garden long ago and indeed it had to be brought to judgement in another garden. Gethsemane.
There is an eerie silence crossing the Kidron Valley and heading towards the garden and this silence continues through deep sighing, groaning, pleading, praying and is heard from one deeply pain filled voice. His pain so intense that sweat fell as blood. His Agony (Mt 26:30) leaving behind blood of death. The creator’s blood. Silence…….
In our meditation we can enter into this night of agony and we can be with Him. In silence we sit or kneel but be with him as he goes through his agony. We are near and we understand that it was at midnight when Jesus was betrayed by Judas. Was arrested and taken to the house of the High Priest (cf Mt. 26:47) where the atrocities would begin.
In our reflection of the agony in the garden we are made present to the sufferings of our beloved Lord. We are able to sit close to him not to stop what must happen but to “wait a while” as he accepts the sufferings meant for the creature so that the creature may again be in the company of their creator. We sit as an angel of comfort also visits to be with him. The compassion of the heavens. This angel of comfort (perhaps Raphael?) who also visits where ever there is pain. The angel of comfort cannot remove the pain but soothes the one experiencing the pain. It’s a pain shared.
We in our keeping our Blessed Lord company on this Holy Thursday night keep this companionship and His request to wait and pray a while thus continuing his request every time, we comfort another. “Whatever you did to the least of mine you did it to me” We sit awake even in weariness and comfort the one in pain, just like the angel of comfort, comforted Jesus. We make up what was lacking (Col 1:24) at that moment when his friends could not remain awake. We remain awake on their behalf.
