“Remain Here and Pray With Me”
This weekend, we have the great joy of celebrating Good Friday and Easter Sunday. These upcoming days in our calendars are traditionally marked as the days our Lord Jesus walked to Jerusalem to be crucified and resurrected bodily from the grave. In order to prepare my heart to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus this weekend, I am reading the different sections from the four gospels that speak about Jesus’ passion (his journey to the cross).
One of the most emotionally moving moments in my reading came out of Matthew 26:26-36. In this passage, as Jesus is walking towards Jerusalem coming down from the Mount of Olives, he stops to pray in a grove of olive trees with his disciples called Gethsemane. Stopping here seems to be a spontaneous moment in the story because Jesus suddenly gives his followers instructions. He tells them to sit down in the grove while he goes out into it to pray. But when he separates himself from the group, he does not go alone. At this moment, we are given the reason by the narrator why Jesus stopped walking when they reached the grove. And it seems it was a reason he was not comfortable sharing with all of his followers, but only with those who were closest to him because he takes with him deeper into the grove three of his most dedicated followers: Peter, James and John.
He says to them: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here and watch with me.” Telling them these words stirs his soul because in this moment Jesus becomes overwhelmed with sorrow and falls on his face in an expression of gut-wrenching despair. The gospel of Luke gives us more insight into the intensity of his sorrow: “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Lk. 22:44). In a moment of paralyzing agony over what obedience to God the Father would require of him, Jesus feels pressure to the point of sweating blood on the ground. Yet even though Jesus was sharing his sorrow and asked the disciples to be present with him in prayerful attention, they failed. Jesus asked them three times to stay awake, but they kept falling back asleep. Their eyes were too tired and heavy. Because of this, when Roman soldiers arrived with Judas to arrest Jesus, they were startled out of their sleep and abandoned him when he needed them most.
I was reminded in this passage of how easily we, just like the disciples, neglect the sympathy Jesus desires and invites us into. As we prepare our hearts to behold the grace and glory of our Lord’s death and resurrection this week, we have a special opportunity to draw near to him as he draws near to the cross. Let’s go with him (metaphorically) deeper into the grove and unite our hearts to his by prayerfully remaining in his presence.
