**Note: This post (and any other Holy Week posts to follow) is long and rambling because it is primarily a stone of remembrance I desperately need. A sort of digital journal entry. This whole blog is that in a way, but this is one of a handful that are particularly personal and perhaps of little value to the reader except for the scripture and lyrics it contains. Proceed at your own risk :) **
"Could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray..."
"Could you not watch with me one hour?
"Could you not watch with Me one hour?
"Could you not?" say's my Lord. The one command he gives for this moment. And yet I do not.
I seem to be the disciples, always falling asleep when the command is to watch. Always laden with paralyzing anxiety when the command is to pray.
And the worst of it is, perhaps, that far from any chance of this being an arbitrary ordinance handed down seemingly just for the sake of testing our will, He is simply asking us to feebly follow his own example. He is watching and praying...praying with bloody sweat before the awful spectre of the cross. He simply asks his disciples not to fall asleep...to follow him in the path of obedience, even when it leads to the cross.
Scripture leaves no doubt that, for the Christian, all of life is to be a following of Christ to the cross, a participation in his death. Oh the mystery and glory and beauty (and horror) of that thought. We are to be "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." My mind stumbles at the attempt to grasp what it means to be allowed to daily participate in Christ's complete victory over sin and death through his own perfect, holy sacrifice. The love of that Great Obedience is staggering. And yet that is the call:
Rejoice that "it is finished."
Worship the Almighty, Holy One.
Rest fully in the Deep, Deep Love of Christ.
And then: Obey. Obey. Obey His call.
The Garden command was not even yet the great call to "Go." It was just to Wait - with Christ, to Watch - with Christ, to Pray - with Christ. It was a mundane command: "Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation." There: Christ has mercifully shown me the way...the precise path of obedience, freedom and holiness I cry out for. But because it is not grand or sudden or public, because it requires endurance when my flesh so pitifully clamors for relief, I give in... straying away to let the blindness fall comfortingly over me.
But can I be blamed? Even Christ said, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Am I just not built for endurance? Am I an ear-slicing, Lord-denying Peter... seemingly only capable of great flashes of devotion? (The answer to that is "yes", by the way) But here is where I once again see the sweet mercy of our Savior. He does not ask us to wrestle against our flesh for all eternity. He pleads gently for one hour. It struck me this year, that my whole life is less than that one hour compared to eternity with Christ: the prize His redemption won.
Watch and pray.
Watch and pray.
Watch and pray.
Perhaps I am Peter. But Peter had the chance to repent and be gloriously forgiven. I hear the grace and beauty of these gentle yet costly commands echoing in my own soul.
Come Follow Me
Watch and Pray
Feed my sheep
Follow Me
I find it particularly beautiful that the main Commands of Christ to Peter were bookended by these commands to follow. When the command seems too much for the weakness of my flesh I must look back through the garden to where my Lord leads the way. I can trust him that the hour won't be too much, that it has an end, and that until then His grace will be more than enough. Andrew Peterson's song "The Silence of God" shows the tenderness of Christ towards us in this call.
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His Friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone
And the Man of all Sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain but the breaking does not
The aching may remain but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.
He goes before. Isn't that enough?
"To Deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see Him who goes before and no longer the road that is too hard for us. Once more, all that self denial can say is, "He leads the way, keep close to Him." (Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship)
"Could you not watch with me one hour?
"Could you not watch with Me one hour?
"Could you not?" say's my Lord. The one command he gives for this moment. And yet I do not.
I seem to be the disciples, always falling asleep when the command is to watch. Always laden with paralyzing anxiety when the command is to pray.
And the worst of it is, perhaps, that far from any chance of this being an arbitrary ordinance handed down seemingly just for the sake of testing our will, He is simply asking us to feebly follow his own example. He is watching and praying...praying with bloody sweat before the awful spectre of the cross. He simply asks his disciples not to fall asleep...to follow him in the path of obedience, even when it leads to the cross.
Scripture leaves no doubt that, for the Christian, all of life is to be a following of Christ to the cross, a participation in his death. Oh the mystery and glory and beauty (and horror) of that thought. We are to be "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." My mind stumbles at the attempt to grasp what it means to be allowed to daily participate in Christ's complete victory over sin and death through his own perfect, holy sacrifice. The love of that Great Obedience is staggering. And yet that is the call:
Rejoice that "it is finished."
Worship the Almighty, Holy One.
Rest fully in the Deep, Deep Love of Christ.
And then: Obey. Obey. Obey His call.
The Garden command was not even yet the great call to "Go." It was just to Wait - with Christ, to Watch - with Christ, to Pray - with Christ. It was a mundane command: "Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation." There: Christ has mercifully shown me the way...the precise path of obedience, freedom and holiness I cry out for. But because it is not grand or sudden or public, because it requires endurance when my flesh so pitifully clamors for relief, I give in... straying away to let the blindness fall comfortingly over me.
But can I be blamed? Even Christ said, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Am I just not built for endurance? Am I an ear-slicing, Lord-denying Peter... seemingly only capable of great flashes of devotion? (The answer to that is "yes", by the way) But here is where I once again see the sweet mercy of our Savior. He does not ask us to wrestle against our flesh for all eternity. He pleads gently for one hour. It struck me this year, that my whole life is less than that one hour compared to eternity with Christ: the prize His redemption won.
Watch and pray.
Watch and pray.
Watch and pray.
Perhaps I am Peter. But Peter had the chance to repent and be gloriously forgiven. I hear the grace and beauty of these gentle yet costly commands echoing in my own soul.
Come Follow Me
Watch and Pray
Feed my sheep
Follow Me
I find it particularly beautiful that the main Commands of Christ to Peter were bookended by these commands to follow. When the command seems too much for the weakness of my flesh I must look back through the garden to where my Lord leads the way. I can trust him that the hour won't be too much, that it has an end, and that until then His grace will be more than enough. Andrew Peterson's song "The Silence of God" shows the tenderness of Christ towards us in this call.
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His Friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone
And the Man of all Sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain but the breaking does not
The aching may remain but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.
He goes before. Isn't that enough?
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