On the day I happened to begin writing this sermon this week, I was very tired. I had been tired the night before, and I had even gone to bed early, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I was just plain worn out! You know the feeling I’m sure. It might be that we are in day twelve of late nights and early mornings. Or maybe we are coming off a particularly busy time at work. Then there’s all the energy that goes into taking care of the family and keeping the house clean. Or perhaps the weariness stems from a time of great stress. Sometimes we don’t even know the cause; we just know we’re really tired.
As we continue today seeking to follow Christ more fully as his disciples, we are nearing the end of our journey. And as with many long journeys, this morning we come face-to-face with the realization that sometimes the going gets tough and we get tired. Whether because of a long and arduous journey or just because of life, there are times when we wear down. And when we get tired, we let our guard down. We become susceptible to temptation. We make decisions without thinking about them and end up causing ourselves a lot of pain. Or maybe, like the disciples waiting on Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, we just fall asleep on the job. So when we get to this point in our lives; when we are tired, or distracted, or discouraged, how can we stay true to the path? How can we continue to journey with Jesus in the midst of all the hardships?
Back in 2004, I was enjoying a summer off before beginning seminary. In early August, I attended my cousin’s wedding up in Lynchburg, Virginia. After the wedding, my family and I took off down the Blue Ridge Parkway for a week of vacation in the mountains. Our goal was to travel the whole Parkway. We had been studying for weeks and had it all planned out; what sights we would take in, where we would spend the night, everything. So we set off, and the first several days were great. It was sunny and beautiful and everything was going according to plan. Then, late in the week, Hurricane Charley came. At its strongest, Charley was a category 4 hurricane. But by the time it made it to the mountains, it was just rain; a lot of rain. And it rained and rained and rained. We had made it into the North Carolina mountains by then, and we decided we had seen enough. It wasn’t worth enduring all the rain, so we cut our vacation short and headed home.
In our scripture reading for this morning, Jesus and the disciples find themselves in the midst of a hurricane, in a sense. Jesus has just finished telling the disciples again what is about to happen to him. Jesus even turned the final meal he and the disciples have just shared together into an enactment of his death. The reality is hitting home. The storm is gathering, and in the face of it, the disciples begin to lose hope. They fall asleep as Jesus prays in the garden, then later, after Jesus is arrested, Mark tells us “all of them deserted him and fled.” It’s like those coal miners who used to take a canary down into the mines with them to test the air. When the canary started to die, it was time for the miners to surface and think things over. That’s the way it was with the disciples as they neared the end of their journey with Jesus. They didn’t like what they saw up ahead, and it’s often the same with us. When the going gets tough, well…we’re outta here!
Yet, in the midst of the gathering storm, let’s look at what Jesus did. There’s a powerful lesson here for all of us. Despite the maelstrom going on in the background of this morning’s passage, we have here one of the most serene scenes in the whole Bible. With his disciples safely nestled out of earshot, Jesus steps into the Garden of Gethsemane and begins to pray. The fear is almost tangible. The silence is so thick it’s like a blanket. Jesus was at a point of tremendous pain. He realized just how close he was to the agony of the cross. But Jesus did not turn back; he did not run away. Though he was surely overburdened and weary, Jesus did not sit down and go to sleep, hoping to awake to a different reality. In the midst of it all, Jesus does the only thing he can think of; he prays. Jesus committed himself to prayer. And this wasn’t just any old prayer; Jesus prayed very intensely!
A few years ago, three ministers were talking about prayer and the appropriate and most effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, not unlike things around Grace this week, a roofer was working in the background. One minister shared that he felt the key was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship. The second minister suggested that real prayer was conducted on your knees. The third piped up, saying they both had it wrong – the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face. By this time the roofer couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected, "I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was right after I lost my footing and slid down a roof. I managed to grab the gutter, but I was dangling over 40 feet above the ground." Whatever way we pray, one of the things we learn from Jesus in our gospel reading this morning is that in the face of even the greatest trial and temptations, our first line of defense is to seek God in prayer.
I’m sure that there are times when even prayer seems somehow weak. Why pray when we can just fall asleep, get rested up, and clear our heads a little bit? Falling prostrate on your knees is not exactly a show of strength. As the roofer reminds us, we can certainly be in weak or precarious positions when we pray. But what makes prayer strong is the words we use. Jesus prayed that this hour might pass, that the cup might be taken from him. “Abba, Father…not what I will, but what you will.” Despite the struggles, Jesus yielded himself to his Father’s care. Jesus prayed as a child speaking to a loving father, and Jesus’ prayer acknowledged the personal struggle, but it also recognized the big picture. Jesus does not negate his own feelings; we see very clearly that Jesus did not want to face what lie ahead for him. Yet, at the same time, Jesus yields himself to God’s will. We, too, need to be able to pray in this way. In the midst of the struggles, we don’t have to pretend they’re not there; we just have to seek help. Part of letting go of the trials and temptations of our lives is trusting God enough to take them on. In the face of weakness, in the midst of the greatest storms, God is our strength, but we have to be willing to give ourselves over to God.
I believe many of us would agree this is easier said than done! Really, the disciples proved that. It is truly difficult to pray as Jesus did, and ask that God’s will be done, not our own. There is no prayer so hard to offer, I think. We often so desire our own will that we come to a point where no other way even seems endurable. So we try to find different methods of “coping.” When we are depleted spiritually, emotionally, or physically, where do we turn to refuel? Do we turn to God and his life-giving resources or do we go elsewhere? Too often, God is the last resort. In our own “Gethsemanes,” we have tried everything imaginable, and the result is that we “fall asleep” and miss what God is doing in our lives. When we forget to turn to God in the midst of the storms of life, it is enough to make our journey to hope, our journey with Christ extremely difficult.
The disciples discovered just how difficult it can be when we fail to stay close to God through our greatest trials. In our lives, vigilance is needed most in those times when our souls are poisoned by the temptations of this world. As Jesus went into the Garden to pray, he told his disciples and Peter, James, and John to sit and watch while he prayed. But the disciples were unable to do this. They gave into temptation and all of them fell asleep. Yet, if the disciples had watched and prayed as Jesus did, they would not have made so miserable a showing when the test of loyalty came. And we too must be vigilant. We must watch and pray in the good times and the bad. The story of Gethsemane clearly reveals to us that the only effective preparation for the loneliness of decision and crisis is the preparation which Jesus had, fellowship with God. When we pray regularly, as Jesus did, we acknowledge our dependence on God’s Spirit to sustain us at all times. And it is God who can strengthen us; it is indeed God’s Spirit which can keep us going each and every day!
Jesus could have prayed for another way. Jesus could have sought his own will or hoped that the will of the Father was not such a difficult road. And God probably could have found another way; even in that late hour on a dark night in Gethsemane. So why didn’t Jesus pray more fervently for a different outcome? Why did Jesus pray that God’s will would be done? Why didn’t God choose another way? Perhaps because in that garden God was proving beyond any shadow of a doubt, even beyond our unworthiness, how much God loves us. If you wonder if God really loves you just as you are; if you wonder whether God still loves you despite what you’ve been; if you wonder if God can keep loving you as often as you have failed him, remember this: God has sent his Son through the agony and suffering of the cross so that we might go home with him.
Jesus has made a way for us if only we will follow. Jesus calls us to follow him into the garden. Jesus calls us to follow God’s will, even if we are scared. Jesus calls us to pray and to surrender our lives completely to God. And sometimes following means that we have to fall on our knees, push aside our own agendas, and ask in complete humility that God’s will be done. That’s the lesson of the garden. It is not easy, but we can do it, we must follow. And when we are in the deepest, darkest, scariest moments of our lives, all we have to do is enter God’s presence through prayer and our journey to hope continues because we can experience God’s pure love.
