
(MARK 14:27-42)
In this season, civil war in Myanmar prompted urgent communication to our missionaries in Southeast Asia. “What can we do?” they wrote. “They burn our churches, they force us out of our villages, they threaten our families. We are tired, but we dare not sleep!”
First century readers of Mark would be familiar with this kind of fear, living in a hostile environment of persecution and suffering. They, too, were tested. In the Gethsemane narrative, Mark presents the reader with a model for how to face such testing, and emphasizes the urgency of staying awake.
Jesus is about to die. Earlier he had repeatedly warned his friends, “Stay awake! Be on guard!” (Ch. 13) But entering the garden, they would expect to sleep. This was a familiar place of rest to them (John 18:2; Luke 22:39), and they were exhausted. Yet even as they drop their burdens and spread their garments on the ground, Jesus leans over and says, “Keep watch”.
Why? Why not rest while they can, and be better prepared to face the coming crisis of the cross? Why does Jesus poke and prod them awake three times? What does he want them to see? What does he want me to see?
There in the garden, they saw the vulnerability of God. They saw Jesus calling out to his papa while prostrate and in pain, asking God to change his mind. They saw Jesus weep, groan, sweat blood, and then say “nevertheless” to God’s will. And in witnessing his vulnerability, the disciples learned how they were to face the persecutions to come. Vulnerability would be their best hope for survival. It would keep them close to God, close to one another, united in love and trust. That was what Jesus wanted them to see, what he wants us all to see.
Will I tarry and watch? Will I, in my own moments of weakness, invite others to tarry and watch with me?