Pulling the All-Nighter of Your Life ...

Nearly all of us have done it.  Whether making a road trip, or in school, or due to work, or because of the birth of child, or perhaps death in the family; we have all pulled an all-nighter at some point in our life.  Doing this is generally unnatural to us.  Our bodies are wired with a natural wake / sleep routine that can be stretched, but when it is completely upset, it disrupts the chemicals in our brains and the capabilities in our bodies.  Needless to say, as the clock for how long we have been awake begins to exceed 24 hours, our reflexes, our instincts begin to be impaired.  We are not at our best.  Endorphins may keep us stimulated to do what needs to be done, but the expression “there is nothing like a good night’s sleep” takes on new meaning after an All-Nighter. 

In fact, we use similar language to describe the difference between a clean conscience and one that has clearly violated a moral code.  The expression “how do you sleep at night?” is intended to be a challenge to see if the conscience is clear, or guilty of a crime that should bring us a perpetual state of stress from our wrong doing.  Sleep is something we need.  But sleep is something that can be postponed, or interrupted by noise, by events, by stress, or in those rare cases we cannot avoid, by pulling an All-Nighter.  That is the common thread though, it is need.  When driving across country, while on the road, we need to stay awake.  The alternative risks death.  When pulling a work shift at night, we need to be alert and doing our jobs, lives may depend on it, our job certainly does.  That perception of “need” drives us to disrupt our normal wake / sleep patterns to accomplish the goal we set for it.

Peter was to know one of these nights.  It was during the greatest crisis that has ever been or will ever be.  It was at a time when the literal fate of the universe hung in the balance.  Peter would not face this crisis alone, he was in fact to bear witness to it with a few close friends, and the Savior of our world.  It would require an All-Nighter, where to sleep was to invite a disaster such as cannot be imagined.  We know his actions, but do we really understand what he and the others risked?  To set context, this event would occur only moments after Peter and the other disciples had promised Jesus that no matter what, they would follow Him, never deny Him, and if it came to it, they would die with Him.  They had all just made a solemn vow, a vow based in the certainty of their own strength and faith.  This was a vow they intended to forever honor, and now was to be put to the test only moments after making it.

So begins the recollections of Peter to John Mark in his gospel in chapter fourteen, picking up in verse 32 saying … “And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray.”  This night was different.  Normally when Jesus needed it, or wanted it, which was many nights, He would simply disappear into the nearby mountains and pray to His Father.  His strength was always renewed by this action.  Pulling an all-nighter by Jesus was common place, and His close proximity to God while in prayer, gave Him direction from God, and renewed His strength by miraculous means.  He did not need or take the disciples with Him on these events.  He let them sleep.  They could not know everything He and His Father would share on these nights anyway.  But this night was different.  He took them with Him, and only went as far as the garden in Gethsemane to pray.

Peter continues describing the events to John Mark in verse 33 saying … “And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;”  After leaving the main group of His disciples nearby, Jesus selects Peter, James, and John to go a little further with Him.  It is then, that the need for this all-nighter begins to show itself.  Jesus who is usually so benevolent and confident in the will of His Father, so connected with God the Father, begins to lose this connection.  The effect on Him is immediate and profound.  His entire demeanor is changed.  And He looks as if He carries the weight of the world upon His shoulders, for He does.  More than just our world, the risk is becoming clearer to Jesus.  If He allows Himself, to be stained with our sins, in so doing, He may never rejoin the Fathers company once again, forever alone, forever isolated from God.  That dear friends, is the very definition of hell.  It is not just the events of a nighttime that are at stake, these events may lead to eternal results, and without His connection with His Father, He cannot see what the results may be.

Jesus continues speaking in verse 34 saying … “And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.”  The essence of life of Jesus is defined by love, and connection to love.  God is love.  And on this night beginning right here and right now, the Father must turn away from His Son.  The lamb must now carry the sins of the world.  The day of Atonement is literally to be fulfilled.  And the connection between Father and Son that has gone on uninterrupted since before there was time or space, has now reached an artificial end.  It is the choice of Jesus to carry our sins, and with that choice must come a separation that neither Father or Son has ever seen.  The weight of it could destroy the universe as we know it.  What now hangs in the balance is more than our world.  Heaven, the unfallen worlds, everything that has been known since the beginning is now at risk with the separation between Father and Son.

It will not be whips, thorns, or nails in a cross that will kill the author of Life.  It will only be a separation from God He has never felt, could not imagine, and now is beginning to experience such as never before.  His very soul, His own essence, is sorrowful unto death.  Jesus is entering what is truly hell.  Not the flames, but the separation.  Not the physical torture, the only torture that counts, that cutting off from the source of all Love, of all Life.  Jesus cannot see past this disconnection.  It could indeed be permanent.  In this state, He turns to His three closest companions, and friends.  He turns to the men who only moments before had vowed their very lives to Him.  And He asks them to watch, and stand guard over Him.  He needs them to pray for Him for a change.  The One who usually needs no prayer from us, now needs all of them.  Surely these men who moments before were willing to die for Jesus, could not stand and pray, to help ward off the devil in His greatest hour of need.

Jesus continues in verse 35 saying … “And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. [verse 36] And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.”  Here is where you die when you crave life.  Here is where your prayer to be healed goes unanswered.  Here is where the author of life itself for us cries out to His Father screaming in the cold night … “Daddy”.  Every human father or mother who has ever heard that scream of desperation from their small child comes immediately running to fix it.  No earthly parent can ignore the REAL need of their child who screams for them, saying daddy or mommy.  The connection between earthly parent and loved child is just too strong.  We cannot sit back.  We cannot remain silent.  It is too much for us.  But this is what our salvation requires of our Father God to do.

Jesus continues saying … take it from Me, I KNOW You can do it, because You can do everything.  And God can do everything.  Jesus is absolutely confident His Dad can do anything.  He can save all his earthly children from the choice to break trust with Him and embrace the addiction of sin and slavery to it.  But His method of saving us, must cost this price.  The Father must sit back on His throne and ignore the pleas of His only child when He screams out … “Daddy”.  If the Father breaks His silence and ends this separation neither of them have ever experienced, if He ends this pain, we must face what we have earned, and all of us must know an eternal separation from God.  All of us must know that hell. 

So because there is a greater good here, a greater love here, that sees beyond the perspective of what we see while we suffer, He must remain silent.  His own son’s prayers must go unanswered when He needs them the most.  The Father must have enough love NOT to act, to remain silent, and let what is going to happen, happen.  Sometimes our prayers must go unanswered or answered with no when we believe our need is greatest.  It is not because our need is not real, but it may be because our perspective is limited to the finite, and God is working an eternal benefit we cannot see at the moment.  Sometimes we die, but our death is not the end of our story, because the Father God has love enough to work for the eternal even when the short term pain is real and extreme.  Love must suffer this much, to see us saved.

Jesus prays for what He wants.  He wants relief.  He wants another plan.  He is beginning to consider changing His mind, not because His body is being tortured.  That physical pain will follow these hours later.  But because the separation of Son from Father is killing Him.  His pain is so extreme over this, that He is driven to scream out for His Daddy, and look for Him to fix it.  But while the separation is crushing Him, He asks His Father to do as He wills, not as Jesus wills.  This is where the love of the Father God of the universe is put to the test.  This is where His silence against the pleas of His son, stand as a testament to how much He must love us.  We who are not worth it.  We who do not deserve it.  The price of His grace is not cheap indeed, it is the greatest price ever paid.  It is His silence against His own Son, that is our assurance of His love.  We who consider silence, apathy.  We who consider silence, a testament of non-existence.  Nothing could be farther from reality.  God the Father is doing, what must be done, to save us, no matter how painful that is in the shorter term.  Eternity rests on what He does.

The pain, the exhaustion of Christ are written on Him in tears of blood.  Not a human hand has been laid upon Him yet He looks emaciated, and beaten.  In this state, in this condition of absolute need, He returns to His friends, picking up in verse 37 saying … “And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch one hour? [verse 38] Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.”  They are not pulling the all-nighter of the century, or of the millennia, or of all time.  They are asleep.  They are watching nothing, guarding nothing, comforting nothing.  They are asleep.  This is the vow they made in action.  This is where the first request was made, and where their devotion could be measured when it means something.  And a task as simple as caring, went unanswered, in favor of sleep. 

Jesus asks could they not keep watch for merely one hour?  Other nights, they have fished all night.  On this one, the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.  Their own lives and salvations hang in the balance.  Jesus tells them that His mind or His spirit is ready for what is occurring.  But His body, or His flesh begins to dread the pain and death it knows is coming.  Fear, that infects all humanity, clouds reason, and causes us to make poor decisions, begins to infect One who has never known it.  Fear that comes from a separation from God, and fear that it might be forever.  Fear of a painful death that will mean nothing, accomplish nothing, except getting Him kicked out of heaven, because He can no longer be in the presence of purity after having been tarnished with all our sins, with each of our sins, with yours, with mine.  In this hour of greatest need, Jesus has woken His disciples and asked them once more to remain vigilant, to help Him through this.

John Mark records in verse 39 saying … “And again he went away, and prayed, and spake the same words.”  The test is not over.  Again He has called out to His Daddy in agony.  A tone of voice that has never been heard in all of time and space from Jesus to His Father.  This is the siren call of a toddler in pain and agony who wants it to stop.  They do not understand why you the parent cannot fix it.  It is not a random scream.  It is a scream to the one that has always, ever fixed everything they needed, it is a call to daddy.  The heartbreak that wells up in the heart of daddy, as he realizes he cannot fix what is causing His Son this pain.  He would gladly trade His own pain or life for that of His Son.  This is the breaking of the heart of Father God.  For indeed He could fix the pain of His Son.  But He must not.  With all the power, He must not use it.  Or we will be lost in the balance.  There will be no cheap grace here, purchased with nothing.  It will cost Him everything He loves.  It will force Father God to watch pain, hear those calls from His Son, and remain silent and separate.

John Mark continues in verse 40 saying … “And when he returned, he found them asleep again, (for their eyes were heavy,) neither wist they what to answer him.”  Jesus again turns for consolation and comfort from those He is saving through the pain of this sacrifice.  He turns to those who claim to love Him the most, His servants.  He finds them sleeping once again.  They have no words of excuse now.  They have no explanation for why they have failed again.  These men have vowed unto death, yet cannot pray for even an hour.  This is the value of our promises.  This is the value of our vows.  They can be undone by a simple urge to sleep.  And before we become too self-righteous in our condemnation of the disciples for sleeping, perhaps we should look in the mirror, and realize our entire generation has been sleeping for too long.  Our entire gospel, both in message, but also in transformation of who we are, goes unsaid, and undone, for our sleep.

John Mark continues in verse 41 saying … “And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. [verse 42] Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand.”  The answer was no.  The answer to the most desperate plea ever offered was no.  There was no other way.  There would be no other outcome.  Jesus had screamed for His Father, but was told no by inaction.  Jesus for the third time comes back to His disciples, but this time, He looks no more for our comfort or consolation.  He is now resigned that a no means no, and He must do what He does NOT want to do.  He must face a separation from God He may never recover from.  It is love for us that drives Him to risk this fate anyway.  He wakes His disciples now only to face His own betrayer.

What might have been?  What if instead of trusting to self, and to the strength of self, the disciples had rooted their language and promises in the will and love of God.  Perhaps that all-nighter might have come out differently.  While God the Father must remain silent to the pain of His Son.  We did not need to be so.  The arms of Peter, James, and John, might have reached out to hold Him up.  To help Him bear His burden in His hour of greatest need.  Imagine the beauty of that gift from them to Him.  Imagine the difference that might have made to Him. 

But He did it alone.  He faced it alone.  Not because there was no one around, but because there was no one awake.  They vowed and then did nothing but sleep.  We vow and what do we do afterwards?  Do we truly submit and be transformed, or do we prefer the sleep of ignorance and forgiveness?  There must come a time in the life of every Christian where forgiveness is not enough, where perfection is what is sought and desired.  Are you there yet, am I, or do we both sit sound asleep, fully unaware of what could be, what might be, and what a waste our sleep creates.