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.
