"They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray. Stay here and keep watch.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour?"
(Mark 14: 32, 34b, 37 NIV)
Zzzzz! We lay our heads down at night and begin to pray, "Now, I lay me down to sleep. . .", and that's exactly what we do. We go to sleep! How often do we have good intentions of laying down and saying our nightly prayers, only to awaken and realize we fell asleep in the middle of them. Maybe that's why Jesus said to "sit here"---maybe He thought the disciples would have been more apt to stay awake!
Yesterday, we looked at Peter, and today, we're looking at him again. But, for Peter, it's still the same day--just later in the evening. Peter has made the statement to Jesus that he would lay down his life down for Him, and now Jesus is asking Peter why he couldn't stay awake for one hour! Doesn't sound as though Peter was listening too well to Jesus commands. "One hour, Peter, is all I'm asking, and you couldn't stay awake long enough to do that." But, this scenario doesn't happen just once---it happens three times!
Again, we may be very similar to Peter. Our church has 12-24 hr. prayer vigils, and sometimes, it's hard to get enough people to fill the time slots. We're not asking one person to do the whole vigil---we're just asking for one hour of time. Is that too much to ask? One day, Jesus will return and say, "Enough! The hour has come. Rise! Let us go!"
"Will you be found sleeping?"
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