Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." Matthew 26.40-41

Olive trees still grow in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives as they did in the time of Jesus. The name Gethsemane refers to an olive mill where the fruit is pressed to produce olive oil. Typically, the olives are subject to three presses, the pressure increasing each time with heavier weights forced upon the crushed olives. In the process, every last drop of oil is extracted. What a graphic picture of what Jesus went through in Gethsemane, praying, agonising, with sweat-like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22.44)!

And could the three times He cried to His Father for the cup of suffering to be taken away from Him be paralleled with the three presses of the olives? Each time as the pressure increased, the anguish intensified. Yet, each time Jesus yielded: “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Matt 26.39 Did the disciples have any idea what their Lord was going through? He had eaten a last meal with them—and walked with them late at night to a place to pray. Leaving the disciples, he had taken Peter, John and James with him farther along, looking visibly sorrowful and troubled. He asked the three to stay and keep watch with Him.

We are not aware of what is at stake.

Jesus then slipped away into the night to pray on His own. When He returned, He found the three disciples sleeping. It was obvious that they had no inkling of what was happening. Despite all that Jesus had told them, only a short while ago at their meal together, that He would be betrayed and handed over to be killed, the disciples fell asleep. Had they known what would soon take place, would they still have slumbered?

Jesus calls on us to “watch and pray”. We would be quick to admit that we are not as prayerful as we should be. Could it be because we are not watchful? We are not aware of what is at stake. “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” To what extent will the body obey the spirit? Only to the extent the spirit commands and directs it. Consider how we rally to pray when a crisis happens, as when a loved one is rushed critically ill to hospital or a nation is hit by a sudden disaster. When we realise how much we need to pray, as we feel the press of the olives, our body will yield to the spirit, and both will stay and wait in prayer.

Pause to pray.

Prayer: “Teach me to pray, Lord, that my body may not dictate to my spirit, but knowing what is at stake, I may watch and pray.”

[From David W.F. Wong, "Waiting: A Necessary Pause in Time" (Graceworks, 2018)]