Watching With Jesus

Jesus calls every Christian to “watch” with Him. What does this “watching” betoken? His parables offer a clue to a kind of watching: vigilance. He exhorts people to beware the stronger man (Mk 3:24-27); to prepare well for the unexpected arrival of the Master (Lk 25:1-13); and to interpret the signs of the times as expertly as reading the signs of the weather (Lk 12:56). In Gethsemane, He invited three apostles from His inner circle to watch and pray with Him (Mk 14:32-38). Using regula fidei, the “rule of faith”, as the proper lens through which to approach Scripture, this pericope can be understood in the Spirit in which it was given. Canonical exegesis also enlightens the hidden depths of this brief passage on vigilance in Mark. The Pontifical Biblical Commission defined canonical exegesis as the interpretation “of each biblical text in the light of the canon of Scriptures...to situate each text within the single plan of God...” Reading the text in its literal sense as originally written; listening to it as the early Jewish and Gentile Christians would have heard it; considering it in the light of the entirety of Scripture; and allowing the Holy Spirit to illuminate its application in modern lives today, we watch and pray Mark 14:32-38 with Jesus. 

Mark 14:32-38: 32 Then they came to a place named Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took with Him Peter, James, and John,
and began to be troubled and distressed. 34 Then He said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch.” 35 He advanced a little and fell to the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass by Him; 36 He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to You. Take this cup away from Me, but not what I will, but what You will.” 37 When He returned, He found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. 

Then they came to a place named Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” After the Lord’s Supper, Jesus and His disciples made their way across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives to a place called Gethsemane. The name Gethsemane reflects what it contained: an oil press, where olives were harvested and pressed. Jesus and His apostles would have been singing the traditional Hallel Psalms 113-1184 and 136, Passover hymns of thanksgiving for deliverance at the time of the Exodus. This is the only time recorded in the Gospels when Jesus sings, perhaps for joy at the prospect of the imminent Redemption to be wrought by Him, God’s true Passover Lamb. His apostles were unaware that the New Passover had just begun, led by Jesus, the New Moses, the One to lead His People to freedom from sin and death.

Mark depicts Our Lord at prayer at three decisive turning points in His mission to restore what Adam and Eve lost in Original Sin (four harmonies or four “shaloms”: Original Integrity; Original Communion; Original Dominion; and Original Holiness). Jesus prayed after healing Peter’s mother-in-law and before beginning His ministry of preaching, healing, and exorcising in earnest (Mk 1:35); and after feeding the multitude in Jewish territory and before walking on water, calming the storm, and healing in Gentile territory (Mk 6:46). Thus far, His prayerful mission restored Original Integrity (wholeness of body, soul, will, and intellect); Original Communion (by reinstating outcasts to society due to sickness, demonic possession, or amorality); and Original Dominion (by exercising His power over nature). Here in Gethsemane, Mark records Jesus in prayer for the third time, as the moment for the harvest of salvation had come, when Jesus was to be gathered and pressed so that His oil of salvation would heal His wounded people, restoring Original Holiness to God’s people into right relationship with Him.

Today on the Mount of Olives, the Church of Jesus’ Agony sits on the site where Jesus prayed, surrounding the rock against which He leant. Although the trees themselves were razed by the (future) Roman Emperor Titus during the siege of Jerusalem (AD 70), the roots of the same trees amongst which Jesus and His disciples sang and prayed remain, a reminder that our Faith beliefs and Traditions are rooted in Jesus,11 though He was cut down by the Romans.

33 He took with Him Peter, James, and John, and began to be troubled and distressed. Jesus then chooses three of His closest apostles, Peter, James, and John, to come aside with Him and pray. Twice Mark shows Jesus praying alone in communion with the Father. This is the first time that the evangelist remarks upon the accompaniment of Jesus’ apostles while He privately prayed. These privileged three together witnessed the raising of Jairus’ daughter (Mk 5:22-43). They experienced the restoration of life, the reunion of a father with his child, prefiguring the restoration of our relationship with the Father (Original Holiness) as adopted children through restoration of our relationship with the Father (Original Holiness) as adopted children through the Passion which Jesus was soon to embrace; it also foreshadows His own victory over death at His Resurrection. At His Transfiguration on Mount Tabor (Mk 9:2-8), Jesus dazzled Peter, James, and John with His glory; His transcendence filled them with awe and fortified them with a foretaste of His glorified, resurrected Body. Moses and Elijah, Christ’s celestial companions at this event, led the apostolic trio to understand that Jesus fulfilled both the Law and the Prophets. Now these most intimate companions are called to witness Jesus’ human will struggle to remain in union with the Father’s Divine will. Jesus did not want to be alone; His human heart cried out for the company of these men who best loved Him and who would each play pivotal roles in His new Church. These three disciples have all pledged to follow their Master on His Way of the Cross, yet their drowsiness overcomes their will and they rest rather than pray.

34 Then He said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch.” “Watching” encompasses various connotations, among which are: vigilance against enemies; forward-looking with hope to a wonderful event in the future (prodigal son’s father “watched” for him: Lk 15:11-32); or “behold” as in “Behold, I make all things new” (Isa 43:19, Isa 65:17, Rev 21:5). Jesus here makes use of all three meanings. His disciples need to be vigilant against the Evil One, who has demanded to “sift them like wheat” (Lk 22:31). Jesus knows that His demise, as a buried grain of wheat, will bear fruit in victory over sin and death, a wondrous triumph in the near future in which Jesus fulfills the prophecy of redemption and restoration in Isaiah 43: See, I am doing something new! 

The drowsiness of the disciples typifies Pharaoh’s deadened soul and hardened heart to the plight of others (Ex 4:21; Mk 3:5). Those who are comfortable risk closing their eyes to the work of the Evil One in the world, thereby missing an opportunity to battle against the forces of darkness with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (Eph 6:10-18). The “distress and trouble” Jesus experienced and His soul “sorrowful unto death” bespeak His anguish (Ps 43:5; 55:5-6).  He grieves so deeply as to endanger His life (Ps 31:10-11; 42:6; 12). Upon Him was laid the iniquity of all people from all times (Isa 53:6); sinless, He bore the sins of all mankind. Before He shouldered the burden of the Cross, He staggered beneath the weight of the world’s collective sins. His infinite intellect recoiled from the coming horror of the world’s utter rejection of the Father, of all evil actions and all the hidden malice in every human heart which exalts itself against the Father.

35 He advanced a little and fell to the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass by Him; Jesus falls on His face in prayer (proskynesis, from ancient Greek προσκ?νησις), the position of extreme homage to God and submission to His will. Priests assume this position during their ordination, abasing themselves in imitation of their Master. Jesus spoke of His “hour”, that is, His Passion, death, and subsequent glorification, after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Jn 12:23); again, at the Last Supper (Jn 16:32; 17:1; Lk 22:14); and spoke of Satan’s “hour” at His arrest: “this is your hour, the time for the power of darkness.” (Lk 22:53). “Hour” is not used, then as a mere span of time (ancient Greek: ωρα, hora or χρ?νος, chronos), but rather an indication of a decisive moment (ancient Greek: καιρος, kairos).

36 He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to You. Take this cup away from Me, but not what I will, but what You will.” Once again, Jesus models prayer for His Church, and especially for the Church in First Century Rome for whom Mark wrote his gospel: humble submission to the Father's Will while acknowledging a natural human abhorrence of pain, culminating in full reliance upon the omnipotent God. Roman Christians persecuted under Emperor Nero might have taken comfort in Christ’s struggle. He experienced the same distaste of torture and death they daily faced, and they may have been encouraged to follow their Master in submitting to the Father’s Will. The prostrate, distressed Jesus struggles with His human frailty and alludes to the lamenting man who trusts in God in Psalms 42 and 43. Jesus addressing God as Abba exemplifies a childlike dependence upon the love and goodness of a merciful God. Jesus’ free acceptance of God’s Will consecrated Jesus as “a priest of the God Most High” in the line of Melchizedek as opposed to the line of Aaron, according to Albert Cardinal Vanhoye (and Heb 7:17). Sinless, He was exempt from the curse of death, yet He willingly accepted His death as redemptive.  The human will of Jesus is highlighted here; Pope Benedict calls it natural (human) will versus filial (Divine) will. He quotes the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which in its definition of Jesus as One Divine Person with two natures, human and Divine, “without confusion and without separation,” affirmed that Jesus was endowed with free will. He perfectly attuned His free human will with the Father’s will, elevating human will to its ultimate fulfillment. This refutes the heresy of monothelitism, that Christ possessed only one will (Divine). Maximus the Confessor (580-662) was tortured and exiled for his belief that Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane is comprehensible only in light of the fact that Christ’s human will could reject or yield to the Divine will; he was ultimately (posthumously) vindicated by the Council of Constantinople III in 680. This also argues against the heresy of Nestorianism, which taught that within the body of Jesus resided a Divine soul and therefore only one will (Divine); Nestorianism was rejected by the Third Ecumenical Council, the Council of Ephesus in 431. 

The “cup” to which Jesus alludes may be the cup of God’s wrath, fully spiced, which must be drained to the dregs (Ps 75:9); it may be the cup of salvation, raised up in praise (Ps 116:13); it may be the allotted portion and cup of confident sonship (Ps 16:5); it may be all three, but most probably is the first one, since Jesus importunes His Father, “Take this cup away.” Jesus is the authentic pray-er of the Psalms; in praying with the Psalms in His hour of agony, He is truly uniting all of Israel’s salvation history into the present moment and carrying it into the future of the New People of God, Christ’s Church.

When He returned, He found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?” Jesus returns to His apostles after His anguished prayer to find them not following their Master’s lead, but slumbering, completely converse to His sustained struggle. He addresses Peter, the Rock upon whom He will build His Church, but His sustained struggle. He addresses Peter, the Rock upon whom He will build His Church, but by his proper name rather than his new name, perhaps to underscore that spiritual sluggishness fails to meet the new standard to which Peter is held. He upbraids them not for natural sleep but for their spiritual torpor; Jesus’ reference to the short time “one hour” indicates the depth of His disappointment.

Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The Greek word used for “test” here, peirasmos, echoes one of the last petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: “and lead us not into peirasmos” (temptation). Our spirit is willing because our desire for God is inscribed upon our hearts; we are created by God and for God.42 Our restless hearts seek God, yet distress, indifference, and distractions can divert us from our ultimate happiness. St. Francis de Sales advises Christians to calmly and confidently bring all hopes and affections, all struggles and afflictions into the Presence of God, under the direction of His holy Will, imitating the Lord Jesus’ disposition in Gethsemane. The grace of the Holy Spirit enables Christians to live victoriously, but the struggle continues throughout our lifetime on Earth. While our spirits aspire to God, our flesh clings to worldly goods and pleasures; we are continually in conflict between the two dimensions of our nature (Rom 8:12-14; Gal 5:19-24). Persistent prayer (1 Thess 5:17; Heb 4:16) and watchfulness are indispensible bulwarks to withstand Satan’s attacks. Who better to watch with than our beloved Lord? 

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