Easter Devotional: Keeping Watch {Day 14}

Listen to His Word (read):

Matthew 21:36-46 in ESV

Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”

Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.”

Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”

Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.

Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.

Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

Linger …silently meditate on His Word:
(Join children in closing eyes and envisioning the passage, re-read again… again…linger. Don’t rush on.)

And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Lift up voice in prayer, responding to His Word (oratio):

Father, we sinned against You in the first Garden, rebelling in that Garden of Eden. And Your Son meets You in this Garden, the Garden of Gethsamane, to perfectly submit to Your perfect will to pay for all our gaping sins.

Jesus’ heart fractures and breaks under the anguish of it all, of what He must bear for our sins. And we, like the disciples, sleep. We cannot stay awake, awake to You, awake to so great a salvation. Daily, we sleepwalk.

Father, forgive us. Our spirit is willing, but our flesh is weak. You know. You see.

And yet You intercede, sorrow unto death, for us who drouse on. Father, wake us! Let us rise, see, pray!

Live the Word (contemplate it so long that it settles down into heart, hands, feet):

Today, pray. Let Your heart break with the things that break His: pray for His Body, the church, divided and shattered and bickering, for the persecuted church laboring faithfully in hard places for the Kingdom. For young girls contemplating abortions and elders quietly dying and the hurting all over this world, for missionaries who answer the call to leave it all behind and go, for the souls of your neighbors, the future of your family, the vision of your government, the love in your community of faith. For the salvation of the world.

Can you, on your knees, keep watch with Jesus…even for one hour?

Print, mount, cut, hang art symbol on Easter Tree

Artist: Wassilij Grigorjewitsch Perow

For the rest of the Behold the Lamb series, a heart preparation for Easter