Reading 44
In the garden
The reading
Mark 14:32-42
They came to a place which was named Gethsemane. He said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I pray.” He took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be greatly troubled and distressed. He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch.” He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass away from him. He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Please remove this cup from me. However, not what I desire, but what you desire.”
He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn’t you watch one hour? Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again he went away, and prayed, saying the same words. Again he returned, and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they didn’t know what to answer him. He came the third time, and said to them, “Sleep on now, and take your rest. It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going. Behold, he who betrays me is at hand.”
The companions
Psalm 42:9-11
I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.
Isaiah 53:3
He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
The note
Mark does not clean this up. Jesus is greatly troubled and distressed. He says his soul is sorrowful to death. He does not stand and pray; he falls on the ground.
And he asks to be spared. Plainly, and more than once. Faith here is not calm and it is not certainty. He wants another way and says so out loud.
Then the second half of the sentence, which is the whole thing: however, not what I desire, but what you desire. He does not stop wanting to live. He wants something else more, and lets that decide.
His friends are asleep through all of it. Three times. He asks them to stay awake one hour and they cannot. He does not throw them out. He names it, wakes them, and goes on.
At the end he stands up and walks toward it.
This week
Name the thing you are dreading and have not said out loud. Write the actual sentence: I do not want this. Do not soften it and do not attach a moral to it. Then, separately, write the second half if you can mean it. If you cannot mean it yet, leave that line blank and keep the first. And ask one person to stay awake with you for an hour this week — a call, a walk. Tell them what the hour is for.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain).
This page is made for paper too: print it and the reading prints clean, ready for the table.