“Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him and he began to be sorrowful and troubled” (Matthew 26:36-37).
During this season, Christians all over the world meditate on our Lord’s suffering, death, and resurrection. It is customary to spend the weeks before Holy Week in contemplation and surrender of ourselves to the will of God. As I try to do that I am thinking about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. It was there that he cried out to God in terrible anguish, revolted by the horrors that were about to come upon him.
Prayer partners
It is noteworthy that he desired the companionship of his friends. So as he withdrew to pray, he invited Peter, James and John to stay alert and join him. This shows us the humanity of Jesus. He needed the encouragement of their prayerful presence. “Stay here and keep watch with me,” he said in Matthew 26:38. “With me!” What is implied by those words repeated twice in Matthew’s account?
As we pray, we often think of the promise of Christ’s presence with us. But our coming to the Lord in prayer is also a response to his kind invitation to fellowship with him. “God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9). Does it surprise you to be reminded that Jesus desires to have fellowship with you? Is this not an incentive to be more faithful in meeting with him in prayer?
Two or three
When we face circumstances that seem intolerable, it is good to have the prayer support of friends. Jesus asked his friends to stay close and stay awake. Unfortunately, sleep overtook them. He told them earlier that “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). But now in his time of need, those two or three were spiritually and emotionally absent.
Jesus is inviting us to spend time with him. Think about those two words today: “With me.”
Pastor Randy Faulkner