Sunday March 22, 2026

Could you not stay awake with me?

This Sunday marks the fifth week of Lent and continues the series Questions Jesus Asked. The question this week comes from a place of loneliness and grief: "Could you not stay awake with me one hour?"

Pastor Joel opened with a story from a snow day earlier this week. Daycare was closed. He and Peyton played together for a while, but eventually she wandered off to do her own thing. Joel fired up the Xbox. At some point he paused the game and glanced over. But this time he didn't just glance. He started watching. Peyton had a colored pencil in one hand and a little notepad in front of her. A few dolls sat around her, part of whatever scene she had going. She would scribble something, then look up at the dolls like she was explaining it to them. Then back to the notepad. Completely content. He watched for maybe ten minutes. Didn't say anything. Didn't interrupt. And he realized how much he'd been missing while staring at a screen. He was in the room the whole time. But he wasn't really present until he looked up.

In Matthew 26, Jesus takes his disciples to Gethsemane. He has just finished the Passover meal. He has washed their feet. He has predicted his betrayal. Now he leads them to a place he often went for retreat and prayer. But tonight it becomes the place where Jesus faces everything that is coming. He leaves eight disciples near the entrance and takes Peter, James, and John further in. These are the same three who witnessed his transfiguration. They have seen his glory. Now they will see his grief.

Matthew says Jesus began to be "grieved and agitated." One commentator describes it as exquisite sorrow, the kind that threatens to separate soul from body. Jesus tells the three: "I am deeply grieved, even to death." Then comes the request: "Remain here, and stay awake with me." He doesn't ask them to pray for him. He doesn't ask them to fight or fix anything. He asks them to be present.

Three times he prays. Three times he returns to find them sleeping. The first time, he speaks directly to Peter: "Could you not stay awake with me one hour?" Peter had said he would never fall away. He said he would die with Jesus if it came to that. He couldn't keep his eyes open for sixty minutes. But Jesus is not harsh. He names the truth with compassion: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." They wanted to be there. They intended to stay awake. Their bodies gave out anyway.What strikes Pastor Joel about this scene is the loneliness. Jesus came to the garden with eleven disciples. He took three of them further in. But in the end, no one could be with him. Not because they didn't care. They couldn't sustain the kind of attention that presence requires. So he faced the cup alone.

The disciples weren't absent. They were right there, a stone's throw away. But when Jesus needed them most, they had drifted off. Presence is not the same as proximity. You can be in the room and not be there. You can be in the garden and still be asleep. They failed. They fell asleep three times. But Jesus did not abandon them. He returned to them again and again, woke them up, and invited them to rise and go with him. Grace met them in their failure and called them forward anyway.

Joel was in the room the whole time that snow day. But he wasn't really there until he looked up. Until he paused the game and watched. What he found wasn't dramatic. Just his daughter, content in her own little world, scribbling on a notepad and talking to her dolls. He would have missed it if he hadn't stopped long enough to see.

Sometimes presence is not about doing more. It's about stopping long enough to see what's already in front of you. Jesus is still asking the question. Not as a rebuke. As an invitation. Stay awake. Be present. The hour is at hand.