Sleeping Disciples

Sleeping Disciples

By Lodewijk Schelfhout

"Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand.”

Matthew 26:36-45

“Let us not sleep, as do others.”

1 Thessalonians 5:6

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On the darkest night in human history, Jesus knelt in Gethsemane and asked three simple things of His closest friends: stay near, stay awake, and watch with Him. It was such a small request from the One who was about to bear the weight of every sin, sorrow, and sickness the world would ever know. And yet, when He returned, He found them sleeping.

Luke kindly records that they slept “for sheer sorrow” (Luke 22:45). They were not careless or indifferent — they were confused, overwhelmed, heartbroken, and exhausted. And, because of that sleep, they missed the lesson they were supposed to learn from watching Jesus in his prayer. As Matthew Henry observed, it is often “the unhappiness and burden of Christ’s disciples, that their bodies cannot keep pace with their souls in works of piety and devotion.” How often we know this ourselves. We resolve to pray, to serve, to love — and our eyes grow heavy, our minds wander, our resolve collapses under ordinary weariness.

Yet this sacred invitation is still before us. The Lord is asking us to ‘watch with Him’ and to stand by Him as our most cherished and adored friend. And yet, like the disciples, we so often sleep. We mean well. The spirit is willing. But the flesh is weak. As Charles Spurgeon put it, whether out of carelessness, distraction or sorrow, “we are all of us very apt to sleep concerning the interests of our souls.”

What is remarkable is not our failure — it is His response to it. Jesus did not angrily chastise His sleeping friends. He did not abandon them. Matthew Henry writes that Christ “kindly excused for them,” pleading their weakness when they could say nothing in their own defense. He “considered their frame… for he remembered that they were but flesh.” That same tenderness reaches us. When we fall short, when we doze through the moments we meant to spend with Him, He meets us not with contempt but with compassion.

Pastor and scholar J. Ligon Duncan captures this grace beautifully: “Even when you fail to heed the Lord’s exhortation to stay awake and pray, He does not fail you. He stays awake and prays when you do not, and that makes for you an eternal difference.” And Jeffrey R. Holland has testified that because “Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so.” We “will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are.” We will sleep. We will stumble. But the One who watched alone in the Garden will never leave us to watch alone in ours.

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