The Body Is Weak

By: Paul DeVries

Scripture Reading: Mark 14:32-42

February 10th, 2008

Peter is strong. He is sure of it. Yes, he is also concerned and worried about Jesus. Jesus has said that he will be betrayed and die. He has also said that all will forsake him. But Peter is ready to do whatever he has to do to protect his Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Peter is strong. Yes, he is also worried because Jesus has said that Peter’s strength will fail, that he, Peter—the Rock—will deny him. But Peter knows that he is stronger than that. He will never leave his master, never forsake his master, he is ready to die for Jesus! Peter assures Jesus that he will never leave or forsake him. All the rest of the disciples agree with Peter. Peter is strong and so are the rest of the disciples.

Many of us today are also strong. That is, we are strongly committed to our Lord, our church, and our faith. Our actions and commitments prove it. We are elders and deacons, Sunday school teachers and godly parents; we are Bible readers and faithful church attendees. We are strong—strong in our commitment to our Lord! And yet, we fail. We fail! Even as we know that Peter—the Rock, the strong one, the sure one—failed. How can this be? Why isn’t Peter able to live up to his stated commitment and promise? Why aren’t we? Why aren’t we more able to withstand the predictable difficulties of being a follower of Jesus? Jesus predicts exactly what will happen to Peter and the disciples. They know what is coming and yet they still fall asleep on the job. They fail. And so do we. How can this be and how can we find true strength beyond our weakness?

Well, let’s go to the text. I think we find our first hint into the weakness of the body of disciples and the strength of the Lord when we hear the first three commands of Jesus to his disciples in the garden. He says, "Sit….Stay….Watch." These are not very glamorous words. Nor are they words of action. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to let the story of the Garden of Gethsemane unfold.

Jesus goes to the garden to pray and he instructs most of the disciples to simply "sit" while he does the praying. But he does take three disciples, Peter, James and John with him. I am sure that Peter, James and John felt somewhat honored to be the three who are closest to Jesus in his hour of need. I am sure that they felt affirmed in their own strength and ability. After all, all three of these favored disciples of Jesus had done their share of boasting and self—promotion. James and John wanted to be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, asking to sit at the right and the left hand of Jesus. Peter insisted that even if all the others forsook Jesus, he alone would remain faithful. Yes, these were three proud, confident and self—assured men. Now, they get to go with Jesus deeper into the garden than the others. Jesus takes them with him. What an honor!

But the mood quickly turns somber as Jesus is deeply distressed and troubled. He says to the three, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." Certainly the disciples were ready to do anything to help Jesus. But what does Jesus tell them to do? He says, "Stay and watch."

Stay and watch? I suspect that Peter, James and John want to do something, not simply stay and watch. They see Jesus in distress. After Jesus goes just a little further, they hear him praying for the "hour" to pass from him. They know that Jesus is in agony, but there is nothing they can do.

My single most painful memory in life is a time when all I could do was to stay and watch. My wife Diane was giving birth to our third child, a child whom we knew was already dead. "Stillborn" is how the medical profession puts it. An ultrasound the day before had confirmed that something had gone terribly wrong and the baby, our baby, was dead in the womb. But Diane still needed to give birth. What utter distress as I watched the pain of childbirth, all the while knowing that the result would be a dead child. All I could do was watch. All Diane could do was go through the pain, not anticipating a living child, but instead watching for a dead birth. How awful!

I wonder if the disciples felt the same way watching Jesus’ distress. With nothing tangible to do, they simply fell asleep. Here, I think, we see our first clue as to why we fail. We tend to think that it is up to us to do something, fix something, or save something. If God doesn’t give us an active task in which to engage, we end up disengaging all together. If we can’t actively fix it, we fall asleep. In short we think that it is all about what we need to do, forgetting that sometimes God just wants us to watch him and his plan unfold.

Most of us are people of action. We want to do something for the Lord. We want to flex our spiritual muscles and do something. But, at times in our lives God simply says, "Watch." This means that we have to wait on the Lord for his plan and mercy to unfold. But we aren’t good at waiting; we fall asleep.

But it is this very failure that gives us a clue to strength. The clue is simply this: Sometimes it isn’t about us and our strength. Instead, it is about our weakness and Christ’s strength. While the disciples sleep in weakness, failing to watch as Jesus has commanded, Jesus is praying for God’s will to be done. There’s the strength that we need.

When Jesus returned to his disciples, he found them sleeping. He spoke directly to Peter—he who claimed to be the strongest. "Could you not even keep watch for one hour?" Jesus asked Peter. The answer is painfully obvious. No, Peter could not. But rather than dismissing Peter and the others, Jesus gave a more pointed command. Watch and pray! Now Peter and the others had something tangible to do. They must pray! Jesus even goes on to tell them very specifically why they have to pray. "Pray so that you will not fall into temptation," Jesus instructs.

Now, we might think that with something more tangible to do the disciples would be more faithful. After all, prayer is a specific act in which they have been trained. Jesus had taught them how to pray. Surely their flesh wouldn’t fail this time around. But they did fail.

I often try to pray in the prayer room of our church during the middle of the day. But, the middle part of my work day is frequently a busy time. Busyness is more tangible than prayer. Yes, you heard me right; I said, "busyness is more tangible than prayer." It often feels that way, doesn’t it? "Busyness is more tangible than prayer." What a thing to say! But it often seems true, doesn’t it? The kids need to get to school, the bills need to be paid, the doctor’s appointment needs to be kept, the grandkids need to have their birthday cards mailed to them, the term paper needs to be completed, and sermons need to be written, edited and practiced. Oh, and yes, we need to pray, but we are so busy.

But the disciples had time to pray. There they were in the garden with nothing else to do except obey Jesus and pray. But we don’t read anything in the text about their prayers. Instead, we read about their sleep.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Sometimes, even when I make time to pray, I fail. For example, even when I overcome the busyness of the day and go to the prayer room to pray, I still sometimes fail to pray. Our prayer coordinator makes sure that the prayer room here at church is inviting and comfortable. I sit in one of the large comfortable chairs and begin to pray, but soon the comfort of the chair, the lunch nicely settling in my stomach and the soft light of the room all conspire against prayer and toward sleep. How embarrassing for a pastor in a prayer room to be asleep! The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

If falling asleep during prayer is embarrassing, and being too busy to pray is foolishness, how tragic it is to see the disciples falling asleep in Jesus’ hour of need. Jesus says, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." It is here, in this truism at the end of verse 38 of our text that we find a clue as to how supposedly strong people fail. Our first hint was that sometimes there is nothing for us to do but watch. Now our second hint is encountered. It is simply this: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." As humans our flesh betrays us. Eyelids droop and best intentions of faithful activity give way to the inactivity of sleep. The flesh is weak so that even when we are given a clear task like prayer, we often fail in our weakness.

But it is this very failure that also reinforces our clue to strength. For once again we see where strength is not found. It is not found in us, in our flesh, it must be found elsewhere. So let us again look to Christ.

While the disciples sleep for the second time, Jesus prays for the second time. He prays again in anguish. He prays for the cup to pass from him, but he also prays for God’s will to be done. When he returns he finds the disciples asleep. We are given the simple, fleshy explanation that "their eyelids were heavy."

But then comes the line that I think is the turning point of the passage. At the end of verse 40 we read, "They did not know what to say to him." This is a breakthrough! Peter keeps his mouth shut. No more boasting about himself. James and John don’t argue about whether they should get to sit at the right or left hand of Jesus in his kingdom. They simply remain silent. Have they learned their lesson? Have we?

The turning point comes here. The disciples remain silent, accepting—at least for the moment—their weakness. Peter is weak. He is sure of it. He says nothing. Likewise, James and John stand silently in their sleepy weakness. What we have now seen in the disciples, and what we discover about ourselves as well, is that none of us are strong in ourselves. All the hints have added up to an unmistakable truth: By ourselves, we stand silent and weak. But again, this is also our final clue as to our ultimate strength. Our undeniable weakness prods us to turn to the strength of Christ. But will Christ welcome us?

That moment of silence in the garden must have been a very painful moment for Peter, James, and John. But imagine how the pain increased when Jesus returned a third time and they were sleeping again. "Enough!" Jesus says. Enough!

Do you ever worry that someday God will come to you in your weakness and say, "Enough!" I do. In my weakness and sleepy spirituality, I am afraid that God will write me off as a lost cause. I try to be strong, but my body is weak. What can I do? What can you do? Will Christ put up with us?

Often we worry that he won’t. One of the godliest women that I have ever known worried that God would write her off because of her sins. When I talked to her as her pastor, she did not have any huge sins by human standards, just little ones, as far as I could tell. Moreover, she believed in Jesus, had faithfully confessed her sins, affirmed the truth of forgiveness through Jesus Christ her Lord and Savior. Yet, as she approached the end of her life, she was afraid that God would eternally punish her for her weakness and failures. She worried that God would say, "Enough, away from me, you weak and sleepy failure."

Did she have reason to be worried? Do I have reason to be worried? Do you have reason to be worried? Did the disciples have reason to be worried? Well, yes and no. Yes, all of us, apart from the grace of Jesus Christ have reason to be worried. Christ, as the righteous, divine Son of God, the great Judge of the living and the dead, has every right to dismiss us in our spiritual weakness. But, no, Jesus does not come to condemn. As John 3:17 reminds us, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

Take a look again at the text. As the disciples stand in silence, not knowing what to say, having been caught sleeping for the third time, hearing Jesus say, "Enough!" Jesus extends not judgment, but remarkable grace. He says, "Rise! Let us go." Do you hear the grace there? "Let us," Jesus says. "Us!" Jesus still associates himself with these silent, sleepy, broken, failed disciples. That’s grace! If I were Jesus—a frightening concept on many levels—I would have told my so—called disciples, my boasting, hypocritical friends, to take a hike. But Jesus says, "Rise. Let us go!" That’s grace; that’s Jesus.

All the hints and clues have come together now. We, strong godly Christian people, fail for the same reason that the strong godly disciples of old failed. Namely, we boastfully trust in our own strength and faithfulness. We try to rise up and go on our own power. But when we do this we fall down, we fall asleep, we go nowhere. It is only when we are hearing the words of Jesus and walking with him that we are truly able to rise and go.

Jesus is not looking for disciples who are perfect. Nor is he looking for people who never fall asleep on the job. He is looking for forgiven followers. He is looking for people who know they are broken and stand in si`lence before him, stripped of pretense and boasting, ready to follow him.

So what shall we do today? I suggest simply this; let us—along with Peter, James and John—sit silently before the Lord. When is the last time that you took fifteen minutes to just be silent before the Lord? Try it today. Right after this broadcast is done. Just sit silently before the Lord for fifteen minutes. Don’t do anything. Simply be in the Lord’s presence with no pretense, no boasting. Just sit silently.

It won’t be easy. You will probably want to do something, say something, fix something. But resist the urge. Just be silent and watch for what the Lord will do. After the time of silent watching, pray. Pray that you will not fall into the temptation of trusting yourself and your strength. Prayerfully confess the weakness of the flesh, which includes the tendency to believe that the flesh is strong. When your prayer is done, rise and go with Jesus.

Oh, I don’t know what going with Jesus will look like for you. It might mean heading off to work or caring for your grandkids or even reading the paper. But, wherever you go, whatever you do, do it the presence of the Lord, trusting in his strength to overcome your weakness.

In conclusion, let us, in our silence and weakness, hear Jesus’ words of grace and power: "Rise, let us go."

Amen

About the Author

Paul DeVries

Rev. Paul DeVries, most commonly referred to as “Pastor Paul”, is the Sr. Pastor of Brookside Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is married to Diane (nee Vanden Akker) and the father of four children. He graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary in 1989 and served for 12 years as the pastor of Unity Christian Reformed Church in Prospect Park, New Jersey. As a pastor his first love and greatest joy comes in the honor of bringing God’‘s Word to his congregation on a weekly basis through his preaching. He enjoys reading, camping with his family, watching his children’‘s sporting events, and working on home improvement projects - inside and outside his home.

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