Desire: He Wants the Disciples to Watch & Pray With Him

One more passage might be worth thinking about as we are considering Jesus’ desire. After Jesus eats the Passover meal with His disciples and friends, they all go out to Gethsemane. Jesus has most of the disciples (there were probably others besides the 12) sit while He went aside to pray. He does take Peter, James and John along with Him. He then begins to be “sorrowful” and “troubled.” He tells them that His soul is actually “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” He then tells them, “Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matthew 26:36)

Isn’t that amazing? Jesus wants them to “stay and watch with Him.” Why? It is simple and deep at the same time. They are the ones who have lived with Him through all His struggles and successes. In the passages before the Last Supper He has referred to His disciples as “friends.” Now, that is a deep word that is thrown around by our superficial culture. Jesus wants those closest to Him to be with Him during His overwhelming struggle. He wants them with Him before He hits that moment when He says, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” It isn’t the physical torture that makes Jesus “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” It is the separation from the Father while Jesus bears the sins of humankind. The moment when all our evil is laid on Him and He is punished for us. He is cut off from the Father, the way we would be, if Jesus had not suffered in our place.

So, as He prepares His soul, He “wants” His friends to be with Him. Jesus desires that they be with Him.

“If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” John 14:9 – Jesus reveals the invisible God! There is an amazing thing in God that He wants us to be “with Him.” Fascinatingly, when God becomes a human – He doesn’t set Himself up to be completely independent from the broken humans He is saving. He comes as one of us, although without sin, and actually engages us. He has relationship with us. He doesn’t just give us “good principles” (we need those) but ultimately He gives us Himself!

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.  Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matt 26:36)