Watch for One hour!

Mk.14:37, “Then He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour?’

Jesus and His disciples were in a place called Gethsemane. He asked His disciples to wait there and He Himself went further ahead with Peter, James and John. Then He asked the three disciples to tarry there and asked them to watch and pray. He then further went ahead, fell on the ground and prayed. The Creator of the Universe, the King of all Kings fell down and prayed.

Before praying Jesus had commanded Peter, James and John to watch and pray. But their physical exhaustion did not allow them to do so. Jesus could pray while the disciples could not pray for that one hour. Let’s ponder on the consequences of both and learn from same.

1. V 34 ^“Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, evento death. Stay here and watch.”  Jesus was going through a crushing time. The sorrow was unbearable. He could have given up on prayers. Yet He pulled Himself to the place where He fell down and prayed. Lk.22:43 says that an angel appeared to Him and strengthened Him. Our flesh might lean more on giving up on that one hour of watchful prayer and end up as victims of desires of flesh but prayers of that one hour enabled Christ to be an overcomer.
2. 14:39, “Again He went away and prayed, and spoke the same words.” Jesus did not get the answer to His prayers at the 1^st time He prayed. He prayed thrice and spoke the same words. Praying again and again on the same matter is not wastage of time. It shows the earnestness and urgency for the answers. After the third time of prayers, he came and told His disciples ‘The hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. ⁴² Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.” He was assured, strengthened and completely surrendered for the Father’s will to happen in His life. Watchful prayers gives us room to pray earnestly for our most pressing needs, to discern His will on same and to strength to surrender for same.
3. As Jesus spoke these words, Judas came with a great multitude with staves and swords from the chief priests and the elders of the people (Mt. 26:47). 18:10, “Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.”  Peter who could not watch and pray retaliated in flesh. He struck off the ear of the servant of high priest with a sword. Jesus immediately commanded him to keep back the sword in its place and touched his ear and healed him. Jesus who could watch and pray approached the same scene with forgiveness, healing and discerning the scene as fulfilment of God’s will. Watchful prayers strengthens us to fight our spiritual wars with spiritual weapons and not with flesh and blood.
4. 22:54, “Having arrested Him, they led Him and brought Him into the high priest’s house. But Peter followed at a distance.’ Peter who had claimed to follow Jesus to prison and to death now followed Him at a distance. Failing to watch and pray over own souls can lead one away from Christ, loosing that closeness and intimate relation with Him. We feel hurt when a very close friend is hurt, but it hardly touches us when someone who is not close to us is hurt. Same way, a person who follows Christ from afar will not mind grieving His Spirit again and again. But on the other hand, even a smallest thought of sin gives a great conviction to the one who walks closely with Christ.
5. 22:55, “Now when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.” Peter sat with the ones who were not for Christ. Verses 57, 58 and 60 of Luke 22 quotes the words of Peter’s denial of Christ. Ps.1:1, “Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ^[a]ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;’ Following Christ from afar lead him to sit among the mockers and scornful. One is supposed to be at peace with all men but when it comes to having close and continuous relations and fellowships, it’s always better to be in the company of God’s children. Peter feared to confess himself as Jesus’s disciple in the company of mockers.
6. Hence to protect himself, he denied Him thrice, just as Jesus had prophesied about him. The weak flesh which stopped Peter from praying in Gethsemane, now lead him to snare of fear. Continuous failure to pray with watchfulness can make one weak spiritually gradually, to the extent of easy denial and then ultimately spiritual death. 10:32-33, ^“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.’

7. Peter had seen many miracles, had seen the glorious transformation of Christ and had even heard the prophetical word about his denying Christ three times. All this could not strengthen the inner person of Peter to stand with Jesus at the most needed time. No past testimonies can make a person sustain in the grace of God. It’s only the continuous and watchful prayer life that can sustain faithfully till the end of faith life.

Watching and praying is not about praying for a good house or a job. It’s about praying about one’s own soul. It’s about being alert and identifying any thought or motive of sin and resisting it timely, in order to escape the snare of deception. Early detection and resisting sin saves one from much trouble. “Do not give the devil a foot hold” as in Ephesians 4 rightly puts this. The more the delay, the greater painful is the process of repentance and restoration.

God in His mercy caused the rooster to crow to remind Peter of his denial, which further lead him to conviction and repentance. But even after that, he lost the direction of his life and went for fishing.  Jesus again in His unfailing mercy, pursued him to the sea to restore him.  In Jn.21, Jesus asked Peter three times. “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest me thou?” Our Lord today asks us the same question. Do we love Him more than anything or anyone else? Watchful prayers helps us to see ourselves through His eyes, and checks us timely.

GOD bless us all.