Beverly Rainwater

Jesus took Peter, James and John to the garden of Gethsemane and asked them to watch and pray. He then went farther along to pray for deliverance from what was to befall Him. When He returned, He found the three disciples sleeping and asked them if they could not watch with Him for one hour. Some commentators contend that the disciples slept because of the great sorrow they bore knowing what Jesus was going to be up against. They slept instead of watching as Jesus had asked them to do. It is said that great sorrow stupefies. It is not unheard of that when someone is in great sorrow over the loss of a loved one that one feels numb, often not even realizing what is going on around them. This could be an explanation of what happened with the disciples. Jesus bid them to watch and to pray that they would not enter into temptation. It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was not asking them to avoid being tempted, but that they pray to not give in to whatever temptation may befall them.

I have to admit that before writing and submitting this devotional, I had not thought of the reason for the apostles sleeping in quite this way before. I had questioned many times why in such circumstances they did not do as Jesus asked. I had thought perhaps it was because of the work they had been involved in making them exhausted or that they simply grew weary waiting for Jesus to return. However I had not considered that it was because of their great sorrow that they may have succumbed and fallen asleep. We too should be so full of sorrow over the fact that Jesus had to die for our sins in order for us to have the hope of eternal life that we lift Him up in glory, honor and reverence for His great sacrifice. We can't be too thankful or have it in mind too often how much He loved us and loved His Father in that He willingly did what had to be done for us to be saved.