Opening Prayer
God, keep our eyes awake! Amen.
Text: Matthew 26:45–48
Then He came to His disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, he who betrays Me is at hand.” And while He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, with a great multitude with swords and clubs, came from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now His betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He is the One; seize Him.”
Devotion
The disciples could not keep themselves awake; the weight of a wondrous sleep had come over them. Can’t even Peter watch then? Not watch one hour with the Lord? O! O Peter, who wanted to give his life for Him, cannot sacrifice one hour of sleep for Him!
“Are you still sleeping?” the Lord says. The hour is now here that the Shepherd shall be slain and the sheep scattered. Now the hour of trial breaks in upon you. Yes, they did not let Him waken them; they sleep far from Him in His fervent loving concern for them, in His intense battle and anguish of death for their sake. So then another has to wake them.
When we too, who now believe in the Lord Jesus, are so sleepy that His love and suffering and the faithful work of His Spirit in our hearts cannot keep us awake, then He must let the tempter come upon us, so that we either wake to the call or remain lying about like driftwood after the storm.
Judas watched while the others slept! What a stirring lesson! See, there he comes! He should have been a leader in the army of light and should have gone against the devil. Now he is a leader for Satan’s mob, who come to arrest Christ. Such disciples Jesus has! How the devil could mock Him because of this, could grieve and mistreat Him because of His seemingly misguided love for His betrayer, because He was so zealous for light and truth and the glory of God! Yet the Good Shepherd doesn’t break His staff beating His flock. Yes, Judas could have found mercy later, if he had truly repented. And because the Lord is so long-suffering and faithful, He rescued all the disciples except the son of perdition, and He has rescued thousands and millions from the power of the sneering enemy, though we all are so miserably sleepy. We need this kind of Savior, One who would suffer all this for us and bear with us and pray for us, when we are offended because of Him. Such a Savior we need, and such a Savior we have! Praise be to God!
Closing Thought
But by Your own grace, Lord Jesus, and by Your Spirit’s power, which reigns in Your Church since the day of Pentecost, we will watch and have the victory over the devil. Lord, by Your grace, by that alone. – You shall never let us slip out of Your eye and hand. This we believe and we know, and that is our strength and joy. Amen.
Hymn
These disciples should have heeded
Three times only to Thy call
But ten thousand times I’ve needed
Thy strong warning more than all!
I lie here so blind and cold,
Sleeping deep in passions old,
Ne’er to wake and hear and greet Thee
When Thy Spirit comes to meet me.
Wake me now and let me never
Into death’s dread sleep retreat
All my selfish bonds then sever,
Friend of souls, O Jesus sweet.
Let my eye look steadfastly
On Thy pain and woe for me;
Let me in the dark of dying
Only be on Thee relying.
Kingo: Sover I, hvor kan I sove? L 318:6-7 tr. DeGarmeaux;
tune: Freu dich sehr (ELH 256); alternate hymn: Rise, my soul, to watch and pray ELH 253