Keep Watch

“Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in peace.”

This prayer from the Order for Compline is said twice, though not in succession, toward the end of the service. It is a lovely way to end that last “hour” of the day.  At the most recent session of our parish’s prayer group, we prayed with the reading from Mark that takes place in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Stay here and keep watch” says Jesus to Peter, James and John.  A while later he advises Peter to “Watch and pray that you do not fall into temptation.” Naturally, I started wondering about the word “watch.”

At prayer group, we decided that to watch meant to maintain a high level of awareness. This is more than just keeping your eyes open, more than just not falling asleep.  But, if you don’t know what you are watching for, you might drift off. If watching becomes simply looking or gazing, awareness falters.

Peter, of course, is the text book example of a failed disciple - until later on when he isn't. Peter promises valiant loyalty and courage "til death us do part". Peter would do anything for Jesus, except the very thing he is asked to do. Blunders and enthusiastic claims aside, Peter is a follower of Jesus. He may not always understand what Jesus tells him but he boldly states that Jesus is the Messiah. He may try to save his own skin on this particular night, but he will bravely proclaim the Gospel and go to his own death with no hesitation.

Jesus’ remark, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” has always sounded to me like a rebuke to the flesh. But what if these words are actually in praise of the spirit and no rebuke at all? What if Jesus is acknowledging that the physical person may fall asleep in awkward situations but that the spirit continues to breathe and live in that person. The spirit continues to follow, to pray, to see? 

Jesus famously touts the spirit over the flesh in his late night meeting with Nicodemus. "Flesh is flesh and spirit is spirit," he says. "You must be born of the spirit in order to enter the kingdom of heaven." * Nicodemus failed to understand that teaching, but I think Peter understood it very well. Peter followed in spirit, beyond what his flesh did, beyond what his intellect could grasp. This is what Jesus commended. This spirit is what saved Peter after his betrayal and it is what saves us, too.

What did Jesus want on that dark night before his arrest? He wanted the disciples to watch with him, even as we pray to watch with Christ every time we say Compline. 

If we go back to Gethsemane and understand Jesus’ fear and sorrow,” watching,” in that context, simply means being there. Can we be present with Christ in this hour? Without understanding, without answers, can we, thanks to our shared humanity with him, watch with Christ as people die horrible deaths, as children are stolen, as the innocent and the guilty suffer?

That is what we are asked to do in Gethsemane and that is what we, perhaps foolishly, pray to be able to do. What does Christ see? Can we see it, too? 




*Paraphrasing John 3.