April 3, 2000
GREAT QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE:
"Why are you sleeping?"
Luke 22:46
___By Glen Schmucker
___Pastor, Cliff Temple Baptist Church, Dallas
___The last few trips to the doctor's office have only confirmed my suspicions. By every standard of measurement, I am at the midpoint of life. Nature is taking its course and, if I continue to do only what comes naturally, there is a good chance I will significantly reduce the length of time I am here to do it.
___ From this point forward, my health and well being will
GLEN SCHMUCKER
Pastor, Cliff Temple Baptist Church, Dallas
greatly depend on my willingness to do what doesn't come naturally: To change what I eat. To walk more and sit less. My very life may well depend on it.
___ In some ways, Jesus' question to the disciples seems particularly curious. After seeking the power of God to face his impending death, he goes to rejoin those on whom he is counting to stand with him in his hour of greatest need and hears snoring instead of praying. Yet he certainly knew the answer to his own question, "Why are you sleeping?" before he even asked. He had found the disciples "asleep, exhausted from sorrow."
___ Whatever emotional or spiritual detriment grief causes, it always drains one physically. A heart, beating heavy under the load of deep and unresolved sorrow, always makes the steps of one's feet even heavier. The disciples knew by now what Jesus was about to face and, under that heavy load of anticipatory grief, they simply collapsed. Overwhelmed, physically and emotionally, they had done the most natural thing and simply fallen asleep. Maybe they even hoped it was all a bad dream from which they would be awakened.
___ And awakened they were. But not to a reality that had changed simply because they slept while time passed. Instead, the voice that awakened them also called them to prayer. Sleeping might have been the most natural thing to do considering their situation. But there was some unnatural work to be done that could only be accomplished by supernatural power summoned through prayer.
___ "Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation," Jesus tells them.
___ We are never more vulnerable to spiritual failure than when we are physically exhausted. There are times, indeed, when getting a good night's rest is not only the most natural thing we can do but the most spiritual as well. But what rests the head does not always rest the heart. There are times for us when, just as for Jesus, obedience to the self-sacrificial will of God demands a strength not naturally gained through our heads resting in sleep on a pillow but only buried in our hands in prayer. Only on our knees, weary though they may be, will we find ourselves empowered to move beyond that which comes naturally to the greater spiritual endeavors to which God has called us.
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