5 Lessons Learned with Heavy Eyes

In Part 1 of this Easter post, I went over the experience of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, and how Peter, James, and John were unable to stay awake.  And I posed the question of why you think the writers of the four Gospels found their inability to keep their eyes open eternally important. 

May I offer up one opinion? Take it for what you think it’s worth, I’m just a 20-something guy doing my best to understand the things of the Spirit to the best of my ability.  If there are better observations or explanations, please, please share them with me!

Jesus Christ was a teacher.  He came to teach, to expound; to unfold the mysteries of God to our understanding.  I believe (again, my limited understanding…) that this experience with these three Apostles was Christ’s final attempt to teach them about His role and about the Atonement. 

I want to share a few of the lessons that I think “Peter and the two sons of Zebedee” (Matt. 26:37) most likely learned from this experience, and the lessons that you and I ought to learn from it as well. 

1.      The Atonement was performed solely by Christ.

a.      The Apostles were asked to stay with Christ and “watch with [Him]” (Matt. 26:38), however, in the end they fell asleep and Christ suffered for each of us by Himself.

2.      Only Christ was able to perform the Atonement.

a.      The Three were to stay there and pray, i.e. stay awake. They were not able.  Only Christ was able to withstand the effects of that evening.  Likewise, only Christ is able to perform the Atonement.

3.      None of us can completely withstand temptation

a.      Christ directed the Three to “pray, that [they] enter not into temptation” (Matt. 26:41). They were not able to do so, but three times fell asleep in the process.  They could not fully overcome the natural man to keep a commandment given them personally by Christ, the Savior.  Only Christ could and did completely withstand temptation.

4.      We are expected to do all we can, and then we are saved solely on His merits.

a.      Each time Christ returned He awoke them and told them again to pray.  He didn’t allow them to just sleep.  Even though He knew it was singularly on His shoulders to perform the Atonement, He expected them to do their level best to stay awake, pray and watch with Him.  But the third time He returned, He judged their efforts to be sufficient and he told them to “sleep on now, and take your rest” (Matt. 26:45).  Likewise throughout our lives we are expected to do our very best to live in a Christ-like manner, and throughout our lives we will fail miserably.  But when our lives are over, if we have done all we can do, Christ will likewise judge our efforts to be sufficient, and we will be saved on His merits.

5.      Our salvation is in Christ’s hands.

a.      Christ sets the terms, and He judges the results.  It is His prerogative because of His valiant, selfless act in the Garden, and consequently, on the cross to set the terms of our salvation agreement.  And it is also His prerogative to judge whether you and I have lived up to that agreement when we pass from this life. 

I am grateful for the inspiration that came to me as I read this part of the Easter experience of my Savior.  I know that He suffered in the Garden and on the cross for me, so that I could be perfected.  I know that He lives!  I am grateful for the lessons that He taught His Apostles and that the Gospel writers were in tune enough with the Spirit to pass on such supernal lessons as these to us.  May each of us learn these 5 Lessons that Peter, James, and John learned with Heavy Eyes!

Happy Easter!

“Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives: ‘I know that my Redeemer lives!’”

Heavy Hearts, Heavy Eyes

First off, I want to wish you a very Happy Easter!  I hope it is a great weekend, and that each of us will go beyond the candy, eggs, brunch or dinner, and Easter Bunny to reflect upon the real meaning of this, easily the first or second most important holiday period (depending whether you put Christmas first or second). 

Naturally, with this being the week before Easter, I want to talk about Easter in this post.  But I wanted to find a unique perspective to write about.  There will be a million places that we can find a chronological account of what transpired in the last days of our Savior’s life, and each of them will be better accounts than I’m sure I can give.

So I wanted to talk about Heavy Heart, Heavy Eyes. 

Think back to a time when you were dead tired.  I don’t mean a time when you were yawning while watching The Voice or General Conference (Don’t tell me you haven’t yawned during Conference, right or wrong, it happens to the best of us!).  I’m talking about a time where you were sooo tired that you could fall asleep in the middle of doing something. Like when you’re driving down the road and all of a sudden you open your eyes, suddenly realizing you had fallen asleep, and loud music, cold air from the window, or slapping yourself could not keep you from falling asleep.  I hope you pull over and take a quick power nap when it happens!  But I want to talk about that sort of experience from that very first Easter week.

On the night in which He was betrayed, Our Savior ate the Passover meal with the Twelve, instituted the Sacrament, and then went out to the Mount of Olives, to a place now revered as the Garden of Gethsemane.  He left eight of the twelve near the entrance, and took Peter, James and John further into the Garden.  Then he asked them to pray that they would not enter into temptation, and also that they would watch with Him.  With this instruction given he went further into the Garden. 

We know what happened, he prayed, being “exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death” (Matt. 26:38), so much so, that He would plead that the “cup pass from [Him]” (Matt. 26:39).  After the space of an hour He went back to the three Apostles and “findeth them asleep” and asked them why they couldn’t stay up for only an hour and watch with Him.  This happened two more times that Christ, while bearing all the “pains and sicknesses of his people” (Alma 7:11), would come back to find these, His close friends and the chosen leaders of His Church, sleeping “on the job”, so to speak.

Now I’m gonna say something, if Christ asked you to do something, would you?  If He asked you to stand on your head for an hour, by golly, you’d be doing all you could to stand on your head for 60 minutes straight!  I point this out only to illustrate that I don’t believe it was lack of determination that led to the Apostles falling asleep.  I believe they stayed awake as long as they physically could.  They may have stayed awake for 55 minutes, we don’t know.  What we do know is that they were sleeping when the Savior came back to them. 

We all know the story.  We may even look at them sometimes as we read and say, “Geez Peter, couldn’t you stay awake??  Drink a Red Bull! Take a 5-Hour Energy! Run around the edge of the Garden!  DO SOMETHING!!! But don’t fall asleep, crimeny, Christ asked you to stay awake!”  But I pose this question to you:

Why is this experience included in the scriptural account of all four Gospels (albeit very briefly in St. John)?

I invite you to ponder this question, and I will share with you my opinion later on today or early Easter morning.

Photo courtesy of Lyn Gately, Some Rights Reserved