When I was in the
Navy everyone took a rotation of standing watch. My station was in the women’s
barracks and I learned to be grateful for the regiment of walking the halls
making bed checks, securing exits and writing logs. Had it not been for the
structured requirements of the job it would have been difficult to stay awake.
Twice at Gethsemane Jesus asked his disciples (Peter James and John) to stay
and keep watch while he went away to pray. Each time he returned he found them
asleep because their eyes were heavy. Without excuse, “They did not know what to say to him.” I think that had they grasped
the duties and responsibilities of keeping watch, they wouldn’t have fallen
asleep. (Mark 14:32-41)
4 comments:
Gail;
-----Jesus knew His arrest was close at hand. I don’t know if we can say He thought He could slip away if His disciples warned Him soon enough about the approaching mob, or whether He intended them to come and get Him to meet His captors. His eventual arrest was inevitable; it was part of God’s design for the world. But Jesus’ faithfulness was to always do as much as He could as long as He could to the best of His ability.
-----After this, being watchful for His return would not be the only awareness exhorted in His disciples. He left us in a world shared with a prowling, deceitful destroyer. That we should go into the world as wise as serpents but as innocent as doves bespeaks the spiritual climate of our worldly abode necessitating great caution. And that the roaring lion seeks to devour means not that our own person being made lunch is the matter’s only caution. For sure, we have responsibility towards individual safety, but we are also called to the mutual aspects of love and concern for whoever else our lives effect. Our watchfulness extends to their interests as well.
-----This is what made the American experiment so great. It was cut out of the same spiritual fabric - wisdom of serpents and innocence of doves in a world of wolves, responsible individuals having each other’s backs. Across the Atlantic, another rebellion against the despotism of a different king slid into the abyss of the deceitful lion, beheading tens of thousands of their own. Fearing the wolves and having the serpent’s wisdom they took each other’s necks, forgetting that the dove’s innocence was precautionary to their not becoming wolves. But here, in rebelling for our freedom, those who fought the wolves watched carefully knowing that innocence amidst the struggle could be had only by humility before the Lord. For we are only a sour howl away from being wolves ourselves.
-----In the freedom they won they instituted an educational system to teach the people to read so they could learn the Bible and know their God to not become the wolf. They founded university’s towards the same end in higher education, Harvard, Yale, Princeton - The Ivy League. They knew the Constitution of this land would serve only an upright and moral people - watchers.
-----But evidently eyes grow dim, snakes are slyer, and the prowling lion knows to play sleepy individuals against their generations. Weary eyes have allowed our freedoms for peacefully knowing and relating with Christ to be piled one at a time upon that same sled Robespierre steered into the abyss. And we are just a final push-off away from their same fate. It isn’t that America was God’s only people, or her churches were His only churches. It is just that for a time we were innocent and wary, then we weren’t.
-----Yet, His plan is not for a land of people to rise up and defeat the prowler. It is for the people of that land to just be watchful, wise, and innocent, doing as much as they can, as long as they can, the best they can until He defeats the destroyer and gives rest to all of His own.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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Love;
Steve
Term Papers,
Glad to have you join in the discussion.
Gail
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