Stay here and watch with Me.
Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me” (Matthew 26:38).
In the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46) Peter, James and John did not see the Lord Jesus in His glory as they had on the Mount of Transfiguration. But they did hear His voice, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” They were present when the weight of the cross bore down on His holy soul.
We see Peter, James and John being taken for the last time by the Lord into His presence as witnesses. The Lord had taken them into a home to witness His power over death. Then He took them up a mountain to see His glory. Now we see them brought into a garden to witness His suffering love. Communion with Christ is not primarily about us wanting to be in the Lord’s presence, but understanding that He wants us to be in His company. In the Garden of Gethsemane, we begin to discover how much it cost the Lord to remove all the distance created by sin and disobedience. Gethsemane takes us back to Eden and to a glorious garden made as a place where God could be close to our first parents. But that garden of nearness became the place where terrible distance, with all its consequences, entered.
The Lord began His ministry in the isolation of a desert where he defeated Satan. At the close of His ministry, He measures sin’s distance in a garden as He faced the isolation of Calvary. He appeals to His disciples with the words, “Stay here and watch with Me.” It is humbling to know that the Lord wanted the presence of His disciples. Peter was so confident of his ability to stand by the Lord, but with James and John, and not for the first time, he fell asleep. It is to Peter that the Lord says with sadness, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is flesh is weak” (vv. 40-41). In Gethsemane, we learn our weakness, but we also witness the power of Christ’s love to His Father and for us. Angels ministered at the Lord’s birth, and in the desert; Luke records the ministry of an angel to the Saviour in the garden (Luke 22:43). At his birth angels rejoiced and shepherds came. In Gethsemane those He loved were there and heaven rendered angelic service. At Calvary He was alone.
In these holy moments, we learn something of the extent of the cost of our salvation and the depth of the love of the Son of God, who said to His Father, “Thy will be done” (v. 42 AV). It is our privilege to come this morning, at His invitation, to stay and look back, with worshipping hearts, to Calvary. And to trace the love that was stronger than death, and seek to respond in boundless gratitude:
O come my soul, and gaze
On that great grief, that crown of thorn:
See there, in deep amaze,
Thy sentence borne.
To Thee, O Saviour Lord,
Who washed in blood our sins away,
Our boundless gratitude
Its thanks would pay.
