Deserters
Sometimes you just have to make the most of what you've got.
Peter said to him, "Even though all become deserters, I will not." Jesus said to him, "Truly I tell you, this day, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times." But he said vehemently, "Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you." And all of them said the same. They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake." - Mark 14:29-34
In today's Gospel reading, Jesus is at the end of his journey and he knows the disciples will all desert him when he is crucified.
After being together through his entire ministry, they will run away. Sure, they deny it, saying they will stay to the end, even onto death, but he knows they won't.
Yet he takes them with him anyway and asks them to stay awake while he prays.
He is alone, and yet, he doesn't want to be. He wants his friends to be there with him.
It is kind of like being a member of the family in the waiting room of a hospital while the patient is being operated on. You know you have to be there, and you also know it is going to take a while and it is late and you are tired. But you don't want to fall asleep. Your eyes are so heavy, you find yourself drifting off with them wide open.
This is what the disciples may be feeling. They don't want to disappoint him, and yet they do.
I wonder if they regretted it later. Did they suffer guilt and wish they had been able to stay faithful, to go with him every step of the way?
When he returns to them after the resurrection, he doesn't rub their noses in it. He just accepts them as they are, and I think that is the message for us.
God knows we are human, for he made us that way. And so He is not going to abandon us if we abandon Him.
Try as we might we will never be as good at that as He is, but try we must.
If we learn nothing else from Jesus, we should learn forgiveness.
More to come...