Sleeping through the Greatest Class ever

Mark 13:33 Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.
Mark 13:35 Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— 36 lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”

Mark 14:Jesus Prays in Gethsemane
32 And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” 37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 41 And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

I remember the days in high school when I used to invent ways of propping my head up so that I appeared to be awake, but was really fast a sleep. There were many hours where my desire to sleep overtook my NEED to learn. That could be the reason why comma splices and dangling modifiers fill my writings....because English class was the least interesting and where I caught most of my cat-naps.

Most everyone knows about Peter's denial of Christ. I have not heard a lot of talk about the lesson Peter sleeps through before His denial: Make war with your flesh! Jesus is in Gethsemane,and He knows the Spirit vs. Flesh battle that will take place, so He takes the "inner 3" disciples and says y'all come over here and watch. I am going to make war against the flesh. Jesus asks them 3 times to watch and they sleep through it all. All of this just after Jesus teaches them the importance of being on guard and awake bacause you never know when the Son of Man will come in His Glory. He wants them, and us, to be alert to the constant need for warfare against our flesh. Why? Our sin nature blinds our need of Him and overestimates our worthiness.

I hate to theorize, but I can not help but ask to myself what if Peter had been as intentional to Jesus's "warfare lesson" as Jesus was to inviting him? Could Peter have skipped the flat out denials of His Lord? I know Jesus gracefully has used many of my failures to enlarge my urgent need of Him, but even more so, He desires that I passionately desire Him without so many failures. That is where the Cross moves in to full view. The Cross is a symbol of our salvation indeed, but it also the instrument that God uses to put our flesh to death. The same instrument that literally put Jesus of Nazareth to death, is the instument that can surgically remove sin in our daily lives. When Jesus asks us to "pick up our cross and Follow Him", it is a death march of the sin flesh, and a life transforming march of the spirit as we are sanctified into His will and Love.

Peter, James and John might of skipped out on the lesson in Gethsemane, but by God's grace and their faith they learned their lesson like most of us, in the hard knock school of life. They learned to wage war against their flesh through the Cross of Jesus.

As we elevate Jesus in our Hearts and soul and see our greater depth of depravity, the Cross gets bigger and bigger. That will only happen as we follow Christ's lead in allowing the Cross to put our flesh to death.

Are you doing that?