I Did Not Sleep. And Nor Should You!

Luke 22:39-46 John 13

Andrew, disciple of Jesus.  Not usually given to speaking out.

But you see,  I was actually present in Gethsemane on this night and I’d like to put the record straight, night and tell you quite categorically…we were not sleeping.

We were only pretending to sleep.

It was simply because we could not take any more. We could not face the agony of our friend Jesus in that garden. We did not want to open our eyes to the fact that everything was spiralling out of control.

I remember opening one eye just a fraction as he stood over us.

Exasperated and disappointed that at his hour of need, we as good as turned our backs on him.

And there was Matthew’s face right up next to mine – your patron saint I believe – his eyes wide open, big and blue and full of fear.

There was not one betrayer that night. There were twelve of us and we knew it.

Quivering together in the darkness, none of us sure what was going to happen next, but each of us convinced of one thing, it would be bad and it would be dark.

The events of earlier in the evening were already going round and round in my mind, the sort of thing that happens when you can’t sleep, and  a short distance away the saviour we thought was invincible, just cried like a baby.

Even a few hours ago it had been so different. We sat at table with him in the Upper Room.

We had expected the Passover, but when Jesus took the bread and wine in his hands on that night, he made of it something new.

He was always doing that you see – making something new out of anything old, making brightness out of darkness, making big out of little,  every step of the way,  until Gethsemane.

It was like the way he had taken the loaves in front of the crowd of five thousand, just after I had stepped forward and offered that little boy’s lunch and he made a whole meal of it.

Now he was doing that with his own body and blood, not to feed five thousand, but every man, woman and child who had ever lived.

I remember the way he picked up bread, both with the five thousand and now with the twelve.

Taking. Blessing. Breaking . Giving and then sharing.

And I realised that’s exactly what he had done with my own life. He’d made a Eucharist of it!.

 Taking me from being a fisherman. Blessing me for what I was, warts and all,  and still am! but then breaking me wide open so that God could give me of himself so that I could share that, um..what would you call it, um grace! … with others.

I could not sleep. Not for one moment. Not with trying to come to terms with all of that. And now I think that it means that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re feeling like, whenever we pick uo bread in the Jesus way , - it’s like the love of God reaching out to you in just the same way. He gives it to you, to make a blessing of it in your own life.

Do you remember the one other moment when I, Andrew opened my mouth in the Gospel?

I went running off to my brother Simon, as we called him then, shouting the odds down the street, banging on his front door, yelling from the top of my voice that I’d found the Messiah

And I brought my brother to Jesus. That was a good day’s work! He took my brother and did the same with him Blessed him, broke him, so that he could give of himself and share of that grace, in his own life too.

Now on top of all this, it was during that meal that Jesus got up with the basin and the towel and began, one by one, to wash our feet.

It was an extraordinary thing to be doing.

The task of a servant. Certainly not something we expected of Jesus.

But he was at it again, you see.

He took a tradition, Something we thought we were comfortable with and made it new.

Bread. Wine .and now feet.  It all hangs together really.

I don’t mind being thought of as a servant. It’s how I expected things to be – what I find so hard is when he assumes the servant mantle and ministers to me.

When he says, look, all I ever wanted you to do was sit there and let me love you.

Stop all your talking. Stop moving about. Let me wash you, like a baptism all over again.

In the garden though, he did absolutely nothing.

He just let them come and take him. No resistance. No miracle.

Imagine seeing your God being bundled into the back of an unmarked van and being driven off by thugs.

We weren’t even pretending to sleep by this point, we just ran for our lives.

It’s only now that I’m beginning to come to terms with a love like that.

A love that allows itself to be abused, to have it taken from you and then thrown back in your face.

This world says that’s just weakness, but I’ve come to see that its stronger than strong.

Whatever you do, however far you stray, I will go on loving you.

That’s what he’s saying through this.

Your eyelids are beginning to look heavy. I can tell.

Please don’t sleep, either in pretence or out of exhaustion.

Stay with this story. Go with your saviour in a way I never had the courage to do.

The way he broke bread. The way he washed feet. The way he allowed himself to be just taken.

This is love, and every action that follows from here on in to Calvary, is infused with love.

Making of this night at last, not a sad tale of defeat, but even now, if you keep your eyes open.

Twinklings of glory.

RH 1.4.10