Rise and Pray
A Holy Week Homily
Luke 22:46, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you enter not into temptation.”
There are various climactic moments in Scripture and this, just before Jesus was arrested, is one of them. Jesus was in the garden in deep, agonized prayer, and His disciples were asleep. They had no idea what was about to happen, and they were overcome with slumber. In Luke’s reckoning, these are Jesus’ final words to the disciples as a group before He was arrested.
When Jesus was to face His greatest test, they slept. His words were not those of complaint, but to warn them of the danger when we forgo prayer: that of temptation. Our sleep lulls us into stupor and we neglect our call to be sober and vigilant, as our adversary the devil prowls as a roaring lion, seeking to devour the sluggish.
Jesus’ warning is about more than physical sleep. We are tranquilized by our peaceful existence. The disciples saw no immediate threat to themselves. But we are under constant assault. As long as we live, the enemy seeks to consume us. Not only that, our neighbors, our physical, and our church family need our wakefulness also.
Jesus didn’t call His disciples to rise and fight, or attack the temptations and trials but rise and pray. Be aware of our brothers’ and sisters’ burdens. Don’t presume that you are above temptation, and don’t isolate yourselves from the allurements or evils that surround us. Jesus’s final warning before His death is that we stand and combat them through active prayer.
This requires that we be humble enough to acknowledge our blindness, and sacrifice my own wants and preferences to uphold those around me. Jesus modeled the very behavior He calls for in His disciples. We hear part of His garden prayer in John 17 where He prays for His present disciples and those who would follow Him in the future.
If we desire to protect, strengthen, and build the body of Christ, we must begin by rising from our own secluded slumber and praying in the time of temptation. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.