Good morning…
Since the evening my spiritual mentor texted me this poem, I have been prayerfully pondering, ‘What might these words mean for me?”
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Gethsemane: A Poem By Mary Oliver
The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.
The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.
Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did,
maybe the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move, maybe
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.
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Here you and I see ourselves in this poetic picture. We are so utterly human. With our dear bodies drained of our own willpower, slumped and eye-shut, we simply can’t wait with Jesus wild awake. Knowing this too must be part of our story.
The Spirit now draws me to a book I love, David Benner’s The Gift of Being Yourself. I flip to page 16, a dog-eared page, profusely underlined.
“In all of creation, identity is a challenge only for humans. A tulip knows exactly what it is. It is never tempted by false ways of being. Nor does it face complicated decisions in the process of becoming. So it is with dogs, rocks, trees, stars, amoebas, electrons and all other things. All give glory to God by being exactly what they are.”
I look up at Mary’s poem and add to this list of wild awake things: grass, roses, lilies, winding wind, singing crickets and still lakes far away. All give glory to God by being exactly what they are.
“For in being what God means them to be, they are obeying him,” adds Benner. “Humans, however, encounter a more challenging existence. We think. We consider options. We decide. We act. We doubt.”
We fall asleep on Jesus.
Later, he came back to his three disciples and found them all sound asleep. He awakened Peter and said to him, “Could you not stay awake with me for even one hour? Keep alert and pray… Your spirit is eager enough, but your humanity is weak.” (Matthew 26:40-41, TPT). The footnote here says, “The Aramaic is ‘the flesh is failing.'”
All of us can feel when our drowsy flesh is failing. Our spirit is eager enough, but our humanity is weak. Dozing off at the end of ourselves, when the moment is right Jesus gently taps us on the shoulder and awakens us from sleep. But when the Spirit of Christ empowers your life, you are not dominated by the flesh but by the Spirit… Now Christ lives his life in you! And even though your body may be dead because of the effects of sin, his life-giving Spirit imparts life to you because you are fully accepted by God. Yes, God raised Jesus to life! And since God’s Spirit of Resurrection lives in you, he will also raise your dying body to life by the same Spirit that breathes life into you! (Romans 8:9-11, TPT).
We simply can’t keep ourselves awake or rouse ourselves from sleep. Resting in our human weakness, Christ’s life-giving Spirit imparts to us life because we are fully accepted by God. As God’s Spirit of Resurrection lives in us, we spend more and more of our everyday moments waiting with Jesus wild awake, giving God glory by being exactly who we are.
This Holy Week sums up in a nutshell our process of waking up whole: My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20, NLT). Each of us being so utterly human must be an essential part of God’s wild, saving story.
…Sue…
