Yep, those apostles made it tough on us Church sleepers. Ministers keep bringing up the Garden of Gethsemene incident and saying “If you snooze, you loose.” Well, let’s take a look at their proof text in Mark 14:
v.32 They came to a place named Gethsemane: and He said to His disciples, “Sit here until I have prayed.”
v.33 And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled.
v.34 And He said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and watch.”
v.35 And He went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray…
v.37 And He came and found them sleeping and said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep ? Could you not keep watch for one hour?
v.38 Keep watching and praying that you might not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
v.39 Again, He went away and prayed, saying the same words.
v.40 Again, He came and found them sleeping for their eyes were very heavy and they did not know what to answer Him.
v.41 And He came the third time, and said to them. “Are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.
v.42 Get up, let us be going….
In short, according to the Ministers, this means: “Don’t go to sleep in church. You snooze, you loose.”
HarleyDad has a slightly different take on these verses. Here is what I think it means:
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, it is so exciting that you do not need to sleep.
If the Lord tells you to watch, you watch. If he tells you to pray, you pray.
Your fishing buddies don’t sleep if you are in trouble.
Besides all this sleep did not happen in church anyway.
It happened in the presence of the Lord when he expressly told them not to do it.
HarleyDad has been in many a church service when the minister alone was sure that the Spirit of the Lord was moving and everybody else was zonked out of their minds.
Unfortunately some church leaders occasionally get mixed up and think that God is moving in a church, when God is nowhere near, and ruin a perfectly good sleeping opportunity.
HarleyDad has found a wonderful indicator that helps him know what is really going on in a church service-assuming I am conscious. Watch the children. If they are restless or yawning, you might as well “hit the hay.” On the other hand if they are quiet and rapt with attention, watch out something big is going to happen. It is time to sit up straight and get with the program.
God grants his beloved sleep is what the Psalmist said.
There is often a time for everything a time to be awake, a time to sleep.
If nothin’ going on in church, then it is a time to sleep. If the Spirit of God, should per chance show up at a church service, it is time to wake up.
Besides, I have often wondered why churches use pews. However, even as a young boy I found out that they made excellent sleeping surfaces as sermons droned on into the night. When our small church was able to purchase cushions, HarleyBoy thought that he had gone to heaven and slept better than ever during church services. They days, we use padded chairs and it seems that you can not get the rest and relaxation that you could during the good old days.
My sleep ability is so good now that I can knock out during a long T.V. commercial. I wonder if there were a commercial or two during the service, I think I might get to sleep even faster.
HarleyDad
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