Please Stay Here and Watch with me....

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. 

There he said to them, ”Sit here while I go and pray.” 

He took Peter and James and John with him. 

Then he began to get very sad.  He said to them,

“The sadness in my heart is so heavy, it’s about to kill me. 

Please stay here and watch with me.”

After going a little farther by himself, Jesus threw himself face down on the ground and prayed.  “My Father,” he said, “if it is possible, take this cup (of suffering) away from me!  But I want you to do what you want, not what I want.”

When Jesus returned to the three disciples, he found them asleep.  He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me one little hour?  You’d better watch and pray so you won’t fall into temptation.  The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

-        Matthew 26:36-41

That is the reading we started our Ash Wednesday with. After this we read about the devil tempting Jesus in the desert.  Matthew 4:1-11

To get us in the mindset of sacrifice we had only crackers and water for breakfast.  We used our new green glasses which made it kind of special.  My 5 year old said, are we having communion?

This is a picture of our summer wreath from last year.  We took a paper sack and removed all the beautiful flowers one by one.  It made us a little sad.  We talked about the sacrifice Jesus made for us and that we would get them out again at Easter.

After we read again about the sins of the world and how scary that would look if we could see them all. I passed around a bowl of toothpicks and we each took out the amount of our age. We talked about our own sins.  We talked about how we were not there when Jesus died for our sins and if we thought we would have been sinners.  We discussed how it is easy to say we won’t sin but how hard it is not to.  Then we took turns confessing some of our sins and putting the toothpicks in the bare wreath.  We read the 10 commandments one by one and talked about how every time we break one it is like putting a thorn in the crown.  This was an excellent visual for all of us and it made us a very sad.  (I will admit, it didn’t go perfectly…  a few of us cast stones at others, before we realized that was causing us even more sin!)

At the end of this exercise some of us still had toothpicks left over.  (Not the 5 year old, he is brutally honest – and a little naughty one sometimes – he got back in the bowl for lots more toothpicks!)

Throughout Lent we will be able to remove thorns as we spend time with God and as we do good deeds around the house and community.  Our goal is that each of us will remove at least one thorn everyday.

I can not help but be reassured by the Holy Spirit…. When my kids are fidgety during something like this…. Or in our other school times….  If the disciples let Jesus down… surely my kids are not going to be perfect…. (I mean those guys were FISHERS OF MEN!)

But over next 40 days… I am going to do my best to stay here with Jesus and be on guard. 

It is the least I can do.