And He cometh to His disciples and findeth them asleep. And He saith to Peter: "Simon, sleepest thou? What! Couldst thou, could you, not watch one hour with Me? Watch ye and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." - Matthew 26:40,41; Mark 14:37,38
1. The affection and the tender feeling seen in Our Lord's coming back to His disciples in the midst of His agony is a touch of human nature that is surely not surpassed in the whole Bible. "I looked for one that would weep together with Me, and there was none; for one that would comfort Me, and I found none." He went, not so much for their sakes as for His own. It was a perfect act of friend ship. He was sharing the burthen of man. He looked for man to share His burthen in return, if only by compassion. Who, then, shall say after this that to seek relief in distress from those from whom true friendship gives us the right to seek it is a weakness? Or if it is a weakness, then it is one not inconsistent with the perfect imitation of Our Lord. "A brother helped by a brother is like a strong city"; and of the two, there is rather too little mutual support in this world than too much. Let us not, then, too easily condemn it; for "as often as you do it to the least, you do it to Me."
2. But though to seek comfort when in need and to find it is a perfect thing, to seek it and not to find it may be the occasion of still greater perfection. And this was the lot of Our Lord on this terrible night. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not," is Saint John's summary of Our Lord's life; when he wrote those words, had he in his mind that night when he himself slept at the gate of the Garden? His own had no comfort for Him. But He was not angered; He was only disappointed only disappointed! as He had been many a time before, as He has been many a time since. And His disappointment did not harden Him against them; it only made Him feel for them the more. He did not think of His own loss; He thought only of what they were losing. So it is with true friendship; if we are truly another's friend, and he hurts us, we are sorry more for him than for ourselves.
3. This is the first suffering of the Passion, the neglect of His own, and we may well ask ourselves whether it has not been put first with a special object. In His lifetime the neglect of men was the only thing of which He complained; since His leaving this world we may safely say that nothing else has given Him more to endure. For those who know no better there is excuse enough; for His enemies there is separate treatment; but for His own, for those who have accepted His livery in Baptism, who have been fed upon His Body and Blood, who have been sanctified at every fresh turning of their lives by the sacraments, who look for His welcome at the hour of death, who appreciate all or much of the wonderful things He has done for them during life for how many of these does Our Lord's rebuke hold good: "Sleepest thou?" Do you not care? "Could you not watch one hour?" Is My company, even for an hour at a time, too much? "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." If you will not help yourselves, I cannot help you. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." With out Me you can do nothing; with Me there is nothing you cannot do.
Summary
1. Our Lord was a true friend, in weakness as well as in strength.
2. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not."
3. And the same is still too true today.
- from The Crown of Sorrow, by Archbishop Alban Goodier