James Nisbet Commentary - Mark 14:37 - 14:37

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James Nisbet Commentary - Mark 14:37 - 14:37


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SPIRITUAL SLEEP

‘Simon, sleepest thou?’

Mar_14:37

There is a strange pathos in these words. They were spoken by a Friend to His friend; by a Friend in trouble such as man never knew, to a friend for whom (amongst others) that trouble was being endured. The sleep described was bodily sleep. But it is no fancy which sees in that slumber a type as well as a fact. The Word of God has consecrated the figures of sleep and waking to certain opposite states of the soul and spirit. Sleep and waking, in the things of the soul; we have all known one of those—God grant that we may all have experience also of the other!

I. What is sleep, when transferred from a bodily sense to a spiritual?

(a) Sleep is inactivity. The soul’s activity is intercourse with its God: a soul that cannot speak to God, and commune with God, and rest upon God, and ask blessings and receive answers from God, and do work for God—work of which the part that is seen is the least part—such a soul is inactive, such a soul is sleeping. So judged, what soul is awake?

(b) Sleep is unconsciousness. But that which is a blessing in regard to things of this life is an evil as concerns the soul. If the soul sleeps the sleep of unconsciousness, it sleeps the sleep not of soothing, but of death.

II. ‘Simon, sleepest thou?’—The words are words of remonstrance. Canst thou be sleeping? Thou sleeping? There are three things in the question.

(a) Thou, so favoured?

(b) Thou, in the very sight of a Saviour suffering?

(c) Thou, in the very crisis of temptation.

III. Learn three lessons.

(a) Some are asleep and know it not. How shall we know it? By this sign. What is God to us? Do we love to have Him with us?

(b) Jesus Christ cares whether we sleep or wake. We are not left unnoticed, we are not overlooked, not put aside, in this great world of busy, bustling, suffering men!

(c) The punishment of sleeping is sleeping on. Simon, sleepest thou? and again the second time, Simon, sleepest thou? and yet again the third time, Simon, sleepest thou? Then sleep on now, and take thy rest. The opportunity of watching is gone: ‘Lo, he is at hand that doth betray Me!’

—
Dean Vaughan.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

SLEEPEST THOU!

I. A well-merited rebuke.—Take this sleeping in connection with the manifold previous warnings and teachings, and is it not well merited? ‘Simon sleepest thou?’ Let us beware of over-confidence in ourselves.

II. A timely warning.—‘Watch ye and pray.’ How timely let the speedy result show. But warnings are unheeded.

III. A merciful limitation.—‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ He who made this limitation (a) ‘knoweth our frame’; (b) will hereafter be our just but merciful Judge.

Illustrations

‘The night is dark—behold, the shade was deeper

In the still garden of Gethsemane,

When that calm Voice awoke the weary sleeper,

“Couldst not thou watch one hour alone with Me?” ’



WAKEFULNESS

‘Couldest not thou watch one hour?’

Mar_14:37

‘This story has no special meaning for my particular trouble of sleeplessness; in fact, my trouble is just the opposite to that of the disciples. I cannot sleep: they could not keep awake. How, then, does the story—how do the words of the text—appeal to me?’ So some say.

I. There is a special application.—Forgoing the sleep which nature demands is sometimes a difficult thing, and sometimes a painful one. In the case of the disciples it was difficult; in your case it is painful. But if Jesus could appeal to the disciples to watch with Him in spite of the difficulty, surely He can appeal to you to do so in spite of the pain. If the Cross, which forms the test of discipleship, is laid upon you in this particular form, and that not for one hour only, but for weary night after weary night, do not refuse it; do not chafe under it and bear it grudgingly and impatiently, simply because you have to; take it up, and carry it after your Master.

II. ‘He giveth His beloved sleep.’—Perhaps your doing so may result in its being removed sooner, for, though I do not say that it is so with you, I am sure many people suffer in this way more than they need through the unhappy manner they have of bearing this burden. What I mean is that if, as the natural time for sleep draws near, you habitually begin to toss and fret and say, ‘You quite believe you are going to have another sleepless night tonight,’ and so on, you have gone some way towards ensuring the fulfilment of your prediction; whereas, if you thought to yourself, ‘Well, I am in God’s hands whether I sleep or wake. “He giveth His beloved sleep,” if He sees well to do so; but sometimes He bids them rather watch with Him. Let Him choose for me, while I trust myself quietly in His hands,’ you have done a good deal to secure that calm frame of mind which makes sleep more probable.

III. Remember your blessings.—When the weariness of the long, wakeful hours oppresses you, just picture yourself alone on some bleak moor, utterly weary, suffering intensely from cold, with many miles between you and the nearest possible place of rest and shelter, and a driving rain or snow and piercing wind to add to your misery. How, in such a position, you would envy the people who were lying awake in bed! ‘Ah!’ you would think, ‘I would not mind about sleeping, if only I could be there.’ Why, the condition which you now find it so difficult to support cheerfully would then appear to you to be the perfection of comfort. And should not this have an effect upon your gratitude to the good Father Who has at least provided you with so many things favourable to your comfort, which you are apt to overlook because He withholds one thing?

IV. This watching, to which you have for a time been called, may be made very truly a watching with the Saviour. For not only does it give you a great opportunity of communing with Him and drawing nearer to Him personally, but it may also be made the occasion of prayer for His sufferers, His tempted and sinning ones, His workers, which may have a far more potent influence in the fulfilment of His blessed will than in our present state we can at all comprehend. Think of yourself as a member of a great brotherhood of sleepless and suffering ones, and pray for them all.

Rev. R. L. Bellamy.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

UNDER THE OLIVES

I. Here is loneliness.—‘Couldest thou not watch one hour?’ Friendship is the sweet bond of love, and Christ bitterly felt the desertion.

II. Here is restlessness.—It was the restlessness of great sorrow. Any one who has had any great sorrow knows only too well what this restlessness means. Yet we know only a part. We know what human sorrow is, and we can understand what we have ourselves experienced. But Christ’s was a Divine Sorrow which is too deep and too high for us to enter into.

III. Here is resignation.—‘Not what I will, but what Thou wilt,’ turned the desert into Paradise, and made Gethsemane the gate of heaven.

IV. Here is the ministering angel (Luk_22:43).—Every Christian life has its Gethsemane. Each one of us must surrender his will to God. But every Gethsemane has its angel.

Rev. F. Harper.

Illustration

‘Ever when tempted, make me see,

Beneath the olive’s moon-pierced shade,

My God, alone, outstretched, and bruised,

And bleeding, on the earth He made.

And make me feel it was my sin,

As though no other sins were there,

That was to Him Who bears the world

A load that He could scarcely bear!’