There is nothing in our lives that the Lord Himself didn't to encounter in His time on earth. In Hebrews, Paul says that we do not have a high priest who is not capable of understanding our problems and who was in all points tempted. One of the most difficult things to overcome in life is betrayal. It is so bitter that we even have difficulty talking about it. It is difficult to move on when someone that we trust, love, or otherwise had faith in, lets us down. Betrayal can breed bitterness that will linger for a long time; especially if the betrayal is at the hands of someone who is close. We naturally question: “Why did it happen”
In our text, Jesus is at the end of His earthly ministry and He is in the garden of Gethsemane. The Lord is surrounded by the people closest to Him and in whom He had invested much time, effort and love. He has one request: Wait while I go pray. When He returns, Jesus finds these trusted men asleep. The anguish in His words jump off the page as he asks: “Could you not watch with me for an hour?” When He needed them the most, they had let Him down. Twice more he comes back to find them asleep. In this text, Jesus teaches one of the most powerful principles of life: None of us will get through life without being betrayed; without being hurt. And those that we love and trust the most will betray us. Many of us will blame ourselves for this betrayal. Jesus did not spend any time searching Himself for failings. Jesus teaches us in this story how to deal with disloyalty.
The first thing that He said that is not a justification of their failure, but an explanation: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He made allowances for their humanity. By saying this, He was forgiving them for that shortcoming. That is the first step that anyone who wants to overcome disloyalty: The power of forgiveness. When we forgive, we don’t let them go. What we are really letting go is ourselves. Forgiveness is a way of releasing toxic things from our life.
The second thing that Bro. Hughes observes is that Jesus did not let their disloyalty disturb His purpose and His future. When He came back the third time He said: “Sleep on” and continued on His way. He did not throw up His hands and quit. Their failure did not limit His future.
Jesus was not going to allow bitterness to tie him to that night. There are far too many people that are tied to some point in time by bitterness. They are never able to get past something that happened in the past and are never able to grown and become what God wants them to be.
The last thing Jesus did in the midst of their disloyalty, was find a budding future. He said: “Rise, let us be going.” Betrayal is not the end, but the beginning. There is life beyond this midnight, this pain, and this sorrow. There is life beyond this hurt.
We cannot allow a betrayal to limit our life.