Day 27

And He came to the Disciples and found them sleeping; and He said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:40-41 (From the Gospel of the Vesperal Liturgy on Holy Thursday Morning)

It has been said that in all of the arts: books, theater, movies etc., every story can be broken down to one idea: the battle between good and evil. Sometimes it may not be as obvious as the Avengers against Thanos, but that central theme is always there.

The account of the Passion of Christ is the classic battle of good against evil. For much of the Passion, we see evil winning. Today’s gospel passage gives us an example of that. Jesus asks three of His Disciples to watch with Him while He prays, but they cannot, they fall asleep.

This battle of good versus evil is one that goes on in us as Christians every single day. You know this battle. “I’m really too tired to pray”, “I need a day off from Church”, “I can’t forgive them because of what they did to me.” I’m going to guess that any or all these things you have said to yourself at one time or another.

We have talked a lot about what Jesus taught in these reflections. We have learned that we are called to love God and love one another. Now, if we look at those three statements above with the idea of love, we can see how they just don’t really fit with the teachings of Jesus.

Fr. Stavros recounts an old Indian story about two wolves inside of us, one good, one evil that battle within us. It is said that they wolf that is you feed is the one that will win.

Our spiritual life must be fed, it must be fed daily. We cannot simply give it “lip service”. We must feed it by our actions: Prayers, fasting, treatment of others, worship. These things allow our spiritual life, our relationship with God, to grow and thrive. But we must DO THEM. We can’t simply try. Fr. Stavros quotes a line from a Star Wars movie where Yoda says to a young Luke Skywalker: “Do, or not do. There is no try”

As we have talked about, we find ourselves in a difficult and unique situation in the world today. Perhaps now more than ever we need to do. We need to pray. We need to fast. We need to worship (yes, we worship differently right now). We need to watch our treatment of others.

One of the most powerful and beautiful things about the Church is that is provides us with support. Jesus asked the Disciples to support Him while he prayed but they fell asleep. Let us not sleep on one another right now. Be a part of the live streamed services, exchanging greetings and encouraging words with each other. Have you children participate in the teleconferencing Church School. But most of all, stay in touch. Reach out through social media. Give support to one another. WATCH WITH EACH OTHER through this crisis.

In Christ