Mark 14:32-42

A book could be written about this passage. It links back to the Old Testament and forward to our lives.  There's a startling Revelation in this passage.

Within a few hours Peter is going to fail in the most remarkable and appalling way. We have heard the story of Peter's denial and subsequent restoration so often that we lose sight of how momentous it was. It was momentous and wicked on par with the betrayal of Judas. In this moment Judas and Peter are at parity. They act from different motives and while one is calculated and the other impetuous they were both in the moment spiritual traitors.

But in Peter we see that the moment of obvious failure was not the crucial moment. In verse 38, Jesus calls the three to do two things that, if done these three will not come into temptation. "Keep watching, keep praying so you do not enter into temptation." If we look at this in reverse it is apparent that we enter into temptation as result of the failure to keep watching and praying.

Peter failed at his moment of temptation because while his flesh was willing, even so bold that he would take up arms, his spirit was weak and what he faced was not a physical but a spiritual battle. Peter's failure in the moment of temptation was not in that moment alone. It was the whole moment that went back to the failure to pray and watch.  Like toxins poured into a creek affect not just the local water but also the whole downstream, the failure to watch and pray in the moment impacts all the moments to come.

Select whatever sin or vice you will and we can see the pattern (Galatians 5:19-21 will provide an adequate example). When we are in the midst of the sinful behavior we are there because we failed to pray about our weaknesses and vulnerability. We know our weaknesses we just don’t want to admit them to God, others or ourselves. We also fail to watch. We did not suddenly end up in a fit of rage, in the inner burning of envy, or staring at a screen filled with pornography. There were little steps, little compromises, little triggers, and emotional clues of where we were going. But we refuse to watch for them and we didn't pray about them.

We do not suddenly find ourselves in a hate-filled outburst of anger or drunken carousing or in an adulterous bed. We say “I can't help it” or “it just happened”, neither of which is true. No, our failure reaches much further back. We did not pray about our weakness and we did not watch for the little moments of temptation leading us down to sin. Peter's denial was the expression of the failure of the garden’s time of prayer.