Gethsemane
There’s a gospel story that I’d miss if it wasn’t there. I’m thinking of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. The story shows Jesus flinching at the prospect of the cross, while the disciples slept. My prayer is often like Jesus’ prayer; a struggle between my will and God’s. “Father”, Jesus prays, “if it is possible, let this cup pass me by; yet not what I want, but what you want.” This story reverses Matthew’s story about a storm on lake Galilee. In Matthew’s storm story, it’s Jesus who sleeps and the disciples who’re awake.
But there’s a problem with the Gethsemane story. If the disciples were asleep, how did they know how Jesus prayed? All they knew was Jesus waking them with the question, “Could you not watch with me one hour?” I have a suggestion how they guessed rightly. When lovers sleep, they often go to bed with the same problem, and their dreams bring them solutions, so that in the morning, they have a new clarity, and a shared purpose. Could the disciples, a little heady after the last supper and their first communion, have dreamt Jesus’ prayer?
Our dreams are often about a struggle. We say our prayers, but we can’t invent our dreams. They come as a nightly gift. ‘As watchmen look for the morning, so do we look for you, O Christ. Come with the dawning of the day, and make yourself known to us in the breaking of bread.’
Fr Stiiv Knowers – Tallinn
9 August 2026
