Disciples Watch

You lay there and you slept.
You heeded not that he was kneeling, anguished, on the ground.
Within your dreams you heard the cry “Please take this cup.
Yet, Father, not my will but yours be done,”
and still you slumbered on.
“Come, watch with me,” he’d said;
but love of him was not so strong as need for rest.
And so you slept.

Tonight, he asked me “Stay and watch with me.”
But I, more eager, far, to hear the news
of Ambridge,
heeded not, and switched the radio on.
So small a thing it seemed –
just fifteen minutes of my favourite soap.
Yet, Peter, now I feel as once you must have done.
It was not much he asked –
just fifteen minutes given to comfort him.
My love for him was not so strong as my desire for pleasure.

Now my soul is weeping
for I, too, have failed to watch and pray;
have, in my way, denied my Lord
by thinking trivial tales
of greater worth than he.
In frailty of flesh, dear saint,
we two are one.
Peter, Rock on whom the Lord his church did build,
pray now for me.
And as, at last, you triumphed over things of flesh,
obtain for me a greater faith, a deeper love,
a willingness to sacrifice and to wakeful be.

So, if, or when, the time of trial comes
I, too, may have the courage
to proclaim with you that Jesus is my Lord;
and, if needs be, the grace to give my life
for him who gave his life for me.

Copyright © 1998 Celia Cates, Watermead Publishing Ltd