“Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.”
There is no contradiction. The sense is that the opportunity for watching and praying has passed. They had failed to stay awake during the season when they should have been praying against temptation. Now the betrayer is arriving.
“Sleep on now, and take your rest” is best understood as a solemn, sorrowful statement—almost a rebuke. The Lord is not giving them a long permission to continue sleeping. He is marking the fact that their time to watch with Him is over.
Then He says, “Rise, let us be going,” because Judas and the armed multitude are now at hand. The moment has changed from prayerful waiting to the arrest itself.
So the flow is:
Christ prayed; they slept.
He warned them: “Watch and pray.”
They slept again.
Finally He says, in effect, “The time for your watching is gone; the betrayer is here.”
Then immediately: “Rise, let us be going.”
The lesson is serious: delayed obedience can bring a point where the opportunity is gone. They could still follow Him, but they could no longer recover that lost hour of prayer in Gethsemane.
How useful was this post?
Click on a star to rate it!
Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0
No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.
We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!
Let us improve this post!
Tell us how we can improve this post?

Comments are closed