Eyes Wide Open: 40-Day Lenten Devotional Sample

Never Hopeless

“Remain here and watch…” - Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:34

It was a dark night both literally and figuratively. Jesus and the disciples remembered the Passover together and he introduced the Lord’s Supper to them. He predicts Peter’s denial, and Peter and the disciples tell Jesus he is being ridiculous; they would never deny him (Matt. 26:35). 

Soon after, Jesus walked out from the upper room with the disciples and withdrew with them to pray. He had withdrawn to pray countless times before but this time was different. 

While he didn’t need to invite the disciples into one of his darkest moments, he did. In Matthew 26 and Mark 14, Jesus brings Peter, James, and John in even closer and says to them, “...remain here, and watch with me.” Jesus invited them to watch WITH him. Yet they didn’t. Even after he told Peter, “You are going to deny me,” they fell asleep.

In this season of Lent, you may be in a dark season or you may be standing on the other side of one. Here, Jesus is our model for the dark. As we watch him in the garden, his eyes are fixed on the Father. Our eyes too can be fixed on the Father in the midst of darkness. Yet maybe like the disciples, because we think it’s not unlike any other day, we sleep.

If we fix our eyes on the Father and walk through the darkness, we see it—hope is there. As we experience the hope that Jesus brings to our darkness, we become proclaimers of this hope. Let us be a people who remain and watch, not only pleading before the throne for hope to come, but proclaiming it to those who are in the dark.

Prayer: Lord, thank you that you walk with us in darkness, never leaving or forsaking us. Help us to similarly come into step with those in darkness to utter the word, “You are never alone.” Amen.

- Written by Erin Kawaye