Welcome,
Friend.
Thank you for joining me for the gift of sacred rest,
The Lenten season,
Holy Week.
I'm Tanya Murphy of Rest in His Presence.
We are in the most sacred days of the Christian year,
Holy Week.
Whatever this week holds for you personally,
I want to invite you to set it aside for a moment.
Not because it doesn't matter,
But because we are being invited somewhere very specific.
Take a breath.
Slow.
Intentional.
And again.
Let this breath be an act of accompaniment.
Choosing to stay.
To be present.
To not rush forward.
Our scripture comes from the Garden of Gethsemane,
The night before everything.
Jesus is in agony,
And he turns to his disciples with one request.
Remain here and stay awake with me.
Matthew 26 and 38.
Hear the weight in those words.
Jesus knows what is coming.
He prays with sweat like drops of blood.
He asks if it is possible for this cup to pass from him.
And then he walks back to his disciples and finds them asleep.
Three times he returns to prayer.
Three times he returns to them.
And each time,
They are asleep.
We don't tend to judge the disciples for this.
We understand it.
When things become too hard to witness,
We find ways to drift.
We escape into distraction,
Productivity,
Numbing.
Anything that keeps us from having to sit with what is painful and unresolved.
But Holy Week is an invitation to do something radically different.
To remain,
Not to rush towards resurrection before we've allowed ourselves to feel the weight of what precedes it.
To stay present with Christ in love,
In sorrow,
In the sacred space of sacrifice.
Sacred rest this week doesn't look like ease.
It looks like accompaniment.
It looks like the courage to stay when every instinct says run.
Because here's the truth.
The disciples who stayed awake with Jesus that night,
Who watched,
Who witnessed,
Who sat with him in his darkest hour.
They became the people who would carry the resurrection forward.
Presence in the darkness is preparation for the dawn.
Let's return to his words.
Let them become his words to you right now.
Remain here and stay awake with me.
I want to invite you into an imaginative prayer.
A simple act of spiritual accompaniment.
Close your eyes if you're comfortable doing so.
And simply imagine sitting near Jesus.
Not in a theological sense,
In a human one.
In a garden,
At night,
In the stillness.
You don't need to say anything.
You don't need to pray the right prayer or feel the right feeling.
Simply stay.
Notice what it feels like to choose presence over escape.
To resist the urge to fix or hurry or look away.
What does it mean to you to stay with Jesus in this moment?
What is it costing you?
What is it giving you?
Remain here and stay awake with me.
As we close,
Sit with this question.
Where is God asking you to stay rather than escape?
In your life right now,
What are you tempted to rush past?
What is asking for your presence instead of your avoidance?
Sometimes the holiest thing we can do is simply remain.
One last breath.
Let it be slow and full.
Have you practiced presence today?
In a world that rewards escape,
That is a sacred act.
As you move through the remainder of Holy Week,
I invite you to keep returning to this practice.
Stay,
Sit,
Accompany,
Witness.
The resurrection is coming,
But don't miss the garden.
Don't miss the love that was willing to remain in suffering for you.
Stay close.
He is near.
Now go gently,
Friend.
May goodness and mercy follow you.
