Have you ever paused to think about all the things God does while we sleep? The Bible is full of examples of dreams and visions that come to people while they’re in their beds. From Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph to the prophets like Isaiah and Joel; and then of course, in the new testament we have Joseph and the magi starting us off with instructions and warnings in their dreams too.

And the disciples. More than once, they’re fighting sleep in the worst possible moments. Let’s take a look at Luke 4:1-2 though…

About eight days after he had said this, Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up on a mountain to pray. ²⁹ And while he was praying, the appearance of his face underwent a change, and his clothing became dazzling white. ³⁰ Suddenly, there were two men talking with him, Moses and Elijah, ³¹ who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which would come to pass in Jerusalem. ³² Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake they beheld his glory and the two men standing beside him.

I’ve read this passage countless times, but I hadn’t paid much attention before to the fact that the disciples were fighting sleep here. They were dozing. Groggy. Enough asleep that they had to “come fully awake,” but not so deeply that they were completely oblivious to their surroundings. And weren’t they glad?!

Had they been more deeply asleep, they would have missed seeing Christ transfigured. They’d have missed beholding the glory of God. They’d have missed that miraculous appearance of Moses and Elijah.

Later in the Gospels, they are again with Jesus while he’s praying, and this time they are truly asleep. They do miss out–they miss the opportunity to keep watch with their Savior in his most wretched hour. They miss being true friends and brothers in that moment. They earn a rebuke–“Can you not watch even one hour?”

I get it. It’s understandable. They’d just hiked up a mountain…had a big meal after a long day of preparation… They were tired. Worn out. Exhausted. They wanted to stay awake, but their bodies betrayed them. They were tired. So tired.

We’ve all been there. And physically, this is unavoidable. We have physical bodies, and they require rest. God knows that–he designed us that way. He’s used it, time and again, to His purposes and His glory. He does speak through dreams and work on our hearts while our minds are still. He uses that time of rest to restore us.

But here’s the thing: there’s a time for rest. And there’s a time for keeping vigil with Him.

Paul warns us in Philippians that many are living as enemies of Christ. That they’re more concerned with the call of their bodies–what food they’ll eat, what clothes they’ll wear, what earthly glory they’ll achieve–than with the things of God. He tells us that when we make our stomach our god, we’ll ultimately find only destruction. He tells us to focus on the heavenly things, and then we’ll find restoration for these tired and broken bodies.

There is a time for rest. And there is a time for keeping vigil with Him.

My friends, we must all find rest, yes. But we must be careful to find it in Christ. We must be seeking the rest he gives, the kind that we find in communion with Him, not in our own earthly ideas. We must be vigilant, always, in every moment–even while we sleep–seeking and being open to whatever He reveals.

Because if we sleep too deeply in this life, we’ll miss it. We’ll miss his appearances in our lives. We’ll miss his glory revealed. Even when it’s right in front of us.

I know I’ve had times in my life when I felt like I was sleepwalking. Going through the motions but not really aware. So determined to just get through another day that I don’t really see what it brings.

I think we’ve all had (or will have) those times. Times of grief or mourning. Times of illness and pain. Times of anxiety and worry. Times when this is so much, we can’t even think about that.

But know that even when we succumb to that numbness, that oblivion, Jesus is still there. Praying in the garden. Sweating blood on our behalf. Taking on the ultimate pain so we can be spared it. Praying for us.

When we pray in the name of Jesus, that means we’re joining our prayers to his…that means he is praying for us to the Father. Every cry of our hearts, every sleepy murmur, every wordless yearning–our Savior takes that and presents it, pure and as it should have been said, even if we said it wrong, to God.

While we’re sleeping, he’s working. While we’re sleeping, he’s praying. While we’re sleeping, his glory is being made manifest.

And then, my friends…then we have only to open our eyes and see it.

Yesterday was the official start of Lent. Depending on your faith tradition, perhaps you marked it with ashes and fasting…perhaps you took some special time for prayer…perhaps you decided to give something up for the next 40 days, or add something into your faith life…or perhaps you didn’t even realize it was Ash Wednesday and don’t observe Lent.

I grew up in the United Methodist church; we had an Ash Wednesday service, and while it wasn’t obligatory to give up anything for Lent, I usually did as a teen. That tradition got away from me when I had small children, but in recent years I’ve taken to viewing the season of Lent as one meant for contemplation; one meant for dwelling on the sacrifice our Lord made for us and preparing ourselves for it; one meant for emulating through some form of fasting of my own the 40 days He fasted in the wilderness before beginning His public service, in the hopes that it will prepare my heart for the next year of service to Him.

This is the passage I find myself contemplating as a new season of Lent begins:

Yet even now, says the Lord,
    return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.
¹³ Rend your hearts and not your garments,
    and turn back to the Lord, your God.
For he is gracious and merciful,
    slow to anger, rich in kindness,
    and always prepared to relent from punishing.
~Joel 2:12-13

The above-quoted passage from Joel is the liturgical reading for Ash Wednesday, and I think it’s a great one for speaking to the purpose of the season. It isn’t about foregoing chocolate. It isn’t about whether or not you eat meat on Fridays, per se.

It’s about our hearts. It’s about not just looking at the sin around us, but about admitting the sin within us. It’s about ripping those hearts to pieces and laying them before God on the altar.

Rend your hearts.

Rend is a word we don’t use much these days, so it’s easy to just skip right over it, knowing it means “to tear.” But it’s more than that. According to Merriam-Webster, rend means:

This thing we’re called to do to our hearts…it’s not a gentle process. It’s not easy. It’s not a matter of going to a service or jotting down a note to yourself. This rending isn’t about saying, “Oh, right. Sorry, God.”

It’s violent. It’s painful. It’s destructive.
It’s supposed to be.

Why? Because being penitent means breaking apart the stubbornness inside us, cracking open the walls we’ve built around our sin to keep others (or ourselves) from judging us on it. Being penitent means shattering each and every thing that stands between us and God…and then laying those pieces before him as our offering.

This is what God calls us to do. Not just during Lent of course, but all the time. Whenever we become aware of something standing between us. Whenever His Church has stumbled or faltered and made the world leer at God because of us.

Wait, what?

That’s right. When you look at the Old Testament calls to penance, they aren’t just calling the idol-worshipers to repent–they’re calling the faithful to repent too. On behalf of their neighbors, sure, but also for their own sakes. Because we rise and fall together. We sink or swim together. We cannot go merrily about our way and blame everyone else for all the trouble in the world. We need to repent for every word we speak that we shouldn’t, and for every silence we hold when we should speak. We need to repent for every time we judged someone as undeserving of redemption.

The other week in church, the pastor said something that stuck with me. “We are called to judge–yes, we are. We are called to name sin for what it is…and then to judge the sinner as worthy of redemption.”

Do we? Do we look at our enemies and call them “Beloved of God!”? Do we try to turn them toward the truth because we love them and want them to be saved? Or do we just want to stop them?

There are 39 traditional days of fasting between now and the holiest day of the year, when Christ defeated death and the grave and sin. How are we going to spend them?

Are we going to spend those days living for ourselves…or for Him?