Before I ever arrive at my local church for worship I have typically preached in the local jail at least a couple of times. To make it to my worship service on time, I have to get to the facility a bit early and roll up and down through the bunks, yelling, “Church call!”
Some make it up. Most don’t. But for those who do, it is always a rich time of fellowship, preaching of the Word, and, on first Sundays, sharing a time of communion. Last Sunday, being a first in the month, communion was served, and with Holy Week beginning to loom, I decided to explain the Lord’s Supper, taking them back to the final plague in Egypt that set the Hebrews free from Egyptian tyranny.
As the faithful recall, the Angel of Death “passed over” all homes with blood on the entrance to their homes. Israelite homes were spared their first-borns from dying while Egyptian homes with their blood-less doorways found the sons dying all over the land, including in Pharoah’s palace. The leader bid his enslaved adieu.
From that year on the Hebrews were to celebrate that moment of liberty with a meal. And it is this meal that Jesus was celebrating with his disciples when He said words that had never been uttered in the millions of Passover meals among the Israelites prior to that point: “This is my Body…This the blood of the New Covenant”…
All of this is news to the prisoners, of course, but as the “Supper” was explained they found it hard to concentrate. One of the guys who didn’t wake up for the service but who’s bed was about twenty yards away was…snoring. Loudly. Impressively, really.
It dawned on me (and, yes, I said this to the guys), how easy it was to snore through the night centuries before in Egypt only to find your eldest son dead the next morning if the blood challenge wasn’t heard or heeded. And many, all across the country that Sunday morning, would snore through church services and communion observances and wake up…spiritually dead.
I am reminded that one of John Wesley’s most memorable sermons was on that line in Ephesians: “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14). It was quite the humdinger of a sermon that awakened the crowd significantly – in ire! Wesley used the text to point out the spiritual lethargy of students, clergy, and faculty gathered that day at Oxford. The crowd awakened enough to significantly shut the doors of Anglicanism to the speaking gifts of Wesley, but through field preaching and organization in the decades ahead, the many in the nation did indeed quit their proverbial snoring.
Sleeping plays quite a role in historical narrative, fiction and otherwise. Rip Van Winkle famously slept through the American Revolution. Sleeping Beauty slept cluelessly until awakened with a kiss. Hessian forces slept through Washington’s crossing of the Delaware.
Biblically – Jonah slept soundly below as the sailors wrestled with a storm above. As Paul droned on, Eutychus slept and fell to his death before being awakened by the man who put him asleep. Jesus tells the parable of ten virgins who fell asleep and found themselves quite unprepared for the bridegroom when he came. In the time of deepest turmoil, Jesus asked His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Could you not watch with me one hour?” The answer was no; dreams held them captive.
To be fair, of course, sleep is not all bad. Indeed, the Psalmist says that “He gives His beloved sleep.” But as good as sleep can be, and often is scripturally, eyes wide open is a great way to approach Easter. God is doing amazing things in our world today, but we can miss His working when we slumber during the times He is doing His most notable, life-impacting miracles.
Matt Friedeman
