Sitting in God’s presence

Matthew 26:36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”

I heard the story of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighbourhood from a new perspective. He went down to the local army surplus store one morning and bought forty-five used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled balloons. He took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.

Walters, who assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off guard when the chair soared more than 11,000 feet into the sky -- smack into the middle of the air traffic pattern at the International Airport. Too frightened to shoot any of the balloons, he stayed airborne for more than two hours, forcing the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon, causing long delays in flights from across the country.

Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions:
"Where you scared?"
"Yes."
"Would you do it again?"
"No."
"Why did you do it?"
"Because," he said, "you can't just sit there."

But here in our reading, Jesus Instruction, to the disciple is simply, “Sit down here while I go over there and while I pray.” Maybe there is a lesson about prayer here, that we are to sit in the  presence of Jesus who intercedes on our behalf.

What was it James Montgomery  wrote?

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

uttered or unexpressed;

the motion of a hidden fire

that trembles in the breast.

Nor prayer is made on earth alone:

the Holy Spirit pleads,

and Jesus on the eternal throne

for sinners intercedes.

Maybe just to sit and pray the words of a good place to start.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

forgive our foolish ways;

reclothe us in our rightful mind,

in purer lives thy service find,

in deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard

beside the Syrian sea

the gracious calling of the Lord,

let us, like them, without a word

rise up and follow thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee,

O calm of hills above,

where Jesus knelt to share with thee

the silence of eternity,

interpreted by love!

Drop thy still dews of quietness,

till all our strivings cease;

take from our souls the strain and stress,

and let our ordered lives confess

the beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire

thy coolness and thy balm;

let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

speak through the earthquake, wind and fire

O still small voice of calm