Physician's Diagnosis

A few decades ago, my favorite show was House, MD, in which a diagnostic genius, Dr. Gregory House (played by Hugh Laurie), solved difficult-to-diagnose diseases. Often, he saw symptoms uncaught by regular physicians. Although I didn’t prescribe to his lifestyle, I watched it because it taught the importance of observation, a key to interpretation.

Early church tradition claimed that a “Luke” authored the Gospel and Acts. Paul referred to a “Luke,” calling him a physician — iatros, “one who heals” (Col 4:14). He was from Macedonia, a non-Hebrew, and traveled with Paul since the middle of the second missionary journey. In Luke and Acts, the author pays attention to medical terms that other Gospel writers do not. For example, Peter’s mother-in-law had a high (mega) fever (Luke 4:38), and a leper that visited Jesus was covered with leprosy (5:12). As such, scholars conclude that Paul’s Luke, a physician, wrote Luke and Acts personally or with the help of an amanuensis (scribe).

After the significant and holy meal, the Lord Jesus and his disciples went to the Mt. of Olives. There, he told the disciples to wait and pray while he went a stone’s throw away from them, knelt on the ground, and prayed three times for the cup to be removed from him if it were the Father’s will. The disciples, however, couldn’t stay away and pray as he did.

Whereas Matthew and Mark said that the disciples were asleep because “their eyes were heavy” (Matt 26:43 / Mark 14:40), Luke said,

“Getting up from his prayer and coming to the disciples, he found them asleep from grief.” (Luke 22:45).

The NIV and NET translate this last phrase as “exhausted from sorrow.” The disciples had a long day of emotional ups and downs. They celebrated one of their life's most significant celebrations, the Passover. Their friend and teacher had told them it would be his last meal with them. He had done and said things that troubled them, like washing their feet, forecasting one disciple’s betrayal and another’s denial, listing all the sufferings he would endure and how they should stay with him even to their deaths, and climaxing with him praying in sorrow and sweating bullets of blood. They were grieved, and their grief and exhaustion from grief made their eyes heavy, and they slept.

Psychologists and counselors tell us one symptom of grief or depression is sleeping. The disciples experienced that symptom.

The Lord wanted them to be prepared and victorious against their trials, not sleep through their suffering. So he said,

“You are sleeping. Wake up and pray so you’ll not enter the testing.” (22:46)

The antidote to grief and sleep was vigilance and prayer. The Lord and the disciples knew that; the Lord practiced it, while the disciples couldn’t.

We, too, know the antidote to grief, depression, and sleep is vigilance, alertness, and prayer. When we fail, the Lord observes, “You are sleeping,” and challenges us faithfully to stay alert and pray.