With regard to the Taizé Community song, “Stay With Me,” you made reference to Matthew 26:36-34 which describes the events in the garden of Gethsemane on the night our Lord was betrayed and arrested. Jesus, knowing what lay ahead of him, pleaded with three of his disciples to stay with him and keep watch with him. But they fell asleep. They did not realise that Jesus would be taken from them and that the time was short.
Jesus himself was left alone, utterly forsaken by his Father in heaven, because he had to take upon himself the sins of the world. His suffering is almost incomprehensible to us because we can only begin to imagine the mental anguish he endured, alone on that instrument of torture, knowing he had become sin. Yet, because he was faithful to the bitter end, and did the will of his Father in heaven, we have hope – hope of the resurrection and of life eternal:
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:13).
Because Christ is the righteousness of God, we who have faith in him and who obey him can take hold of this promise:
Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Deuteronomy 31:5-6 and Psalm 118: 6-7, quoted in Hebrews 13:5)
Jesus asks us to stay awake and keep watch. The time is short. If Christ Jesus is our partner, we can be confident that he will be there for us when we're unable to help ourselves.
You ask: Is this too powerful of an image for young people, and parents when contemplating consumer relationships of the fallout of the sexual revolution? Well, the image of the Son of Man betrayed into the hands of sinners (Matthew 26:45) reminds us that our sins nailed him to that cross and that we must repent, turn around and follow him. There is no other Saviour.
