“Could Ye Not Watch with Me One Hour?”
Matthew 26:40
40 And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said:
“If remembering is the principal task before us, what might come to our memory when those plain and precious emblems [of the sacrament] are offered to us?
“We could remember the Savior’s premortal life and all that we know Him to have done as the great Jehovah, creator of heaven and earth and all things that in them are. We could remember that even in the Grand Council of Heaven He loved us and was wonderfully strong, that we triumphed even there by the power of Christ and our faith in the blood of the Lamb (see Rev. 12:10–11).
“We could remember the simple grandeur of His mortal birth to just a young woman, one probably in the age range of those in our Young Women organization, who spoke for every faithful woman in every dispensation of time when she said, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word’ (Luke 1:38).
“We could remember His magnificent but virtually unknown foster father, a humble carpenter by trade who taught us, among other things, that quiet, plain, unpretentious people have moved this majestic work forward from the very beginning, and still do so today. If you are serving almost anonymously, please know that so, too, did one of the best men who has ever lived on this earth.
“We could remember Christ’s miracles and His teachings, His healings and His help. We could remember that He gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and motion to the lame and the maimed and the withered. Then, on those days when we feel our progress has halted or our joys and views have grown dim, we can press forward steadfastly in Christ, with unshaken faith in Him and a perfect brightness of hope (see 2 Ne. 31:19–20). . . .
“To those who stagger or stumble, He is there to steady and strengthen us. In the end He is there to save us, and for all this He gave his life. However dim our days may seem they have been darker for the Savior of the world.
“In fact, in a resurrected, otherwise perfected body, our Lord of this sacrament table has chosen to retain for the benefit of His disciples the wounds in His hands and His feet and His side—signs, if you will, that painful things happen even to the pure and perfect. Signs, if you will, that pain in this world is not evidence that God doesn’t love you. It is the wounded Christ who is the captain of our soul—He who yet bears the scars of sacrifice, the lesions of love and humility and forgiveness.
“Those wounds are what He invites young and old, then and now, to step forward and see and feel (see 3 Ne. 11:15; 3 Ne. 18:25). Then we remember with Isaiah that it was for each of us that our Master was ‘despised and rejected . . . ; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief’ (Isa. 53:3). All this we could remember when we are invited by a kneeling young priest to remember Christ always. . . .
“One request Christ made of His disciples on that night of deep anguish and grief was that they stand by Him, stay with Him in His hour of sorrow and pain. ‘Could ye not watch with me one hour?’ He asked longingly (Matt. 26:40). I think He asks that again of us, every Sabbath day when the emblems of His life are broken and blessed and passed.”
(“This Do in Remembrance of Me,” Ensign, Nov. 1995, 68, 69.)
