There was a young man who was relatively new in his work, but from the very beginning, things had been going well, very well. He was successful in everything he did and it wasn’t long before he had a tremendous following and everyone just wanted a piece of him. They wanted his time, his support, his help, his expertise and his attention. During his meteoric rise to fame his family had gotten a little disillusion and frustrated with him and so to add to the chaos of his already busy life instead of being a support, they were now publically criticizing him, but they were alone. As with any successful venture, this man’s success brought opposition. Along with the crowds came critics. Then one day as this young man’s life was going full steam ahead, he got the news that his best friend and a mentor in his work had been killed and even when he tried to get away to simply be by himself for a moment or two to grieve, the demands of his work didn’t let up. Like the paparazzi following Lindsey Lohan, his attempt to find a solitary place to deal with his loss and maybe reflect on his life didn’t work, the people followed him and his partners followed him and so the work of Jesus continued.
You see, Jesus’ life was busy and noisy and at times full of confusion and activity – but at least he understood that in the midst of all that chaos, he needed times of solitude.
In Matthew 14 we find Jesus at this very difficult place in his life. His teaching and miracles had so amazed the crowds that people were following him everywhere. People came to hear Jesus preach because he taught like no one else, he taught as one who had authority, but they also came to see that authority lived out in the power of his miracles. People came to be healed, they came to be cleansed, they came to find life and when they came they were not disappointed. Jesus opened the eyes of the blind and he drove out demons. Jesus cleansed people of leprosy and cleansed them of sin. He silenced a storm and silenced the religious elite of his day. People loved him and they followed him everywhere, and his life was full and busy and noisy, and it all came at a price.
Jesus family turned against him at one point in his ministry. Jesus’ mother and brothers came to him hoping to talk some sense into him because they felt like he had lost his mind. Not only was there some push back from his family, there was real opposition toward his proclamation of repentance and the new life that comes in the kingdom of God. The opposition to Jesus’ message was seen when John the Baptist, who in many ways was the forerunner of Jesus and who preached the same message that Jesus did, had been arrested for speaking out and standing firm in his convictions and while John was in prison he was killed. When news of this reached Jesus it says “he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.” (Matthew 14:13a)
Just look at that sentence, withdrew, privately, solitary place. Matthew is pretty clear here, Jesus is looking to spend some time alone. He needs some solitude maybe to just grieve the loss of John who was not only the one who baptized him, but remember John was his cousin and in some ways a partner in ministry. Jesus is looking for some solitude because he knows that he needs it, but the pace of his life at that moment was so fast that solitude was going to be hard to find – does that sound familiar?
Even when we know that we need times of quiet and times of rest, the pace of our lives can be so fast that solitude can be hard to find. Jesus makes the decision to withdraw privately to a solitary place but the demands of his life and the expectations of the people follow him. Literally the people follow him. When they hear that Jesus is heading off by boat to be alone they actually run along the shore so that when Jesus lands on the other shore the crowds are already there. (Matthew 14:13b) Again, does this sound at all familiar? We know we need some down time so we plan a few days off or maybe just a few hours away only to find out that the demands of work or family suddenly have to take precedence.
I don’t know about you, but when I read that even Jesus had a hard time finding time to be still, I find comfort and encouragement in that. Jesus knows what we are going through when our lives are full. He knows the out of control pace we try and live at, he knows the demands we face and he knows that there are times we just have to keep working – Jesus knows this because he lived it.
Although he needs some time alone right now, when Jesus sees the people in need he reaches out to help them (Matthew 14:14). Not only does Jesus heal the sick but because it is late and they are in a remote place instead of telling them all to go home, which is what the disciples wanted Jesus to do, he tells his disciples to feed the thousands of people who have followed him, and when Jesus asks his disciples to do this, instead of being supportive and helpful, they push back. (Matthew 14:17) So once again Jesus, the one who needs the rest and the solitude, goes to work, he takes the lead and directs the people to sit down and then he blesses the 5 loaves and 2 fish and proceeds to feed more than 5,000 people, maybe as many as 10,000.
When the meal is over and evening has come Jesus finally makes everyone leave. He makes the disciplines leave and he dismisses the crowd because he knows that he really does need some time alone. Jesus knows that to strengthen himself for the work God had for him he was going to have to practice this spiritual discipline of solitude. In the midst of all the demands and pressures and confusion of his life, Jesus knew he needed time to be alone – or maybe a better way to say that is he knew he needed time alone with God. The spiritual disciplines we are looking at need to be taken seriously because we see them lived out in the life of Jesus, and if Jesus, who is God in the flesh and so had all the fullness of God’s strength and power in him at every moment, if Jesus needed simplicity and solitude, these spiritual disciplines, then so do we.
We need times of solitude if we want to find strength and peace and power in the midst of our busy lives. What Jesus shows us throughout his life is that when we are tired, we need times of rest. When we are weary we need times of refreshment. When we have decisions to make we need quiet times to hear God’s voice. When we are full of questions or doubts or fear – we need time alone with God to hear his words of grace and peace and love.
It’s interesting to look at the times that Jesus went off to be alone with God. At the beginning of his ministry Jesus seeks out a solitary place where he can hear God give direction to his mission and ministry. Not long after Jesus has been teaching and preaching and performing all kinds of miracles it says that crowds were intense and they just wanted Jesus to heal them all and it’s at this moment that Jesus has to make a decision – was he going to be a miracle worker or a preacher? Was he going to meet people’s physical needs or spiritual needs? With those questions in his heart and mind – Jesus goes off by himself to pray, to be alone with God. We find Jesus seeking out solitary places when he needed guidance and direction for his life. If we are looking for guidance and direction for our lives we need to practice this discipline and find some time alone to hear the voice of God and to get a sense of God’s guiding and leading.
While Jesus sought times alone for guidance, I think this situation in Matthew 14 is different, I think here Jesus is seeking a solitary place because in the death of John he suddenly comes face to face with the reality of his own death. Remember, John preached the same message as Jesus, repent for the kingdom of God is near, and I think Jesus always knew the cross was coming, but does John’s death bring the cross into greater focus – was it suddenly much more real to Jesus and did this unsettle him in some way? As much as Jesus was fully God he was also fully human and so did the fear or doubt of Jesus future begin to creep into his heart and life? Did Jesus need time alone with God to find the strength he was going to need for the rest of his mission? Do we need times alone with God to simply find the strength and the courage we need to face the uncertainty of our own future? We don’t practice solitude just to hear God give us direction, we also need it to get strength and power and courage from God to simply live our lives.
So let’s consider how to practice this spiritual discipline of solitude, it doesn’t necessarily mean going away on a spiritual retreat, but it does mean finding time to quiet our hearts and lives enough to be able to hear what Richard Foster calls the divine whisper. Solitude requires us to find time and create space so that we can hear the voice of God. So solitude doesn’t have to be a special place in the wilderness but I would say it needs to be a quiet place. Can we carve out times of silence in our lives so we can begin to hear the voice of God who I don’t think wants to shout at us, but maybe simply whisper to us? Spending time in silence is not an easy thing to do. It might be nice for the first few minutes, but staying in a quiet place alone with God can be difficult and so we might quickly begin to look for the distractions. I think this is one reason Jesus literally tried to get away from the people because it was the people, the crowds or his own disciples who were the distractions for him.
What are the distractions we face today? I might suggest that they are all the devices that fill our lives with noise. They are our cell phones, computers and TV’s, its facebook, twitter and texting. If we want to hear the voice of God we might need to literally unplug ourselves from the noise around us for an hour or 2 or 3. Can we unplug ourselves for a morning, or an evening or an entire day? If we want to hear God’s voice give direction to our lives, if we need to hear God’s words of love and grace and peace then we need to be able to hear God in the silence which means finding that time and creating that space for silence.
Unplugging may not be enough; we might need to physically go to a place that takes us away from the demands of our lives. It may be a park or the mountains or the beach, but it might also be a coffee shop in the afternoon, a quiet corner of the library, or even this sanctuary when it is not in use. One of our desires in creating the courtyard was to create a place for moments of solitude. There are picnic tables behind the church that can provide a quiet place of solitude. It might be important for us to find a place of solitude away from our homes where we every time we look around we won’t see all the things that needs to be done.
It’s hard to find the time and the place for solitude – Jesus knows this, but he worked at it because he knew that solitude was important. Jesus knew he needed to hear his father say to him, “Be still. Take a deep breath. Think about my peace, my love, my forgiveness. I love you.”
It was those words which Jesus heard over and over again in times of solitude because it those words, that message, that Jesus shares with us. We need to practice this discipline of solitude because in the midst of the confusion and chaos and the choices of our lives we need to hear God say, “Be still. Take a deep breath. Think about my peace, my love, my forgiveness. I love you.”
If that’s the message you need to hear today, then practice this discipline of solitude and find that time and place to be alone with God.
