Mark 1:35-39

            {Prayer}

            Tuesday morning of this past week I had an appointment in Mt. Vernon that ended about noon. Hungry and being that time for lunch, I decided to stop by one of my favorite places … Panda Express. I thoroughly enjoyed my lo mein, teriyaki chicken, and my orange chicken. Following the meal, I opened up my fortune cookie. Call me weird, it’s okay, but I always eat the cookie first and then read that little slip of paper. So, after eating my cookie, I read the little slip of paper and it said … “Make time for you.”

            As soon as I was done reading that, I dropped and shook my head. You see, this is something that many different people have been telling me to do for quite a while. And I’ll be honest, it’s not something that I’m very good at doing. There is always something else to do, someone else to talk to, another project to work on. Making time for me has always been hard.

            “Make time for you,” it’s good advice. It’s something we all should listen too. But … it’s also incomplete. While the world around us says, “Make time for yourself,” this week’s keystone habit we hear Jesus say, “Make time for Me.”

            Our keystone habit this morning is that of seeking solitude. Seeking solitude is not simply about “me time” … it’s about building our relationship with God, it’s about seeking God time.

            Now you may be thinking … Doesn’t this contradict what I preached about a couple of weeks ago on committing to community? While it may seem so, the actual answer is that it doesn’t. It doesn’t contradict what we did that week and here’s why.

            First, Jesus was fully present in community. He surrounded Himself with Peter, James, and John as well as the other disciples. He surrounded Himself with a larger following of believers. And while He was fully present in community … Jesus also sought out solitude. Jesus regularly stepped away from them to be by Himself with His Heavenly Father. Mark tells us that after a day of healing people and casting out demons that “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed” (1:35). Roughly 30 to 40 passages in the four Gospels mention Jesus intentionally withdrawing, going off by Himself, or seeking quiet time to pray and be with the Father.

            If we are looking to Jesus to see how we are to live our lives, then we need to understand both community and solitude. Our solitude refills what it is we pour out in community. Henri Nouwen once said, “In solitude we come to know the presence of God within us. In community we discover that the same presence is also within others.”[1] Community keeps us connected to others. Solitude keeps us connected to God.

            But the distractions of the world keep us from both. We live in constant motion. Our phones are buzzing, news is scrolling, and our schedules are bursting at the seams. I, in particular, catch myself coming and going. I am typically burning the candle on both ends just trying to catch up. It doesn’t help that one of my personality traits is saying yes to so many things that I can’t keep up. By saying yes to so many things … I’m missing out on the best thing. Saying yes to everything leaves no room for God.

            And the result of this? We’re tired. We’re disconnected. We confuse activity for faithfulness. I’m preaching to myself when I say this … God doesn’t keep track of how many things you and I are involved in … God’s focus is on having a relationship with each of us. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (8:36-37).

            We see this in Elijah from our Old Testament reading. Elijah, having run away through the wilderness finds himself in a cave. He’s alone, exhausted, and overwhelmed. And it’s there, there in the solitude of that cave that God comes and speaks Him. Not in the loudness and craziness of an earthquake or fire, but in the soft whisper.

            We often look for God to appear in the dramatic and chaotic moments of life. And while God is there in those times … He often meets and speaks to us in silence, in our moments of solitude. We fill our lives with so much noise that we can’t hear God when He does speak.

            Let’s go back to Jesus for a moment. We heard earlier, after a long, exhausting day of ministry … Jesus gets up early, gets up “while it was still dark.” And why? He gets up to go to a solitary place to pray.

            Think about that for just a second. Jesus, the very Son of God, needed time with the Father. Community keeps us connected to others. Solitude keeps us connected to God. And even though Jesus is God, within His human nature, He needed time with God in prayer. Jesus knew that if He didn’t get away from the crowds, He couldn’t give them what they needed.

            Remember, solitude, stepping away for a moment, is not isolation. If anything, solitude is intimacy. Solitude is not about being alone … it’s about being alone with God.

            And while Jesus stepped away to be alone with God about 30 to 40 times … the ultimate solitude came on that dark afternoon upon a mountaintop where Jesus hung from the cross between two criminals. On that cross, Jesus would cry out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? … My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). On the cross, Jesus was truly alone. Forsaken by God, the disciples had hung Him out to dry, and the people who praised Him with Hosannas and palm branches now cried out “crucify Him.”

            Jesus was truly alone. But He was alone for a purpose. Jesus came to be truly alone in that moment so that you and I would never have to be. You are and I are not alone today and we have the promises of Scripture to back it up. Taking over for Moses, Joshua is told by God, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (1:9). Jesus as He is getting ready to ascend into heaven tells His disciples, “Surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). The writer of Hebrews, quoting Deuteronomy 31, God says, “Never will I leave you, no, never will I forsake you” (13:5b).

            Being in God’s constant presence is a gift. It’s a gift and an invitation to rest. We heard earlier from Hebrews 4, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His” (4:9-10). This Sabbath rest is not just a Sunday thing. This Sabbath rest is a gift God gives to us to take time to be with Him, to be renewed, recharged, and rejuvenated in our service to God and to His people. This Sabbath rest, this time of solitude, it’s not an escape from the craziness around us … it’s an intentional encounter with God.

            In solitude, we learn that our worth isn’t in what we do and what we have but rather in whose we are.

            So what are some practical habits for solitude?

            Power down your phone for ten minutes a day and simply sit in silence with Scripture and/or prayer. Use that SOAP method of reading the scriptures and combine it with the breath prayer that Pastor Ethan taught us last week. And if you don’t want to power down your phone, put it on Do Not Disturb. Which, did you know, you can program your Do Not Disturb function to only allow your designated people to actually be able to reach you? Check it out sometime, it’s great. It’s something I’m going to do the next time I go on vacation.

            Other habits? Go for a walk without headphones and just listen and talk to God. This is also known as walking and praying. Or use your drive time or your time in the shower as a place for prayer.  

            In moments of solitude, God speaks peace into our anxiety, He puts a focus to our confusion and He gives renewal to our exhaustion. It’s only in that quiet place where we he Jesus say, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

            This morning … God invites you into a moment of holy solitude as you come up to His table. As you come up this morning, let everything else fade into the background. Here it is just you, Christ, and His promise … given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. This is your sacred quiet place in the midst of life’s chaotic noise.

            When you leave this table, do so with this rhythm in your heart … Community connects us to each other. Solitude connects us with God. Together … they sustain the whole life of faith.

            So as you go from this moment of quiet communion back into your week, remember the gift you’ve been given. The world says “Make time for you.” Jesus says, “Make time for me.” In God’s presence, in times of solitude with Him … we find peace. Amen.

            The peace of God, that surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.

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[1] Henri Nouwen, “Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life.”