Sunday, July 21, 2024
Sunday Reflection: A quiet place
Today I want to focus on this one little part of Mark 6:
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
Yeah, in the end it doesn't work out (they are swamped with people) but I love this advice. So often we take the time we have to get away to go someplace more hectic! I know I do-- New York, for example, is always attractive. But it is not a deserted place.
I do love actual deserted places, too, though. West Texas. The Boundary Waters. That part of Pennsylvania just south of the New York border that is all forests and mist. The empty spaces of Nevada (as opposed to that one super-busy part of Nevada).
But what do we make of Jesus being kind of wrong? He gives them this advice, and then this happens:
And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.
Didn't Jesus know his advice wouldn't work out? Or was there a lesson in that, too?
