Priority Devotion

"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." ~ Mark 1:35

This verse comes up frequently among people who begin to get bogged down with life and start to drift in their devotion to God.  It serves as a reminder that Jesus is our priority, even above our own lives, and it convicts by showing that when Jesus was at His busiest, He was the most immersed in His time with His Father.  This has been a recurring theme for me this semester because, despite an apparently lighter course load, I found myself getting more buried under schoolwork than ever.  But there is more to this verse that can be found in the context that surrounds it.

To put things into perspective, our text begins in verse 21.  Jesus and His disciples had just arrived in Capernaum, and based on verses 30 and 31, I believe verses 21 through 38 all happened within the same 36 hours or so—scholars may have discovered otherwise, and I'm open to being corrected.  My reasoning?  Simon Peter's mother-in-law was sick, and if Jesus and His disciples had been staying at Simon and Andrew's house, I would think that Jesus would have already healed Peter's mother-in-law.  I would not expect them to leave the house in the morning and come back that night to find her with a crippling fever.  There would have been early signs.  So that night at Simon and Andrew's house, I think, would have been their first night in Capernaum.

So our day begins on the Sabbath with their arrival in Capernaum.  Jesus went into the synagogue to teach and was met by a man possessed by an evil spirit, whom Jesus set free.  Afterward, they retired to Simon and Andrew's house, where Jesus healed Simon's mother-in-law.  But that wasn't the end of the night.  In verse 32 we see that people were bringing the sick and demon-possessed to Jesus to be healed after dark.  There is no telling how late they were up, but the fact that the "whole town gathered at the door" (v. 33) is a good indicator that they were up well into the night.

Now we get to verse 35.  So consider this: You get up Sunday morning and go to church.  You're a surgeon, and you get a call informing you that you have several unexpected operations lined up for you that afternoon.  You go in and operate, then return home, only to receive another call after dinner that an emergency procedure is required of you immediately.  You return to work and perform the operation.  Word spreads throughout the hospital: 'Good news!  The best surgeon in the region is in the building.'  Staff and patients alike hear the news, and all of the patients lined up for surgery are rushed to your care.  It's late, but you continue to work, knowing that these patients' lives could depend on your self-sacrifice.  (Not the most practical analogy, but just go with it.)

Finally, the last operation is done, and you go home.  Exhausted, you climb in bed and immediately fall asleep.  You sleep for a couple hours, but it feels like only minutes when something stirs and awakens you.  Somehow you find yourself wide awake, though you know you've had nowhere near enough sleep, so you climb out of bed and go for a walk to pray.  After all, your Sabbath was not much of a holy day of rest.  You have company at your house, but they can manage without you until you return—besides, they'll still be asleep for another hour or two.  You turn your phone off so you can enjoy some quiet time with the Lord without disturbance, and you walk to a nearby park.  You take a seat on a bench in your favorite secluded spot, hidden by trees, and suddenly your mind begins to race with countless prayers for the lost, for the growth of those who have already received salvation, for the needs of the poor and homeless, for provision for the sick who are without necessary healthcare, for the stressed parents and unruly children at your church, for families of deceased patients...  Your mind wanders as you pray for every thought that pops into your head.  You look around, and the beauty of nature around you makes you praise God for all His wonders.  A church bell rings, counting the hours, but you pay no attention to the time.  You can't.  You're too busy confessing your sins to your heavenly Father and thanking Him for His forgiveness and the gift of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.  Then you begin to hear voices.  You open your eyes and notice that the sun is high overhead as the voices draw closer.  You turn your phone back on and find that you have several missed calls from your guests.  Rising from your bench, you walk out of the secluded area into the open, where your guests are searching for you high and low.  When you are reunited with them, something takes a hold of you and you suggest a road trip.  Confused, they agree, and you all hop in the car and drive off to who knows where, not to return home until a few days later.

That was Jesus' day.  He began the day arriving in Capernaum from out of town, and immediately went to teach.  After returning home, He found not one healing to perform, but many, going late into the night.  Before the sun had even risen the next day, He got up and left, feeling hungry for time with His Father.  He wandered off without His disciples' knowledge and found a quiet place, isolated from the public.  When His disciples awoke, they found Him missing and went searching for Him.  He had gone missing not just long enough for His disciples to notice, but long enough for them to look for Him and eventually find Him.  And after He had been found, they left right away to continue traveling and preaching the gospel.

Yes, Jesus got up early in the morning and went off to a quiet place to ensure that He had adequate time to devote to His Father (v. 35), but He did so much more than that.  He devoted Himself to serving those He cared about (v. 30-31).  He devoted Himself to serving those who came to Him looking for help (v. 32-34).  He allowed Himself to be interrupted (v. 23-26, 32-34).  He devoted Himself to fellowship with His friends (v. 31b).  He started His day with meeting with His Father and did not cut His time short until He was needed (v. 35-37).  And He remained devoted to His task above and beyond His physical desires (v. 38).  Jesus didn't just fit God into a busy schedule.  He made sacrifices to ensure that His Father was integrated into His entire schedule, even when things began to pile up all at once without warning.

Here Jesus addresses, by His actions, the Fourth Commandment and His later explanation of the Sabbath in Mark 2:23-28.  The Fourth Commandment is often abbreviated to "keep the Sabbath day holy," but there is more to it than that.  Exodus 20:9-10 says, "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God."  Verse 9 cannot be ignored if we are to indeed enjoy the Sabbath.  A day of rest must be balanced with work the remainder of the week.  Six days of public service and interaction must be balanced with a day of total devotion to spending time alone with God.  When Jesus found that His time with His Father was going to be interrupted that Sabbath, He determined to set aside the following day for the purpose so that His work would not be hindered presently and so that He would not be drained for the following week's work.  The Sabbath was made for man's benefit, and the Lord will not contradict His commands.  If the Lord determines that work is to be done on a particular Sabbath day, another Sabbath rest will be provided in its place, if man will only seek Him earnestly.

This post is getting to be much longer than I intended, so I'll try to wrap it up.  For my Western Civilizations class, I had to read Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi, and I was surprised to find an entire two pages directly applicable to this lesson of devotion in the midst of a busy schedule.  The author and narrator began to question why one would continue with the meaningless habit of washing oneself every day when the grime of the day's work would return to cover everyone again before the day's end.  Steinlauf, a fellow inmate in the labor camp, gave him some insight into the matter: The labor camps are intended to make animals of men, and it is for precisely that reason that they must continue with daily habits of civilized life, that they may cling to civilized life and resist devolving into beasts.  Likewise, it is because Satan intends to crowd God out of our schedules that we must increasingly devote ourselves to the Lord in our busiest times.  Jesus understood this best, and it is time I began to learn this lesson and apply it to my daily life.