A Solitary Place

Picture a door in Capernaum after dark, with a whole town pressed against the other side of it.

That is how the day before had ended. Mark's first chapter moves quickly. There is the synagogue, where a man with an unclean spirit cried out at Jesus, and then Simon's mother-in-law, whom Jesus took by the hand and lifted up. Then, "at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered together at the door." That sentence is about more than a good turnout. It describes a door that would not shut, and Jesus worked through the crowd at it, healing many.

A few hours later, in the dark, "rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." Mark gives four facts and no comment: the time, the leaving, the place, and what Jesus did there. Somewhere outside the town He is alone with His Father, while the town He walked out of is still asleep, with its sick people in it.

Then "Simon and they that were with him followed after him." When they find Him, they bring pressure dressed up as news: "All men seek for thee." Capernaum wanted Him back, for the best reasons a town could have, and He said no. "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth." The quiet place of prayer produced a refusal, and it is the plainest thing on the page. A crowd at the door is louder than a calling, and easier to read. The crowd is usually right about the need, though it can be wrong about the assignment. Jesus knew His assignment because He had spent that dark morning with His Father, and the same Lord still meets His people in the quiet before the day begins and shows them where to go.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 13 is Green Pastures (Psalm 23:2).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two