Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 13 · January 13
A Solitary Place
“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”
A door in Capernaum, after dark, with an entire town pressed against the other side of it.
That is how the previous day ended. Mark's first chapter runs at a sprint: the synagogue, a man with an unclean spirit shouting at him, Simon's mother-in-law lifted up by the hand, and 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 is not a sentence about a good turnout. It is a door that would not shut, and he worked through it.
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 reflection whatsoever. Time, exit, location, activity. Somewhere outside the town a man is on the ground in the cold, and the town he walked out of is still asleep with its sick people in it.
Simon and they that were with him followed after him, and what they say on finding him is pressure dressed as news: All men seek for thee. Capernaum wanted him back for the best reasons available to a town. He said no. Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth. The solitary place produced a refusal, which is the plainest thing on the page and the least quoted line in it. A crowd at the door is louder than a commission and easier to read. It is usually right about the need and wrong about the assignment.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 13 is Green Pastures (Psalm 23:2).