I Need a Vacation!

I know that in Jesus we have an Advocate before the Father who understands and sympathizes with us. I’ve taken comfort in that truth many times; that my circumstances are ones that He understands fully because he walked in a physical body among humanity as well.

Today, as I read Matthew 14, I found a new facet of that. This passage is usually used to focus on the miracles of the feeding of the 5,000, Peter walking on water, and many being healed. Often, as we are prone to do, we read it looking for his acts rather than his person. Today, though, from a place of physical, spiritual, and emotional exhaustion, I read this passage again.

I found that Jesus was exhausted, too.

But it didn’t stop him.

The passage opens with John the Baptist’s life being taken in a vengeful and violent act. Jesus’ cousin, the first to recognize him as Messiah even in the womb as a baby, the one who baptized him, his friend and kinsman was brutally murdered by the powerful of the day. Jesus was grieving. Verse 13 says that in response to the news of John’s death, Jesus got in a boat and went off by himself. To a “desolate place.”

Have you been there? Life got so heavy, your heart was so wounded with pain over a loss in your life that you couldn’t stand being around other people and took immediate action to remove yourself?

People followed him. They saw where his boat was headed and took off after it on foot. He needed his space but they didn’t care about his needs; they had stuff they wanted from him. He was the ONLY one who could give them what they needed, so they followed, his obvious grief set aside as inconsequential in their minds (assuming they considered it at all).

Have you been there? You just need time alone and nobody will let you have it? Even as you close and lock the bathroom door, little fingers wiggle underneath it. Voices call to you from outside of it. Even though you’re alone, the attention you want so desperately to focus on only what you are facing is divided by those who can’t live without you.

He came to shore. Disembarked from the boat that was supposed to take him to his alone place. And was met with a crowd. Here’s where it blows my mind: he didn’t lose his. Verse 14 says “He had compassion on them and healed their sick.” Then they got hungry and he made sure that they were fed. After they were fed, he sent the disciples ahead of him and said personal goodbye’s and shook hands and dismissed the crowd himself!

He was grieving! His cousin was dead! He knew the same fate was ahead for himself! He just needed a minute to process…he didn’t get it…and his response was compassion and a personal pouring out of himself to the very people that refused to think of him and his needs.

It continues throughout the chapter.

After he dismisses the crowd, he goes up to a mountain. Alone at last. Finally, some peace in which to pray and process. Alone…but also with a vantage point from which he can see that the disciples’ boat had come into heavy seas.

He could have just let them handle it. There were skilled fishermen and boat handlers among them. He could have said it wasn’t his problem, he had enough going on in his own life to deal with. It would have been justified and understandable. He had finally gotten to a place where he could sit down and put his feet up.

Verse 25 says that in the wee hours of the morning, he went to them. He calmed their fear. He called Peter out. He rescued them. He gave up his precious place of solitude, went out to where they were, and got into their mess with them.

Across the water they went, away from the desolate place he had sought out. Away from the quiet solitude he desired. Away from the place of peace, rest, and renewal ALONE that would have been most beneficial to him.
The minute their boat docked, verse 35 says that he was recognized. His arrival cued the people in that place to go gather everyone in “all that region” who were sick and clamor for him to heal them all. “And as many as touched it [the fringe of his garment] were made well.”

“STOP TOUCHING ME!!!” “CAN I NOT HAVE A MOMENT’S PEACE??” “DO I EVER GET A MOMENT TO DEAL WITH MY OWN STUFF?!”

None of those words came out of his mouth. I have no idea whether he heaved a sigh of resignation or two, but regardless, at every interruption to what HE needed, he took the small moments of silence that he got and allowed them to be enough. Back he waded into the messiness of humanity that needed him.

He was tired. He was grieving. He wanted to go into the mountains and have a retreat… but he didn’t get it for long. A few hours at most. The demands on his time and attention were relentless.

He allowed the small moments to be enough without resenting that it wasn’t more. Even in his solitude, he kept a watchful eye on those who were facing their own struggles. When he was interrupted with demands, he didn’t respond with a rebuke but with compassion.

I’m not there yet. I want more quiet than I get. It takes me a bit to get over resenting interruptions. I wonder sometimes if people see or consider ME before they make requests or demands.
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We have an advocate before the Father who understands our exhaustion and the million directions in which we are pulled. He pleads for our provision, for our upholding through the Spirit, our peace in the middle of chaos. May we allow Him to be our Prince of Peace when we can’t find it anywhere we turn.