Growing up one of my favorite pastimes was to go stargazing. My dad shared his love of stars with my brother and I, and through him the love was ushered to us. Ever the scholar my dad didn’t just have us looking at the stars and planets, but was relating to us the size of the objects relative to earth. That struck a nerve with me early on. There was just something wonderful and mysterious about looking at an object so distant and so large in real time. We would take the telescope out into the yard and see the moons of Jupiter, on clear nights even the smudge that was a planet sized storm that had raged ever since humans had been looking at it. We spent nights trying to find and focus on the rings of Saturn, the phases of the Venus, even the colorful brilliance of Orion’s stars. In college I continued, I took Astronomy I as my science requirement and Astronomy II even when I had to cram it in to an already full course-load.
Our passage from Isaiah is equally beautiful. “Lift your eyes, look to the heavens…” God’s majesty and artistic nature are communicated to us on a million different levels through the natural world. Even on “inspirational” greeting cards we have captured pictures of starry nights, rushing streams, a burst of spring color. No matter if the source of the wonder is secular or non-secular, every person on this earth can agree the spiritual power nature can have.
It should come then, as no surprise, to witness in the gospel of Mark that Christ himself is equally moved by sights of wonder. After days filled with people and preaching and healing he gets up early, walks out of the house, and watches the sun rise.
I’ll let you all in on a little secret. Jesus was an introvert.
There is a personality test that is the nation’s standard in such tests. It’s called the “Myers-Briggs” after the couple that first created it. It can nail you down pretty well, and be pretty revealing and enlightening about things you didn’t even know. I’ve taken it a few times as a part of Church leadership courses, or weekend retreats—for some reason my personality type is hard for some people to believe. Not to draw purposeful comparisons here but… I’m an introvert too.
Usually people think of the extrovert as the one who is the social butterfly, out in the limelight, shaking hands, greeting the morning with a bright smile and spring in their step. While we picture the introverts and turtle-y cave dwellers who venture out at night and read by dim lamplights shunning the laughter of crowds.
The truest definition of these two personality types, according to Myers-Briggs however is simple and far different. Introverts are merely those people who gain or re-gain their strength by being alone, or doing more solitary things. Extroverts are those who gain strength by being out in crowds, surrounded by peers and friends.
I swear to you, I’m about as die hard and introvert as they get. I love being with people, going on week-long retreats, even parties—I routinely make Leah go to gallery openings at the Green Hill Center even when her job doesn’t require that she attend. However, I can only exist doing these things for so long and afterward I need time alone to recover. I love going on trips, especially with the Youth, but after a week at Work Camp, I basically shut myself off from the world for a few days. Even Leah is lucky to get more than a few words out of me.
So, here too, we get a glimpse into the lifestyle of Jesus. Not just in this passage but in so many points in the gospels we see that Jesus is very often doing his own thing. Going camping and fasting alone for 30 days, sleeping in the back of the boat, here watching the sunrise alone, and even in His final hours he asks his closest friends to still pray a little way apart from Him.
This brings to light something for all of us however. Weather, bases on my hasty description, you see your self as either and introvert or an extrovert, we must all benefit from time spent “refilling our tanks.” Even Christ himself did not constantly run at 100% all the time, 7 days a week. Even though he healed on the Sabbath he know exactly what it meant to take a Sabbath Moment. We can find him praying along, being peaceful, waiting, allowing God the time and opportunity to dwell more closely. Even CHRIST, who was God incarnate, allowed time out of a ministry that was the most important in history and one that he KNEW was only going to last 3 years, even SO, he still carved out the time to be only with his Master and Creator.
Every person here has been weary. Every one of us has been weak when we most needed to be strong. Scripture states so truly and so rightly that even the young stumble and fall.
Yet… what does the Bible promise us? If we hope in the Lord, if we let everything ride on God, if we cast every chance we have at prosperity in this life, on Him alone, then we will be RENEWED. Made NEW again. Then it goes on... promising more than being new, we will soar! On wings like eagles. We will run and never tire.
But how? How do we hope in the Lord? What is the activity that does this thing? Many things, a life like Christ. But—we have here today, one, one facet of instruction. Find that quiet place. Watch that sunrise…
That alone can be incredibly difficult. In the world of today we can fell that there are so many different thing pulling us in so many different directions. A moment of peace is all we can get and even then that is asking a lot. Leah and I both have been incredibly blessed to have traveled to Italy. Unfortunately we went in separate college trips, but the other day we were reminiscing about or experiences and one of the things we both missed was busy restaurants. Sounds like a crazy thing to miss from a couple of introverts right? The thing was, neither of us is fluent in Italian. So, in the midst of 60 or 70 animated conversations, all we heard were the lyrical tones of a fairly beautiful language. Something like that is possible I think no matter where we are. By process of mind we can somehow turn of the part of our brain that is absorbing input from the world, let it fade into the white noise of life… and find a kind of surreal peacefulness. I wonder sometimes if Christ didn’t do something exactly like this during parts of his trial with the Sanhedrin in the last hours of his life. Shut them off, let them fade to the background, find peace, and talk with his Father.
In our scripture today he has found peace in the colors God has laid out for him in the early morning. When Simon finally finds Jesus, apparently he didn’t leave a note before going out. They ask him, as any of us might as, “Where in the world have you been!? We’ve been looking for you all morning!” My mom used to get flustered when she lost track of us in Sears Department Store. But Jesus gives his reply, and did you catch this? Not even acknowledging their question! I can almost picture the scene. Simon is puffing up the side of the hill, and breathlessly asks. Jesus is still looking toward the sunrise and simply delivers to Simon and the others the instructions for the next few weeks. Can you hear the subtext in Jesus’ words? We’ve herd them before… “Where have you been?” “We were looking for you!” Come Jesus’ answer, “I have been about my father’s business.”
Like Christ we must find our way to separate ourselves from the worries of the world. No note, no apologies, just communion with God.
We cannot expect ourselves to function without finding those places in life where we feel able to commune with the Almighty. Weather that is a sunrise, a sunset, a gloriously refurbished sanctuary, or a just a step outside on the porch. It doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to be an hour or thirty days, it just has to happen.
The promise of renewal, of energy, of flight that is fancy free is there. Waiting for those who can find that quiet place in the physical realm, or in the mental and spiritual one, but a place that is apart from the world long enough for God to bring solace and instruction on the next piece of our journey.
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