Disciples of Jesus - Mark 1:35-45

And then it goes on to say, 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.

Simon and his companions went to look for him.

And when they found him, they exclaimed, everyone is looking for you.

Jesus replied, let us go somewhere else to the nearby villages so I can preach there also.

That's why I have come.

So he travelled throughout Galilee preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

So 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.

Jesus, you're in the middle of a successful in-demand ministry.

What are you doing? People need you.

It needs more healing, more demon possession.

People need to get set free.

But he goes on his own early in the morning to pray alone.

And I wonder, I really want to know what it looked like.

How did he pray? What was going on? What was he asking? How was he doing it? I really want to know, but we don't know because the very nature of it was that he went off on his own and the disciples didn't see it.

He went off on his own, but he went off to pray alone.

Him and the Lord.

Jesus and the God who calls himself Father.

We know that he was there praying and encountering a God who is living, who is active, who is responsive.

A God who calls himself Jesus' Father and our Father.

We don't know what it looked like when he prayed.

But we do know that in this solitude and in this place where he'd gone off on his own to be with the Father, the Father gave Jesus his agenda.

Jesus' agenda doesn't come from the immediate needs in front of him, the urgent needs of the crowd.

He could have stayed in Capernaum, but his agenda was set by the Father.

Let us go somewhere else to the nearby villages so I can preach there also.

That is why I have come, he says.