Mark 1:35-39
Before Anyone Was Awake
35Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went out to a solitary place to pray.
36Simon and his companions went to look for Him,
37and when they found Him, they said, “Everyone is looking for You!”
38But Jesus answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns so I can preach there as well, for that is why I have come.”
39So He went throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
Berean Standard Bible
The day before had been the best day imaginable. He had taught a synagogue into silence, ended something nobody else could touch, healed a woman in a back room, and then stood at a door late into the night while an entire town came to him. By any measure anyone would use, it had worked. What he does next is therefore strange.
Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went out to a solitary place to pray.
Mark gives the time and the place and no explanation for either. Early, still dark, a solitary place. The evening before had ended with the whole town at the door, and this is where the next day starts.
Simon and the others have to go looking for him. When they find him they hand over what they take to be good news: everyone is looking for you. They mean come back, it is working, the town is at the door again. In their minds that settles the matter, because nobody walks away from a room that full.
But Jesus answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns so I can preach there as well, for that is why I have come.”
So on the morning after the day that worked, he leaves the crowd that wanted him and heads for the neighboring towns. The reason he gives is the assignment: that is why he came. Mark puts the praying before the answer and does not tell us the one produced the other. Success was on the table in Capernaum that morning, and he had somewhere else to be. Mark keeps him moving after that, through Galilee, preaching in one synagogue after another and driving out demons as he goes. The town had its day and its healings. What it did not get was to keep him.
How We Know
Mark records Jesus withdrawing to pray alone at 1:35, at 6:46 and at 14:35, and the placement is worth noticing each time. They fit a book with habits of its own and do not show why he set them where he did. Here in verse 35, before dawn, after a town has gathered at the door. In 6:46, up a mountain, after feeding a crowd of thousands. In 14:35, on the ground in Gethsemane, before the arrest.
Two of the three follow success rather than failure, which is not what a reader would expect and is visible by turning to all three.
What Mark does not record here is any of the content. He gives the fact of the praying and none of the words. At Gethsemane he does give words, at 14:36, and in the same passage reports more than once that the disciples were asleep.
Questions
1 The day before had gone about as well as a day can go. What does Jesus do the next morning?
AnswerHe gets up long before sunrise, while it is still dark, walks out to a place where nobody will find him, and prays. Then he leaves the town altogether.
2 Simon tracks him down and tells him everyone is looking for him. What was Simon expecting to happen?
AnswerThat Jesus would come straight back. It sounded like the best news anyone could carry: the town was full, the crowds wanted him, the work was going well. Simon took the matter as settled.
3 What is the last good thing somebody asked you to do that you had to turn down? Jesus turns Simon down here. What reason does he give for it?
AnswerThat preaching in the other towns is what he came out to do. He does not say the crowd was bad or the healing a mistake. He has an assignment, and an eager room in Capernaum is not able to shift him off it.
4 Jesus prayed alone before dawn, and a little later he told Simon no. Are the two connected?
AnswerMark sets the quiet hour and the hard answer next to each other and never spells out the link, though the order is hard to miss. He knew what to tell Simon because of where he had already been that morning.
What This Means for Us
He said no to a good thing, and he could do it because he had already been with his Father and already knew what he was for.
Most of our worst decisions are not choices between right and wrong. They are choices between good and assigned, made in a hurry, by tired people who never stopped to ask. So take the quiet fifteen minutes before the crowded day, not in order to feel holy, but so that the next good offer meets something other than a yes given because it happened to be there. If the early morning is impossible in this house, pick the hour that is possible and defend it.
Prayer
Father, we say yes to almost everything and then wonder why we are tired. Teach us to go where it is quiet before we decide anything. Show us what we are actually for, and give us the nerve to walk away from good things that are not it. Amen.