"Come, you yourselves
apart into a desert place, and rest awhile" (Mark 6:31). The hour of
noontide rest was a special one of old in Palestine—when the laborer
suspended his toil; when the oxen were unharnessed from the yoke, and the
ploughshare reposed on the upturned furrow; when the Caravan of Pilgrims, as
they may be seen to this day, gathered under the shade at some well, eating
bread and fruit, with their burdened camels moored around. In a diviner
spiritual sense that noontide rest is about to be mine. "Come," is the
Savior's gracious invitation, addressed to His disciples of old—"Come, you
yourselves apart, and rest awhile." "This is the rest with which He causes
the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing." Let the world be for a
little time shut out—its cares hushed, its duties and business suspended; as
with my fellow-communicants I repair to the Well of Living water, the Fount
of Gospel mercies "springing up unto everlasting life," and there "rehearse
together the righteous acts of the Lord" (Judges 5:11).
Let me note, as its chief and divinest feature; it is
rest in the fellowship of the Great Master. It would have afforded little
joy or refreshment to His disciples if they had been sent away to that
desert place alone. This brief season of suspension from work would have
been divested of all its blissful peace and holy gladness, had they been
unaccompanied by their Beloved Lord. The consciousness of that Presence and
Love and Sympathy was all in all to them. They did not heed the passing away
of the splendid vision of the Transfiguration Mount, when in their descent
in the grey mists of early morning, "they found no man, save Jesus only"
(Matt. 17:8). The summons from the Table of sweet communion on Zion, to
the mysterious gloom of the Kedron and the Olive Garden, had sufficient
music and heart-cheer to them, from one word embraced in it—"Arise, let us
go hence." "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out (together)
to the Mount of Olives." A subsequent night of unrecompensed toil on the Sea
of Galilee was all forgotten in the morning's joyful recognition—"It is
the Lord!"
So is it with Master and disciple still. That Feast of
love has its holiest, sweetest, most consecrating thought in this, that it
is "the Lord's Supper." It is the presence of the King which makes
it, in the truest sense, a Communion. "There," is His own promise, "I
will meet with you and commune with you from off the Mercy Seat." If Your
presence, O Savior God, goes not with me, carry me not hence! May I be able
to say, both in the prospect and retrospect, "He brought me to His
banqueting house, and His banner over me was love." "Truly our fellowship is
with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."
We have need of such "quiet resting places" in the
Pilgrim journey; breathing-times amid the din and turmoil and harassing
cares of the world. Let me now leave its soiled garments, its coarse wearing
drudgery, behind me in the outer court; and unembarrassed and unencumbered,
enter with sacred footstep to be 'alone with Jesus.' Many are the
circumstances and seasons when the choicest of all His sayings is
applicable—none more so than regarding this "Feast in the desert,"—"Come
unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!"