Come Ye Yourselves Apart

What loving consideration for his disciples is suggested by these words of Jesus! They had been engaged in the work of the Gospel  preaching, teaching and healing—and had returned to the Lord to tell him of their experiences. “But there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.” So Jesus suggested they should go elsewhere to seek quietude and rest.

“To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven,” says the Preacher. Rest and recreation (i.e., re-creation) are essential to human well-being, whether on the physical or spiritual plane, and Jesus taught his disciples a very practical lesson in this respect in the incident recorded by Mark.

—Come ye apart and rest awhile!” Christ’s advice is perhaps more needed today than ever before. The world is too much with us: it is well-nigh impossible to escape its insistent influence or find a quiet retreat free from its fret and turmoil. Many of us seek relief on holidays; but even in the solitude of the hills or in the wide expanse of the moors, the ubiquitous aeroplane intrudes, shattering the sense of seclusion and linking us again with man’s unceasing endeavor to subjugate the physical universe.

How, then, can we come apart and rest awhile? There is no quietness or peace associated with the human world around us. Quite the reverse: stress, anxiety, clamor and warfare are its characteristics: we seek in vain in that direction. But one of old confidently tells us of a source of peace which he had discovered:

“The Lord is my Shepherd: I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.” Psa. 23: I-3.

Here then is what we seek and desire: pleasant pastures, the waters of quietness, and refreshment for the soul: sought out and made accessible to us by the Shepherd of Israel. And does not His Son reveal similar consolation? Jesus, the good Shepherd, who laid down his life for the sheep, invites us: and rest awhile ( Mark 6 :31)

“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden: and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Matt. 11:28

Rest unto our souls! That is our greatest need today and our most fervent longing: to be free from the anxiety which so easily possesses us; to banish the sense of unrest which so frequently consumes us; to secure that contentment of spirit which so readily evades us, and which only confidence in God can inspire. If we are to secure this rest unto our souls, we must learn of Christ: and when we are truly his disciples, he takes us :apart unto a desert place –far from the crowded haunts of human life– and we rest awhile with him, forgetting in his serene presence the cares and anxieties of life, and the interminable struggle of flesh and spirit; and so are strengthened for further endeavor.

Each first day of the week we arc granted in a very special sense the privilege of spiritual re-creation. Christ may be “known to us in breaking of bread.” as he was to the disciples of old. It is essential, however, that we should come apart from the world with its restless comings and goings, and seek to find him who has promised to be with us when we are gathered together in his name. This is no easy thing to accomplish, for we arc very definitely still in the flesh, and liable to he too readily influenced by the merely human aspects of the memorial service; often we determine its success or failure by the word of exhortation. Let us remember, however, that the essential feature of the memorial service is the breaking of bread: that alone is commanded: all else is subservient to it. In that ordinance we remember Christ, learn of him, and so find rest unto our souls.