Silence & Solitude In the Wilderness – Mark 1:32-34

We have a world that does its best to drown out silence and medicate loneliness with noise. When we experience a moment of silence it feels disruptive, unsettling, and agitating. Silence does not come naturally to us. But there is something beautiful in silence and solitude; It is where we enter into the mystery, the unknown, and realize that God is already there and has always been there.

As the Church of the West, we are far more familiar with the God of the mountaintop than the God of the wilderness. When suffering crashes into our lives we often wonder where God is, and Lent is an annual practice that teaches us to find His presence in our wilderness.

Word’s that describe silence: disruption, unsettled, agitated. Do those words come close to describing it? We don’t experience silence often.

When we leave this place, we are immediately greeted by the sounds of a large city. There are the mechanical whirling of automobiles, never ending construction, and the voices of the people going to and fro. In our cars, there is the constant beeping telling us that we really should put a seatbelt on that we drown out with our favorite sports commentator, podcast, or playlist. Or maybe you have a kid who does all the noise making you could ever need.

We can all empathize with the “white noise” of the world today whose volume knob has been turned all the way up to 11. On top of that, PEW research has shared that 22% of US adults struggle with feelings of loneliness during a typical week, which start rising exponentially with young kids, teens, and adults who regularly engage with things like social media.

Long story short, we have a world that does its best to drown out silence and medicate loneliness with noise. When we look at the world this way, it makes total sense why we would look at a period of silence with words like disruption, unsettled, and agitated. It is not something that comes naturally to us. And that is why, during the Lenten season, it is ever more important to talk about.

Confronting Comforting Loneliness:

We fear silence and we fear being alone.

The last person we want to be with is ourselves. We fear what will be uncovered. We fear the shadowy side of ourselves, the compilation of all of our worst traits that we know all too well. We fear the voice of the critic that brings forth accusations.

There is a time for silence and solitude, and a time for engaging back with the crowds.

Richard Foster, “Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.”

Christ Green, “We’ve made a world where it is easy to think that we can control what our experience is like all the time.”

That is the beauty of silence and solitude. It is where we enter into the mystery, the unknown, and realize that God is already there and has always been there. That is how we confront and sanctify loneliness.

Vision for New Horizons:

The Prophetic Imagination, a work by Walther Brueggemann describing how the prophets of the Old Testament had a two-pronged duty when trying to bring the people of God back into their roles as His covenant people when they had fallen astray. Now, when we hear the word “prophet,” you may think of several things: YouTube personalities screaming about an election or a recent event in the Middle East, crystal balls that predict future events, or even a bad movie depicting what they think the end times are going to be like. This is our culture’s view of prophecy, and though it can try to pass itself off as “Christian,” the reality of biblical prophecy is much deeper. When a messenger from God comes to His people, they have a lot more to say about God and His relationship with his church.

Prophetic Critique is the work of a prophet when they have to show people that things are not as they are supposed to be. This may include calling out things like idol worship, social and economic injustice, as well as periods of exile and wilderness.

Prophetic Energizing is when the prophet energizes the people of God for the work of ministry. If things are not as they should be, then we have work to do! We have wrongs to right. We have alternative kingdoms to live in!

This is where silence, solitude, and the prophetic imagination collide so beautifully. The New Testament tells us that we are not only a royal priesthood, but a prophetic people. When the Spirit descended at Pentecost, the same Spirit that emboldened the prophets for critique and energization entered the people of God. It is the same Spirit that we declare we believe in every Microchurch when we say the Apostle’s Creed. It is the same Spirit that is within us, guiding us as we go throughout our day to day.

Sense of Freedom:

John Mark Comer, “Anybody remember this? Waiting at a bus stop, stuck in traffic, sitting in the theater before a movie, in the back of a less-than-enthralling political science class with nothing for your mind to do but wander through the infinite realm of possibility? While it is easy to sentimentalize something as inane as boredom, none of us, honestly, wants to go back to a pre-digital world. We’re more efficient than ever. I get more done in less time than I ever dreamed possible a decade ago. But again, pros and cons. We now have access to infinity through our new cyborgesque selves, which is great, but we’ve also lost something crucial. All those little moments of boredom were potential portals to prayer. Little moments throughout our days to wake up to the reality of God all around us. To wake up to our own souls. To draw our minds’ attention (and with it, devotion) back to God; to come off the hurry drug and come home to awareness.”

There is so much freedom found when we can get off the hurry drug, or the white noise of normal, and come back to the reality of God all around us.

So, how do I practice silence and solitude?

First, let’s sanctify the small moments. Sanctify means “to make holy.” So when we say to sanctify the small moments, we mean to look for the small moments of quiet and invite God into them.

Second, make intentional time to practice silence and solitude. Find a closet, a park, or a breakroom to be a holy space where you can be alone with your Father in heaven who loves you. Find the time to cut out the white noise and look inward, to face the thoughts and impulses that we hid from everyone else and bring them before a compassionate God who knows just what it is like to do this whole human thing.

Finally, be ready for your silence and solitude to be interrupted.

John Mark Comer, “There are times when what you really need is alone time with Jesus, but, well, life happens. People happen. You set aside time to Sabbath or pray or just take a night off with no plan, but then you get a text from your boss, a minor crisis at work. Your two-year-old swallows a LEGO Kylo Ren. You Google ‘Closest emergency room.’ Your roommate had a bad day and could use a chat. Two hours later and they are still crying… Y’know, ordinary life stuff. Sound familiar? You ever feel like, try as you might, you just can’t get time to rest? You’re in good company with Jesus himself.”