Lenten Reflection – Day 31 of the Great Lent
Come Apart and Rest: St. Mark 6:30–46
“And He said to them, ‘Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.” (6:31)
Thirty-one days. We have crossed the threshold into the second month of the fast. Behind us: a month of stripping, examining, forgiving, praying, giving, resting, running, yielding, and being found. The Cross stands in the middle of the church since Mid-Lent. The Sundays have traced the arc from abundance at Cana to the bent woman made straight at Kfiftho.
Today the pace changes. Not because the fast has slowed. Because Jesus takes His disciples out of the crowd.
He does not teach them a lesson. He does not give them a command. He does not challenge them or rebuke them or test them. He says: come apart. Rest.
This is the passage for the person who has been so busy being spiritual during the fast that they have forgotten to be still. The person who has added so many disciplines, so many prayers, so many acts of service that the fast itself has become the noise it was supposed to silence.
“They did not even have time to eat.”
Thirty-one days of fasting. And the irony is that some of us have not had time to be fed.
The Apostles Returned (vv. 30–31)
“Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And He said to them, ‘Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.” (6:30–31)
The apostles have been out. Jesus had sent them in pairs to preach, heal, and cast out demons (Mark 6:7–13). They went. They worked. They returned. And the first thing they do is gather around Jesus and tell Him everything.
They tell Him what they did and what they taught. Not a formal report. A debriefing among friends. The excited, exhausted, breathless recounting of people who have been doing God’s work and are bursting to talk about it. They have healed. They have preached. They have seen demons flee. They are full of stories.
And the crowds are pressing in. “Many coming and going.” The ministry has generated demand. People are arriving. People are leaving. The disciples are surrounded. The noise is constant. The needs are endless.
“They did not even have time to eat.”
This is the detail that matters most for Day 31. Not that they were sinning. Not that they were failing. They were doing the right things. Preaching. Healing. Teaching. Serving. All good. All commanded by Christ. All bearing fruit. And they were so consumed by the doing that they had no time for the most basic human need.
Jesus does not congratulate them. He does not say “well done, keep going, the harvest is plentiful.” He says: stop. Come apart. Rest. You need to eat. You need to be quiet. You need to be alone with Me.
This is different from Day 23’s invitation to rest. On Day 23, the heavy laden were people crushed by religious burden. The rest Christ offered was freedom from the heavy yoke of a system that demanded more than anyone could give. Today the people who need rest are the workers. The successful workers. The fruitful ministers. The people who are exhausted not from failure but from faithfulness. Not from sin but from service.
The fast can produce the same condition. Thirty-one days of prayer, fasting, Scripture reading, almsgiving, self-examination, forgiveness, worship. All good. All necessary. And all of it can become so dense, so constant, so unrelenting that the person doing it has no leisure even to eat. The spiritual life has become a programme. The disciplines have become a schedule. The quiet space where God speaks has been filled with the noise of our own devotion.
St. Isaac the Syrian, in his Ascetical Homilies, teaches that the greatest danger in the spiritual life is not laziness but hyperactivity. He calls it “spiritual restlessness.” The person who fills every moment with prayer, reading, and service can be running from God as surely as the person who fills every moment with entertainment. Isaac says that God speaks in the silence between the words. If there is no silence, there is no hearing. The person who has eliminated all empty space from his spiritual life has eliminated the space where God does His deepest work.1
Sheep Without a Shepherd (vv. 32–34)
“So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves. But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.” (6:32–34)
They tried to get away. They got in the boat. They headed for the deserted place. But the crowd saw them leaving and ran around the shore on foot. When Jesus and the disciples arrived, the crowd was already there. The rest was interrupted before it began.
This happens. In the spiritual life and in ordinary life. You plan the retreat and the phone rings. You schedule the quiet morning and the child wakes early. You set aside the hour for prayer and the email arrives. The crowd is always there. The needs are always pressing. The sheep are always scattered.
And Jesus could have been annoyed. He could have said: I told you we needed rest. Send them away. We will try again tomorrow. The rest was His idea. The crowd interrupted His plan.
Instead: compassion. Esplagchnisthē. The gut-level anguish we met on Day 20 when Christ saw the hungry crowd. But today the compassion has a different shape. He does not see hunger. He sees disorientation.
“They were like sheep not having a shepherd.”
This is the first time in the series the shepherd image has appeared. And it is the image the series has been missing.
A sheep without a shepherd is not a bad sheep. It is a lost sheep. It is not rebellious. It is confused. It does not need punishment. It needs direction. It does not need to try harder. It needs someone who knows the way.
For thirty days we have been examining our sins, confessing our failures, and disciplining our bodies. All of that has been important. But today Christ looks at the crowd and does not see sinners who need to repent. He sees sheep who need a shepherd. People who are scattered. People who are doing their best but have no one to guide them. People who are running from city to city looking for something they cannot name.
The Great Lent can feel like running from city to city. Day to day. Passage to passage. Discipline to discipline. Always arriving somewhere but never quite finding the still centre. The sheep are not lazy. They are active. They are running on foot around the shore. They arrive before the boat. They are eager, seeking, desperate. And they are shepherd-less.
St. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Hymns on the Nativity, develops the shepherd theme with characteristic richness. He writes that the Incarnation was the moment when the Shepherd entered the pasture. Not to observe the sheep from a distance. To walk among them. To call them by name. To lead them to water. Ephrem says that a shepherd who watches from a hilltop is not a shepherd. A shepherd walks at the pace of the slowest lamb. A shepherd sleeps in the field with the flock. A shepherd smells like the sheep because he has been with them all day. This is the God who became flesh. Not a God who manages from a distance. A God who walks in the dirt with the flock.2
Today, on Day 31, let us ask ourselves: are we sheep running from city to city, arriving breathless at every destination but never finding the shepherd? Or have we stopped long enough for the shepherd to find us?
He Began to Teach Them (v. 34b)
“So He began to teach them many things.”
The rest was interrupted. The crowd arrived. And Jesus did not send them away. He taught them. “Many things.” Mark does not tell us what He taught. Just that He taught. At length. To a crowd that had run to find Him.
This is worth pausing on. Christ’s response to scattered sheep is not a programme. Not a system. Not a list of rules. He teaches. He speaks. He opens His mouth and the words carry the authority we heard on Day 13. The words that astonished the synagogue. The words that silenced the demons. The same words, spoken now to a scattered crowd in a deserted place, do what words alone cannot do. They gather. They orient. They point the sheep toward the shepherd’s voice.
The fast has been full of teachings. Thirty days of them. But the question is whether the teachings have been heard the way the crowd heard them. Not as information. Not as content to be processed. As the voice of the shepherd calling the sheep. The teaching is not the end. The voice is the end. The words are the medium. The shepherd is the message.
On Day 13, the people in the synagogue were astonished because Jesus taught with authority, “not as the scribes.” Today the same authority speaks in a deserted place to a crowd that has no other resource. No synagogue. No scrolls. No scribes. Just the voice of the shepherd in the wilderness.
He Went Up on the Mountain to Pray (vv. 45–46)
“Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He sent the multitude away. And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray.” (6:45–46)
After the teaching. After the feeding (which Mark recounts in vv. 35–44 and which we reflected on in Day 20). After the crowd has been satisfied and the fragments collected. Jesus does three things.
He compels the disciples into the boat. The word is ēnagkasen. It means to force, to compel, to insist. He does not ask them to go. He makes them go. They do not want to leave. They want to stay with Him. But He insists. Get in the boat. Go to the other side.
He sends the multitude away. Gently. Firmly. The crowd that has been fed must now disperse. The miracle is over. The teaching is done. Go home. Carry what you received.
And then He is alone. On a mountain. Praying.
This is the moment the series has never explored. Not the Jesus who teaches. Not the Jesus who heals. Not the Jesus who feeds or forgives or commands demons. The Jesus who prays. Alone. In the dark. On a mountain. After everyone else has gone.
Why?
He is the Son of God. He has just multiplied bread. He has just taught with divine authority. He is the Word through whom all things were made. Why does He need to pray?
Because prayer is not the activity of the weak. It is the rhythm of the whole. The person who prays is not admitting inability. He is maintaining relationship. The Son does not pray because He cannot manage without the Father. He prays because the relationship with the Father is the source of everything He does. The teaching comes from this. The healing comes from this. The authority comes from this. The compassion comes from this.
Remove the mountain and the ministry dies. Remove the solitude and the crowd becomes a burden rather than a calling. Remove the prayer and the shepherd becomes just another busy person managing a schedule.
St. Basil the Great, in his Longer Rules, writes about the rhythm of prayer and work that he designed for his monastic communities. He observed that Christ Himself modelled this rhythm. Engagement with the crowd. Then withdrawal to the mountain. Teaching. Then silence. Ministry. Then prayer. Basil argues that the rhythm is not optional. It is structural. The person who works without withdrawing will burn out. The person who withdraws without working will become sterile. The health of the spiritual life depends on the oscillation between the two. Basil calls this the “breathing” of the Christian life. Engagement is the exhale. Prayer is the inhale. You cannot live on exhale alone.3
This is what the Great Lent teaches when it is working properly. Not just to fast. Not just to pray. Not just to serve. To breathe. To move between effort and stillness. Discipline and surrender. The crowd and the mountain. The fast has been the exhale. Thirty-one days of effort, discipline, engagement, output. Today Christ says: inhale. Go up the mountain. Not because the effort was wrong. Because the effort needs a source. And the source is found in the silence.
What This Means for Day 31
We have crossed into the second month. The fast stretches ahead. The Passion week is approaching. The intensity will increase, not decrease. And the temptation is to double down on the effort. Pray more. Fast harder. Read more. Give more. Fill every remaining day with activity.
Christ went up the mountain. Alone. After feeding five thousand people. After the biggest public miracle of His ministry. The moment when the crowd was largest and the momentum was strongest, He walked away from it all and went to a mountain to pray.
If Christ needed the mountain, we need the mountain.
On Day 9, we learned that the seed grows in secret and our job is not to measure. On Day 23, we heard “come to Me and rest.” Today is different from both. Day 9 said stop measuring. Day 23 said stop striving. Day 31 says: stop producing. Go to the mountain. Not because you have failed. Because you have been faithful. And faithful people need the mountain more than anyone.
The sheep are real. The needs are real. The fast is real. The disciplines are real. But the shepherd who never goes to the mountain becomes a sheep himself. Lost. Scattered. Running from city to city. Arriving everywhere. Finding nothing.
The mountain is where we hear the voice again. Not the voice of duty. Not the voice of the schedule. Not the voice of the next discipline on the list. The voice of the Father. Speaking to the Son. In the silence. In the dark. On the mountain. Alone.
For Our Journey Today
Create a deserted place. We do not have a mountain. We have a room. A chair. A corner. A car parked with the engine off. Today, create ten minutes of deserted place. Not for prayer in the structured sense. Not for reading. Not for examination. For silence. For being alone with God the way Jesus was alone with the Father on the mountain. No agenda. No list. No words, even. Just presence. The inhale that makes the exhale possible.
Stop feeding and be fed. For thirty-one days we have been doing. Fasting. Praying. Giving. Confessing. All of it real. All of it necessary. Today, stop doing and receive. Read a psalm without analyzing it. Listen to a hymn without studying the theology. Sit before the Cross in the nave and look at it without turning it into a lesson. Let the shepherd feed us. The sheep that never stops running never eats. We need to eat.
Recognize the scattered sheep. Christ’s compassion on this day was not for sinners but for scattered people. People who were doing their best but had no direction. Look at your family today. Your parish. Your community. Are there people who are running but lost? People who are eager but disoriented? The shepherd’s response is not to correct them but to teach them. Not to rebuke them but to lead them to the deserted place where they can rest. You may be the person who points them there today.
Lord Jesus Christ, Good Shepherd, who saw the scattered crowd and was moved with compassion because they were like sheep without a shepherd, gather us today. We have been running. From city to city. From discipline to discipline. From day to day. We have been faithful. And the faithfulness has left us exhausted. Not from failure. From the work You gave us to do. We have not even had time to eat. Forgive us for thinking that the busyness of the fast was the same as the presence of God. It is not. You went up the mountain. Alone. In the silence. In the dark. After everyone else had gone. Teach us to go there too. Teach us the inhale. The breathing we have forgotten. Lead us beside the still waters. Restore our souls. Not because we have earned the restoration. Because we are Your sheep. And You are the shepherd who walks in the dirt with the flock. By the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy Evangelist Mark, and all the saints, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
- St. Isaac the Syrian (7th century). The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, translated by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Holy Transfiguration Monastery Press, Boston, revised edition 2011). ↩︎
- St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306–373). Hymns on the Nativity (Madrāshē d-Yaldā). ↩︎
- St. Basil the Great (c. 330–379). Longer Rules (Regulae Fusius Tractatae), particularly Rules 5, 6, and 37.Edition: Saint Basil: Ascetical Works, translated by M. Monica Wagner, Fathers of the Church Series, Vol. 9 (Catholic University of America Press, 1950). ↩︎
