WORSHIP ARTICLE | Chadwick Brewer | Athens, Alabama
It’s early spring in the region around Galilee. You have been traveling with Jesus while He has been performing miracles and teaching about the kingdom of heaven, which is at hand. Yesterday, He healed the mother-in-law of your companion Simon. People everywhere are seeking Jesus, and there is clearly so much work to be done.
But it’s late morning, the dew has disappeared, and Jesus is nowhere to be found. He was here when we went to bed, but now He cannot be found. What is He doing? Does He not sense how precious His time is? The crowds are looking for Him. There is so much to be done. How could He possibly not care about the work that God has given Him?
Yet in Mark 1:35, we see that Jesus found it of supreme importance to go to the erēmos and pray, rather than cater to the crowds. How could Jesus find the wilderness / deserted place / erēmos more important than the work of the kingdom?
The quick and easy answer is prayer. Clearly, a solid prayer life is essential to the work. But if that were the only answer, why didn’t He just pray in the house? Or in the town square? Or in His room with the door closed? Why does Mark point out that Jesus went to a deserted place to pray? Why does this word erēmos show up in such important parts of Jesus’s life?
The first time we encounter this word is in Mark 1:12. Jesus is led out into the erēmos / wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan. Typically, we look at this occasion as Satan tempting Jesus while He is at His weakest. He is alone and hungry; what better time to pounce could there be? But what if we have been misreading this? What if quiet time with God, fortified by fasting, is the perfect setting for Jesus to rebuff those temptations? Perhaps being out in the wilderness with God for a time was beneficial rather than merely detrimental. The temptations were true temptations (after which Jesus needed to be ministered to by angels), but perhaps elements of the narrative that we think of as inherently unfavorable were also working in His favor.
After Jesus spends forty days in the erēmos being tempted, He begins His ministry, calls His first disciples, and heals many. But by Mark 1:35, He wants to return to the erēmos. This certainly does not sound like a desire to return to a place of hardship. It sounds like Jesus needed something and found it in the erēmos.
By Mark 6:31, the fame of Jesus had spread so much that people were constantly coming and going, to the point that they had no time even to eat. Instead of digging in and saying, “Look at this profitable work! We need to knuckle under and just keep plugging. We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” Jesus calls them away by themselves to the erēmos. When Jesus was finding such success, why would He interrupt that to go into the wilderness?
In Matthew 14:13, Jesus heard about the death of John the Baptist. This was His cousin according to the flesh, the one sent to prepare the way for Jesus, and the one of whom Jesus said that there was no one greater born of women (obviously excluding Himself). When Jesus heard of this great man’s death, He withdrew to the erēmos. He didn’t bury Himself in His work, nor did He distract Himself with His smartphone. He went to the erēmos.
Luke summarizes it this way: “He (Jesus) would often slip away to the erēmos” (Luke 5:16). While Matthew and Luke record specific instances where Jesus withdrew and went out to a desolate place, Luke states that this was His habit or custom.
While the trail of this word runs dry, the idea behind the word still leads forward. In Mark 6:46, Jesus went to the mountain to pray all night. Geographically, this is not an erēmos, but it serves the same function. In Luke 6:12-13, before Jesus chose the twelve apostles, He spent time on the mountain praying. And finally, in Luke 9:28, Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on the mountain to pray. Again, we might ask, “Why not just pray where they were?”
There is another geographical place that served the same function: gardens. Though not technically an erēmos, these places served the same purposes: spaces removed from noise and distractions where Jesus could commune with the Father. In John 18:2, John tells us that Jesus would often meet with His disciples in the garden outside Jerusalem. Luke 22:39 says that He went out to the garden, as was His custom.
From all of this, we can make some fairly solid conclusions. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus walked away from the wilderness with tested and proven identity, purpose, and work. When He was grieving and weary from ministry, He found rest and comfort in solitude with God. And before making big decisions or facing difficult moments, He sought time alone with His Father. Finding time in solitude with God was utterly important to His life, work, and mission.
When we read through the Gospels, we are quick to notice how much time Jesus spent in prayer, and we rightly conclude that we also should spend much time in prayer. But we often overlook the fact that Jesus would withdraw from everything that might distract Him and find time with God in solitude. We rightly emphasize prayer, but we often neglect the intentional solitude that surrounded Jesus’s prayers. Jesus sought out time with God, and He sought it in solitude.
It is imperative that we make some very clear distinctions between solitude, isolation, and escapism. Solitude ≠ isolation. Solitude is engagement with God; isolation is an attempt to escape. Solitude is having God as your refuge; isolation is putting yourself in danger. Solitude is giving your heart to God; isolation can heighten fear and anger. Solitude is nourishment for the soul; isolation is often what we seek when we have neglected true nourishment.
Jesus did not try to escape the pressure of His task by taking a sabbatical. He didn’t lose Himself in a project or simply enjoy a day of fishing. He was not running from the crowds, the obligations, or the stress; He was running toward God, who was His shelter in the storm.
We are often overrun with stress, overworked, and burned out. Worldly wisdom tells us to take a vacation, find a good hobby while we unwind, retreat from everyone, and distract ourselves with something else. Jesus lays out a different pattern, one in which we should walk in His steps. He withdrew to a place where He could be alone with God and spend time in prayer. We should do the same. Be followers of Jesus in all aspects of life.
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GROW magazine | July 2026 PDF
a work of the Limestone Church of Christ
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