Luke 9:10 (CEV)
10 The apostles came back and told Jesus everything they had done. He then took them with him to the village of Bethsaida, where they could be alone.
Coming Back
On Monday the disciples were sent out. Today, they come back. They’ve gone on their trip, they’ve healed people and driven out demons. They’ve told people about the good news – that the Kingdom is coming – even though they still don’t really even know what that means.
And now they come back together as a group, they meet back up with Jesus and he takes them off to an out-of-the-way village where they can be alone and regroup. And yes, I know it doesn’t last for long – I know that they get followed – but I still want to pause here for today.
I want to pause because so often in the midst of getting excited about the doing we miss the coming back.
Infant development experts will tell you that for a young child to develop well, they have to have a strong connection to one or two key “attachment figures” (usually the parents). In the first three months of life, the child will cry about 100,000 times, and each and every time that the child gets picked up and fed and carried and cared for in response to their cries, they learn that they are safe, that they are known, that they are precious. And when a child has that foundation of positive experiences, they begin to develop the courage to try new things. And so eventually that eight month old will crawl away from mom or dad … and then they come back, to check that they’re still safe and known and precious. This cycle repeats hundreds of thousands more times as the child learns and grows and develops, until eventually, if they are healthy and have received the right care and nurturing, they’ll have the capacity to go out and do life on their own as adults.
The process of moving from infancy to adulthood takes somewhere in the neighbourhood of 18-25 years. It’s a long, time-intensive process.
Jesus takes already grown men on a three-year journey of discipleship and training, but it still involves this going-out-to-do and coming-back-to-check-in process.
And I think all of us need to be reminded of this.
Some of us find it hard to take the steps to go out and do. We don’t like Monday’s reminder that we have to take some risks. We don’t like the idea that we’re going to have to actually go test out the things we’re learning in real life if we want to see them at work in our lives.
But others of us are perfectly happy with the doing part of the process – it’s the coming back that we struggle with. The pausing. The spiritual disciplines of contemplation and prayer and stillness and silence and Sabbath and rest.
But Jesus seems to think this is really important to the process. The disciples need time to check in with Jesus and soak in how much he loves them again. The process of doing is exhausting. It takes lots out of us, and if we simply do and do and do, we’ll rapidly run out of anything of any value to give to those we want to serve. The Kingdom life wasn’t intended to be lived on our own. Simply doing but never being will leave us tired and grumpy and empty. Coming back gives the disciples a chance to regroup and recharge and reconnect – to fill up with the life-transforming love that Jesus offers that can then take them out again, full enough to give again the next time they’re asked.
But the disciples also need a chance to ask questions, to talk about what went wrong, talk about the things they found themselves overwhelmed by or afraid of or incapable of. And they can only have time for these slow, deep, reflective questions if they come back.
So somehow, as we begin to discover what it looks like to live into the doing of this Kingdom call to love, we also need to learn at the same time how to live into the coming back practices that will fill us with the love we need to be able to continue to live into the Kingdom call, not just for a short period of time, but for the long haul.Journal Questions:
- When was the last time you took time to come back? Time in contemplation, prayer, stillness, silence, Sabbath or rest?
- Do you find it easy or hard to come back?
- If loving well requires both doing and coming back, do you need to make any adjustments to what you are doing to love better?
- Is it possible that Jesus is calling you to come back at this point?
- Do you need to talk to someone about how to engage in some of these coming back practices?
