A Sacred Rendezvous: Pursuing Jesus' Heart for Solitude in a World of Noise and Trouble

A Sacred REndezvous

Copyright © 2021 by Ron Mahler

All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. • Scripture marked AMPC taken from the Amplified® Bible, Classic Edition, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. • Scripture marked BSB taken from the Berean Study Bible, Copyright © 2016–2020 by Bible Hub and Berean Bible. Used by permission.

ISBN: 978-1-4866-2051-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-4866-2052-4

Word Alive Press

119 De Baets Street Winnipeg, MB R2J 3R9

www.wordalivepress.ca

Cataloguing in Publication information can be obtained from Library and Archives Canada.

To my dear friend, Terry Goodwin (1960–2020),

a man of God who passed from this life into the presence of

Jesus and the Great Sacred Rendezvous…

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark,

Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

—Mark 1:35

The search for the sacred in life is the most distinctly human of all pursuits…

—Kenneth Pargament

¹

Contents

Introduction

About The Book

Chapter One

Solitude: A Spiritual Hill Worth the Climb

Chapter Two

Lessons From a Dusty Getaway

Chapter Three

Living in the Material World: It’s Not How Much We’ve Got, But How

Much We Need God!

Chapter Four

Alone Again, Naturally

Chapter Five

A Recipe for Respite

Chapter Six

Hiding Places

Chapter Seven

Inner Rooms

Chapter Eight

The Soul Whisperer

Chapter Nine

Up and Then Down a Mountain

Chapter Ten

Temple by Day, Hill by Night

Chapter Eleven

Priestly Prayers from on High

Chapter Twelve

The Most Famous Last Words…

Chapter Thirteen

Goin’ Home: Ultimate Intimacy!

Chapter Fourteen

Reviving the Monastic Spirit: A Renewed Call to the Sacred

Rendezvous

Author’s Prayer

Also by Ron Mahler

Introduction

Jesus lived in a noisy and troubled world. For centuries before His unassuming arrival, the Roman Empire had been flexing its sovereign muscle over any upstart opposition and insurrections. Oppressing and crucifying at will, the Romans’ governing rule led the Jewish people to the nadir of their sufferings. That was more than enough noise and even more than enough trouble for a small first-century world. The Lord’s presence upon it didn’t seem to change much in that regard. Irreverent noise and blasphemous trouble followed Christ all the way to the spectacle of Calvary, nailing Him to one of its crosses. To sum up all four Gospels: Jesus knew noise and He knew trouble!

That being said, He had a plan to combat the sirens of chaos blaring around Him, a plan that effectively offset their impact on His life and ministry: solitude.

Instead of taking a drama-infused, militaristic stance against unfriendly forces, Jesus chose the not-so sensational and rather underwhelming option of retreating.

For the Lord, getting away and alone was more than a nifty manoeuvre designed to evade His enemies, more than simply a desire to lock out the clanging demands on His time and block up His divine ears. Whenever Jesus fled to parts unknown, with or without His followers in tow, He usually did so with one purpose in mind: to rendezvous with the Father. As non-negotiable, cordoned-off sections of His days (including His all-nighters), we could define the times when the Son of God fled to His Father’s presence as sacred in nature. Yet they were hardly moments when the First and Second Persons of the Trinity simply did a little catching up with each other. Rather, we could see them as a continuation and extension of the intimacy they had shared within the Godhead in eternity past. While earth-bound, the Lord sought to keep His focus heavenward. In other words, just as we believers seek to keep in step with the Holy Spirit, Jesus sought to keep square with the Father’s will and His orchestration of the Lord’s path to the Cross.

There, in the presence of the sacred, the Saviour demonstrated a life of surrendered obedience to the Father, allowing Him to shape His (the Son’s) peculiar, God-man identity within the mould of adverse circumstances. Amid all the worldly noise and trouble that came against Him, the Bible indicates that even Jesus—God in the flesh—required periodic grounding and reorientation towards His Kingdom’s agenda and its goals. So often, solitude served as the context in which our Lord was fashioned into the sacrificial Saviour and friend of sinners so many would (and still) fall in love with.

Two thousand years later, followers of Jesus are still being made into His likeness, even as the noise and trouble of our world rage on.

At the time of this writing, we remain mired in a global pandemic (the COVID-19 virus). Diseases and other ailments that can lead to death are still with us, as well. Social and political unrest, injustice and godlessness, have not only stuck around but continue to accelerate in their intensity. The more the times change, the more they remain spiritual carbon copies of each other. Twenty centuries after Jesus’ advent and vicarious death for sinners, we’re still hamstrung by Adam and Eve’s sin-paved road out of Eden; sin that sent our Lord to Golgotha. Since humanity’s fall, our world has simply been recycling and refurbishing its noise and trouble. Just like those who decided to follow Jesus in His day, we who walk with Him now continue to do so under a cloud of challenges—not to mention, devilish overtures. Like the early Church, we’re still clutching the foot of His Cross and counting on a well-timed rapture to lift us up, up, and away from all our trials and tribulations.

The world will play itself out. It always does. We are not in control of very much in this life. Having said that, I believe we can control what we allow to control us.

What can we do, then, to muffle the roar of a world seemingly full-bent on crazy? What can we do to balance all the difficulties and demands of a noise-and-trouble-laden life with the command of God to put Him first in all things?

As previously stated, Jesus spiritually accounted for the noise and trouble swirling around Him. He remedied it by making time alone with God a non-negotiable characteristic of His life. If solitude was the Saviour’s go-to—not only in terms of combating the world’s noise and trouble, but in remaining disposed and pliable to the shaping will of the Father—I suggest we make that our plan! Observing Jesus’ heart for solitude with His Father, then, is a great way to be reminded of just how necessary and powerful time spent alone with God really is.

In heaven, we’ll experience an eternal existence that’s intimately intertwined with our Creator God. From that perspective, we’ll likely wonder how we could’ve ever settled for anything less than the most sacred of all rendezvous!

About the Book

The book you’re about to read is analogous to a dance—the rhythm and timing of the music we’re dancing to, and the synchronization between us and the one with whom we’re dancing. It’s symbolic of a handshake, but also of the deal being struck. Of a type of investment, with an eye to its payoff. This book has to do with a transaction and the details of what has been transacted. Intercession—or more to the point, the act of interceding—is discussed in these pages.

You’ll find allusions to the realities of human fragility and tragedy, but also to their respective antitheses: the remedy of strength and the reward of faith. It’s a book about burdens and breakthroughs, explorations and excavations; about personal sunsets and sunrises, famines and floods. This book will transport you to barren lands and seat you before the theatrical dalliance of the prince of demons. It speaks to our hard day’s night and our dark nights of the soul. In these chapters you will glean soul-care and soul food. At its core, the book focuses not only on the limitations and needs of the natural person, but also on the life-saving and life-changing power and presence of the supernatural!

As its subtitle indicates, this book focuses on the topic of solitude and is concerned with the most sacred rendezvous possible: enjoying the intimate company of our Creator-God. To that purpose, the overall content constructs a framework for what prayerful devotion looks like when placed atop a biblical foundation for faith.

The content you are about to read concerns you only because it first is concerned with another. With each unfolding chapter you will be taken deeper into the heart of Jesus Christ’s ministry; in particular, what I believe to be an underappreciated aspect of it: His heart for and need of solitude.

This book presents biblical images of the Saviour sprawled and spent, prostrated and poured out in marathon prayer. It recaptures how Jesus’ getaways with His Father in remote and lonely places—away from every request and erroneous reproof; from preying paparazzi and conniving characters alike—refocussed and refuelled His Kingdom-come quest to defeat devils and redeem reprobates. Times of solitude and intimate communion with the Father, minus the probing and exacting heat of human needs that surrounded Him, were strategically littered throughout Jesus’ ministry. We’ll see from our observations of the Lord’s attitude toward prayer that personal, private communication with His heavenly home-base was foundational for Him receiving strength, affirmation, and direction for His ministry.

It’s gospel obvious that the Saviour also possessed fully human needs. Jesus Christ’s unique and exceptional blend of natures (fully God and yet fully man) rendered Him entirely dependent upon His heavenly Father, a dependency that characteristically manifested itself through the many rendezvous the Saviour sought with Him. The sheer profundity of sovereign God needing anything—even while saddled with human blood, bone, organ, and flesh—is a spiritually astronomical prospect a broken humanity cannot contemplate enough.

The Gospels attest that when the Lord prays, the veil of intimacy between Jesus and the Father is drawn back, revealing the heart of God: the Son’s heart for His Father in heaven, and the Father’s heart for His Incarnated Son. We are invited in Scripture to go beyond merely observing that intimacy to experiencing it personally. It is always ultra-convicting when we read of Jesus, often overworked and pressed for time, making time to be alone before His Father. This clear biblical fact can (and should) be the catalyst that motivates the disciple of Christ to periodically arrive at secluded places of prayerful solitude. If Jesus needed to find time to withdraw from the passing lane of life, how much more do we?

The monastics of the early Christian Church certainly agreed. Their unwavering efforts to seek solitude amid their desert schools and other remote areas form an enduring, inspirational ring of witness around our discernible need for spiritual rest and sustenance. Therefore, this book also puts a relevant accent on some monks who made a rich, spiritual contribution to Christianity. Some of the more storied personalities and ministries strewn throughout the monastic movement and the history of the Church will be tallied here.

Every human being is created to be authentically and intimately related to their Creator. Where such a relationship is non-existent, the ability to comprehend the meaning of one’s existence and life’s ultimate purpose will be spiritually compromised. We cannot know true peace without being at peace with the only One who can give us that peace! I’ve always appreciated how St. Augustine (354–430 AD) articulated this reality, as noted in his Confessions: You arouse us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you. ²

We live in a world that promises noise and trouble and delivers them—a world tumbling