The first impulse of the sorrow stricken.
There may have been more than one reason for our Lord's retirement on this occasion. He may have designed to secure a time of close personal intercourse with the apostles. They had just returned from their trial mission; they were in a very excited frame of mind, and sorely needed a time of quiet guidance and teaching. He may also have felt that the violent death of John the Baptist, of which very imperfect accounts must have reached him, put his own life in peril, and made it advisable to remove from more public scenes for a while. But the accounts leave on us the impression that our Lord was specially affected by the news of John's death, and felt the longing for quietness and seclusion, which is the first impulse of the sorrow stricken; in this showing himself tempted and tried even as we are, and so having a "fellow feeling of our infirmities." The point on which we dwell is that the first desire of the sorrow stricken is a mixed one. He both seeks quietude and he seeks company; and often he restlessly changes from the one to the other. This peculiarity we find in Jesus, in "the Man Christ Jesus."
I. THE IMPULSE TO SEEK LONELINESS. This perhaps always comes first. Sorrow sends us into retirement. The stricken care to see nobody. Leave them alone in their grief. This is illustrated in two scenes of Christ's life.
1. In the case before us, when Jesus received the sad news of the violent death of a friend and fellow worker. He wanted to be alone. He went into quietude. He passed across the lake, to the lonely eastern side, away from the pressure of the crowds. Silence, separation, are the felt needs of such an hour.
2. In the case of Gethsemane, when Jesus was in immediate anticipation of calamity, and overwhelmed with mental distress. Then he sought the quiet of the garden, the shade of the olives, and even separation from the trusted three. None may see the Man in his sublime soul wrestlings. He must be alone.
II. THE IMPULSE TO SEEK COMPANY. This is quite as marked. The stricken man wants to be alone, and yet cannot bear to be alone, he wants to feel that friends are near; that he can reach them. He must sometimes speak out the woe to them, or it would grow unendurable. This is illustrated in the same two scenes of Christ's life. In the first, our Lord must have the apostolic company with him. "Come ye into a desert place, and rest a while." In the second, he must feel that the chosen three were close at hand. Truly a "fellow feeling of our infirmities."—R.T.