Going through Withdrawal

Luke 5:15-16

Even though Jesus urges caution in spreading the word about this leper’s healing, the news does get out and all kinds of people come to be healed. That Luke mentions this tells me that Jesus wanted the leper to keep the healing a secret for other than just what we said last time about going first to the priest. Jesus wanted to take the initiative in where he went and who he healed.

I can’t think of a time Jesus turned down a specific request for healing. But as a mortal human being, Jesus was limited by time and place as to how many people he could heal and how many places he could be at one time. Jesus understood that far better than we do sometimes.

Whenever crowds come running as in this case, Jesus does take time to minister to them both in declaring and demonstrating the good news of God’s love to them. While this passage does not specifically state that Jesus did so here, the implication is that he did. They came to hear Jesus and to be healed by him, and he did not disappoint.

But, and this is a very important “but” in verse 16, Jesus made it a habit to withdraw to lonely places and pray. The word here is “often,” meaning it wasn’t a set pattern, not so much like Daniel’s habit in the Old Testament. I have no doubt Jesus prayed constantly. But his ability to get away from the crowds was not something that was going to be a set routine when working among the peasants who crowded around him like this.

In any case, Jesus withdrew (the NASB says he “slipped away”). You get the impression there was no fanfare. How could Jesus just up and disappear like that? Couldn’t everyone recognize him? He was so adept at this sneaking out that he had given the slip to his hometown folk who knew him intimately when they were so angry with him back in chapter 4. Crowds in that day and as is so often the case in much of our modern world in Asia and other places afforded the teeming and boisterous setting that provided moments for escape. In any case, the people were not going to let him go unless he did give them the slip.

Whether his disciples went with him is not said. Sometimes he invited them along. Other times he sent them on ahead. What is clear is that he went to places where people were not around and he went there to spend time with his Father in heaven.

Jesus understood his priorities. He knew his limitations. He was fully God, but he was also fully man, and as man he was not all-powerful, self-sustaining, and omnipresent. He needed space and he needed time with Father just like all the rest of us. He could not give out unless he took in.
What about the people who needed healing? No matter how bad off they were, unless Jesus had it to give, it didn’t matter. People were needy all the time Jesus was growing up, but Jesus did not begin his ministry until the Spirit came upon him down by the Jordan River. Just like the rest of us, he ministered to people in the power of the Spirit.

He had a sense when he needed that refueling and he didn’t wait until he was completely depleted. I have a feeling that such a depletion had nearly come to him in the desert when he faced that temptation with the devil. It is said of us in the Good Book that God will not push us past our limit. If Jesus on earth was fully man, then he also had his limit and both he and Father knew that he was not to go beyond that limit.

Jesus could read the gauge. He knew when it was time to pull over at the next exit and refuel. To do otherwise was idolatrous – to assume that Jesus didn’t need Father-in-heaven. Jesus was no fool, but the needs of people can be an overwhelming temptation to those who minister. Just one more? Sorry, but Father knows best.