Finding Love in Silence and Solitude

After introducing the series…

Who are you?

“I’m a pastor. I’m a teacher. I’m a nurse. I’m a factory worker. I’m a homemaker.” I am what I do.

OR

“I’m a woman/man. I’m a wife/husband. I’m a mom/dad. I’m a sister/brother. I’m a Bibi/Papa. Maybe ever I’m gay/straight.” I am my roles or relationships to others.

Those answers say important things about us. But do they really tell us who we are? Who are you?

Abraham Heschel: “Man has become a forgotten thing. We know his desires, his whims, his failings; we do not know his ultimate commitment. We understand what he does, we do not understand what he means.”

What he means is that in many ways we are living as characters in a movie where we have completely lost the plot. We’re busy, we’re moving fast; but we have no idea where we’re going.

Sadly, we’ve mastered our roles but lost our meaning.

Who are you?

How do you know? Where are you drawing your identity from?

Where can you go to find a true answer?

This morning, we’re looking at the spiritual practices of silence and solitude. In this spiritual desert, you learn that You are most loved in the very places you thought were most unlovable.

Pray

Pray for vision and what seeking first the kingdom means in this season

Pray for the sick, those who are facing the end of life, those who love them and carry the burden.

Pray for those who are missing bc of illness, travel, busyness, or personal drought.

Pray for those who we know who are far from God.

Open us to be loved by the Lover.

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I want to tell the the story of how a camel driver became a giant of the spiritual life.

Macarius was born in 300AD in Upper Egypt and, as a young man, followed his parents' wishes by entering into an arranged marriage. However, he felt a profound, internal tug toward a life of prayer. He famously feigned illness to avoid consummating the marriage. A short time later his wife died. Soon after, his parents passed away as well.

While this was a tragedy, Macarius also saw it as a divine clearance to follow what was in his heart. He gave away his possessions to the poor and began to live as an ascetic near his village.

While he was living as a hermit near his village, a local girl became pregnant out of wedlock. Under pressure, she blamed Macarius, claiming he had forced himself upon her. The villagers were outraged. They dragged him through the streets, beat him, and hung soot-blackened pots around his neck, mocking his "holiness."

Macarius’ response was radical: He didn't defend himself. Instead, he chose to support her. He began weaving more baskets to send her money. He chose to be seen as a criminal by men so that he could be faithful to God. Eventually, when the girl went into labor, as she struggled to give birth, she confessed the truth: Macarius was innocent.

When the truth came out, the townspeople rushed to his cell to beg for his forgiveness, but this terrified Macarius more than the beating did. He realized that human praise was more dangerous to the soul than human persecution. And so to escape the "noise" of his own reputation, he fled deep into the Scetis Desert (the Wadi El Natrun). He was 30 years old and would live there the next 60 years, eventually founding a monastery that exists to this day.

What did Macarius find in the desert? He learned the practices of silence and solitude and these became a mirror to face the truth and a window to meet God’s grace. There in the silence and solitude he discovered his identity - one who is deeply loved in spite of his failures.

The Resistance: Why We Flee the Quiet

With the rise of social media we live in the most "looked at" era in human history, yet we have never felt less seen. We are curated, captioned, and captured on screens, yet people across the spectrum confess to feeling a profound hollowness in their souls. At the same time, we run from the silence because we are terrified of what we might hear, and we avoid the solitude because we are afraid of who we might meet.

Our culture treats silence like a technical difficulty and solitude like a social failure. We have become "addicted to the noise," using it as a buffer to drown out the internal static of our own anxieties.

Blaise Pascal famously noted: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

When we resist the "quiet places," we pay a heavy toll.

Mentally: We suffer from "continuous partial attention," leaving us frazzled and incapable of deep thought.

Physically: Our nervous systems remain in a state of "high alert," leading to burnout and chronic stress.

Spiritually: Our relationship with God becomes a series of transactions rather than an intimacy of being. We content ourselves with perhaps knowing more about God, but not knowing God - or being known by him.

As we’ll see this morning, when the crowds were at their peak and his popularity was at its highest, Jesus did the most counter-intuitive thing possible by our standards: He disappeared.

“But despite Jesus’ instructions, the report of his power spread even faster, and vast crowds came to hear him preach and to be healed of their diseases. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.” (Luke 5:15–16, NLT)

The Mirror: Seeing the Distorted Self

Jesus is trending. This is the moment when we’d start thinking about how to build a brand and scale our impact. But Jesus seemed to know something about the crowds, that they actually offered a distorted reflection - either over-inflating us with praise or crushing us with demands. In this passage are two essential truths if we want to also live a spiritual life - or a life that flows in the Spirit; the danger of the public self, and the power of perfect acceptance.

And so he withdraws to the wilderness. The Greek word for wilderness - erēmos - can have several meanings. Desert, or a deserted or desolate place, or lonely place. Jesus intentionally went into a lonely place.

But lest we think that Jesus was just an introvert in search of some “me time”, this was part of his regular, intentional practice. Numerous times in the NT we’re told that Jesus would withdraw before big decisions or during trying ministry moments in order to spend time with his Father.

The great priest, professor, and theologian, Henri Nouwen, said “Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life”.

The first thing we see is that the silence of the desert serves as a mirror. When we remove the noise, pressures, and distractions that draw our attention away from God, it gives the Holy Spirit space to do deep work in our lives - the parts of us that are driven by insecurity, the need for control, and the hunger for validation.

The noise and busyness of the world acts as an anesthesia, helping us ignore or be distracted from the truth of what lies on the inside.

In the quiet we come face to face with the truth of our distorted beliefs, temptations, and false motives. In turn, it allows God to not only expose these things, but to heal them. The silence becomes like surgery for the soul. It is where God exposes our distortions and disordered desires, not to shame us but to remove the tumors of the false identities that threaten our soul.

The Window: Being Seen

If silence is a mirror to see ourselves, solitude is a window through which we are seen by God. We live in a world that is obsessed with how we’re "perceived." Every meal is a photo op; every career milestone becomes a LinkedIn post. We’ve become our own PR agents, constantly curating a version of ourselves that is "always on."

I think we sometimes forget that Jesus was truly human. He could be tempted by the adulation of the crowd. And while he never sinned, the author of Hebrews says he was tempted in every way we are. The desert was how he managed the pressures and expectations of others by withdrawing often to remember and recenter himself in his identity as the beloved son.

The problem is that when you are always on a stage, you never truly feel known. You feel "watched," which is a cheap substitute for being "seen." To be looked at is to be judged by appearances; to be seen is to be known at the level of the soul.

Solitude is a way of quieting who we are in the world’s eyes so that we can become more fully convinced of who we are in God’s eyes. We drop the fig leaves we hide behind and instead turn fully into God’s gaze.

C.S. Lewis said “We are always completely, and therefore equally, known to God… but though this knowledge never varies, the quality of our being known can. … the change is in us… instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view.”

As Henri Nouwen beautifully wrote "In solitude, I get rid of my 'scaffolding'—no friends to talk to, no phone calls to make, no meetings to attend... and I stand there alone, naked, and vulnerable. And then I discover that I am loved with a love that does not depend on what I do, but on who I am."

In the window of solitude we discover that God is not shocked by our "warts." He doesn't look away when our ugliness surfaces in the lonely place. He doesn’t pull the blinds over the window; instead, He looks deeper. He sees the wounded child beneath the angry adult. He sees the saint beneath the sinner. In the desert you learn that You are most loved in the very places you thought were most unlovable.

A Vision of the Rhythmed Life

These were the lessons Macarius learned in the desert. There is a story that he was once approached by a young monk seeking the secret to the spiritual life. Macarius told him: "Go to the cemetery and insult the dead. Then go and praise them." The monk did so and returned. "What did the dead say?" Macarius asked. "Nothing," the monk replied.

Macarius told him: "You must be like those dead. Neither the insults of men nor their praises should move you."

Imagine a life where you are no longer a slave to your notifications. Imagine a version of yourself that is so anchored in God’s "seeing" that the world’s "looking" no longer has power over you.

The practice of solitude and silence doesn't mean moving to a cave; it means carrying the desert into the middle of a busy life. It looks like a person who is unhurried, unstressed, and deeply present to God and others. It reminds me of the credo I learned as I walked the pilgrimage path to Santiago de Compostela:

I am not in control.

I am not in a hurry.

I walk in faith and hope.

I greet everyone with peace.

I bring back only what God gives me.

And as you allow your heart to settle into these rhythms and realities, you discover the truth that Jesus, Macarius, and everyone else who ever walked out into the desert discovers: You are most loved in the very places you thought were most unlovable.

Practical Deserts: Applying the Silence

Monday is coming. If we’re to live this out as we step back into the normal world we must learn to build "mini-deserts" into our daily infrastructure. We cannot wait for the silence and solitude to find us; we must aggressively pursue it. I’d like to offer you one thing to practice this week. We can call it The First Fifteen: Give the first 15 minutes of your day to silence—no phone, no news, no coffee-fueled productivity. Sit in the "lonely place" of your living room and let God look at you. Mother Teresa was once interviewed by Tom Brokaw. At one point he asked her what she said in prayer. She told him she didn’t say anything; she just listened to God. And so he asked her what God says, to which she replied, “He doesn’t say anything… he listens.”

The desert is not a place of emptiness, but a place of filling. There is water in the wilderness. We go to the desert to lose our false selves, and in the mirror of silence and the window of solitude we can finally be found by the only One whose gaze truly matters.

Communion

Invite people to stand.

Invite Communion/ministry team forward.

Every Sunday we close our time by receiving Communion together. This symbolic meal reminds us of Jesus’ sacrifice. In it we testify that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. Jesus said it is his body and blood, true food and true drink. It is a grace given to us for our spiritual nourishment. It is the meal of our new identity in Christ.

We think Jesus invites everyone to this table. If it’s your first time, or you’re not even sure yet where you stand with Jesus, we think he would welcome you here. If you would like to participate, after I pray step into the nearest aisle. Someone at the front will take a piece of bread dipped in wine and offer it to you as the body and blood of Jesus. If you prefer not to have wine, close your hands together and that will be the sign for them to give you a sealed container with grape juice and a wafer.

What is the Spirit doing this morning?…

As we come to the table this morning, let’s rejoice together with all God’s people in our identity as God’s people from Psalm 100:

“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” (Psalm 46:10–11, NRSV)

Thank him for our new identity in Christ that we can begin to live from now, made possible through his death and resurrection. By the blood of his cross he has washed and renewed us. Through his victorious resurrection he has guaranteed us eternal life. Through his ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit he has made us one with you.

We remember Him who for us and for our salvation, on the night that he was betrayed...

Lord, we pray that in your goodness and mercy your Holy Spirit may descend upon us, and upon these gifts, sanctifying them and showing them to be holy gifts for your holy people, the bread of life and the cup of salvation, the Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ.

Grant that all who share this bread and cup may become one body and one spirit, a living sacrifice in Christ, to the praise of your Name.

Come Holy Spirit and overshadow these elements. Let them be for us your body and blood so that we can participate in your redemptive work for us. May we find mercy, healing and salvation through the finished work of the cross. Amen.

Invite the worship team to receive Communion first.