Prayer Before Dawn

“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up.” (Mk 1:35)

You rose while it was still dark.  You did not wait for the light of day.  You didn’t wait for chaos and disorder to be conquered.  You didn’t wait for everything to be clear and settled, squared away, organized.  You stood up in the darkness, the chaos, the disorder, among monsters and beasts of the night.  And you prayed.

I rise, too, in the night, before the dawn, to take a chance that if I do as you did, I will be found a child of the Father like you.  I will join you in your posture of total supplication, in your all-inclusive “Amen” to what the Father sends you.  And I remind myself that you are my prayer.

You left the house, the town, the crowd, the company and the comfort and the noise, the familiarity and the distraction.  You sought out the lonely place, the empty place, the dark, silent, fearful place where one waits for an encounter.

This is a risky business.  What if nothing happens?  What if vulnerability is so laid bare only to be mocked by uninterrupted silence?  Is my solitude filled with the anxiety of: “Will he show up, or won’t he?” and: “Is this working, or am I wasting my time?”  Or can I cling to the certainty of your promise: “I am with you always, even now, when you do not feel it.”

They hunted for you.  So do I.  I hunt, I dig, I grasp, I cling.  Everyone is looking for you.  “But did you not know that I should be about my Father’s business?”  Of course.  But we are needy and we crowd around the door, hands reaching out to touch you.  You are exactly where you should be, and you never fail to reach out a hand to grasp one who needs you.  You are everywhere, close, even in the dark.  Especially in the dark.

They hunt for me, too, when I seek the solitude of the night.  It is not just people and problems that stalk me, but thoughts, concerns, worries, questions, crowded around the door of my mind, demanding entrance.  Like you, I must learn to live with this poverty, this “Nowhere to lay one’s head” as a condition of my service, my human mission.  There will always be another village waiting for me.

My dawning realization is that you are the hunter, the stalker, the one who will not leave me alone.  You seek me out not only when I am silent and still, but also when I am surrounded, the whole town gathered at my door.

“For this I have come.”  What conviction did you draw from the depths of solitude that sent you forth to proclaim?  What energy you have!  What sense of mission!  You are the Father’s child, his delight.  Belovedness overflows; you must share it with all you meet; you cannot hold it in.

I, too, am sent forth, and so I go, but in weakness, in fear and trembling, under seemingly inauspicious circumstances.  In spite of all this, I trust you, Lord, to bring to fruition your mission in me.  If I can only let you live your life in me, your life as the Beloved Son of the Father.  For this you have come.

Image: Icon of Jesus at Prayer in Gethsemane