Disappearing Act

I'm intrigued by how Jesus would sometimes disappear right in the middle of ministry occasions.

There were moments when everything seemed to be going well and suddenly He was gone. Or there were episodes where He got in trouble and just vanished.

You see it in Mark 1:35, where He pulled away from everyone to go pray and commune with the Heavenly Father. It shows up in Luke 4:29-30 when, in Nazareth, He is rejected by some hometown synagogue worshippers who angrily take Him outside of town to throw Him off a cliff. He escapes. That same kind of thing happens in John 7:30 and 8:59 and 10:39.

Another example of this phenomenon can be found in John 5:13 where Jesus slips through a crowd and is gone just after miraculously healing a man at the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. That case is really interesting. We wonder why our Lord would just take off like that after doing such a good deed, and a supernatural one at that. Some Bible teachers believe that He removed Himself so as not to get tangled up in a wave of compliments and commendations. Others feel that He quietly left the scene to keep from getting enmeshed in a barrage of criticisms and complaints from the Jewish leaders upset over His daring to heal somebody on the Sabbath. Both of those possibilities may be true. The ego of Jesus wasn't dependant on accolades and pats on the back and recognitions for its strength. Nor did He find it necessary to subject His energy and dreams and vision to verbal poundings from irritable, negative individuals.

All of this has got me thinking. Are there times when we ought to disappear for awhile? Certainly.

Like Jesus, we need to carve out time to get away from the stress and busyness of everyday life for prayer and reflection and breathing room, for example. Periods of silence and solitude and intercession can do wonders in our lives. And surely when we are in jeopardy, in our case spiritually, from temptation, we should flee.

We can learn, too, from our Lord not to let ourselves get trapped in the twin perils of accepting excessive praise or being victimized by ugly faultfinders. Don't get me wrong. We all need words of encouragement. We can all benefit from occasional constructive criticism. But to stand around and wait for our fix of flattering remarks and kudos, or to allow ourselves to be held hostage in our spirits by someone's venomous words can harm us in terms of motivation and drive.

By the way, one day we will really be able to disappear, and reappear, at will, like Jesus could in His resurrection body(Luke 24:31, John 20:19). Our changed bodies will be like His, with supernatural capabilities, free to move about at the speed of thought. What an awesome future will be ours!