The Apostles gathered together with Jesus
and reported all they had done and taught.
He said to them,
“Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”
They had gone out to heal and to preach empowered by the authority which Jesus himself bestowed upon them. But that did not mean that they were to function independently from then onward. They were to bring both their successes and their failures to Jesus. There were times when they would rejoice that even the demons were subject to them. There were other times when they would fail, when people would turn to Jesus for help with a demon that the disciples could not drive away. But in the case of their successes they were meant to return with thanksgiving to rejoice at what Jesus had empowered. When they failed they were meant to return to continue to learn where they still fell short and what more they needed to grow as disciples.
When he entered the house, his disciples asked him in private, “Why could we not drive it out?”
He said to them, "This kind can only come out through prayer" (see Mark 9:28-29).
The temptation for us is to let both our successes and failures isolate us from the Lord. When we forget to be thankful and to acknowledge our dependence on him in all things we become increasingly fragile, ready to break when failure does inevitably occur. And if we do not return to Jesus with our failures we will be tempted to despair of the possibility of progress and the direction of growth to which we are called will be obscure or invisible.
People were coming and going in great numbers,
and they had no opportunity even to eat.
So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.
Ideally the disciples would have had time alone with Jesus in order to spend time enjoying their relationship with him, learning from him without distraction. But in the real world such ideal conditions are often more aspirational than attainable. Thus the next best thing was for the disciples to witness Jesus at work amidst the real circumstances in which he did in fact find himself. In some ways this was actually superior to the interrupted original plan because it revealed the heart of Jesus in action.
When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them,
for they were like sheep without a shepherd;
Jesus himself came in order be the Good Shepherd for his people since those shepherds whom he had sent in the form of religious and political leadership had mostly failed to live up to their responsibilities. But it was also a part of the prophecy to which Jesus himself was the chief fulfillment that God would give shepherds after his own heart. And these were to be his disciples. In the abstract this was something that could be taught. But it was more effective still to see what it meant on display as Jesus himself responded to the crowd.
and he began to teach them many things.
The teaching he gave them was no mere abstraction, but something that could answer to their feelings of being troubled and abandoned. His words nourished and drew them out of their despair and toward rest in the peace of God. His teachings exposed false hopes and revealed where true joy could be found. It was in fact the vital cure to the lies the devil had sold to humanity, reestablishing trust and intimacy of relationship with God through Jesus himself.
Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart
to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.
The prayer of a leader for wisdom may seem overly naive and simplistic in our modern political discourse. Most would prefer a realpolitik of action and economic power, even though the goals they would desire to achieve might be noble. But without the wisdom all such projects are like houses built on sinking sand. Only rooted in God's fundamental understanding of all things can any human purpose have lasting value.
Solomon was given immense wisdom. But Jesus himself was the wisdon of God and the power of God (see First Corinthians 1:24). It was to this wisdom that the disciples needed to constantly return to strengthen their relationships with him. It was this wisdom, a communication of his very self, that Jesus imparted when he taught the crowds. Much more than trivial or abstract, it was fundamental for a life well lived and for anything truly worthy of the term success. May Jesus look upon our hearts with mercy and teach us many things.
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