Commentary: Come away to a deserted place

February 10, 2007, 3:30 p.m. found me in the back seat of a van next to daughter Tammy. Up front were my wife, daughter Trina, and our driver and guide for the past 24 hours. Behind me was an armed guard directed to us by the U.S. Embassy to look after us on our journey across the Sinai Peninsula.

Outside the windows was Cairo.

Cairo, Egypt! How do you describe it on a Friday afternoon?!

We were clawing our way to the Cairo Museum through a racket-symphony of horns, gunning engines, screeching tires, and assorted raised voices. Traffic lanes drawn as five were used more like eight. Most intersections were signal-less. An occasional police office made a futile attempt at order.

After awhile I needed a break and reached to the lower pocket of my cargo pants, pulled out my travel Bible, and began to thumb through the Gospels, red-letter-style, past the “woe to you” passages and finally to a single red line, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” It became the text of a Lenten messages I delivered a week later.

Not all that many hours before we were in the middle of the Sinai Desert where I took a photo. To fully appreciate the photo you must imagine no sound at all. Sinai silence is deafening.

There’s something about a deserted place like the Sinai that beckons, even seduces you away from the frenzy that has you standing there in your shoes – senses numbed, soul languishing in a spirit-less hole.

The deserted places must have been precious to Jesus. I’ve a feeling he had a mind-map of every deserted place to which he could occasionally escape ... to hear the voice of God ... to hear the murmerings of his own soul.

The invitation of Jesus to “come away to a deserted place” was especially poignant for his apostles who “had no leisure even to eat.” (Mark 6:31)

And so for us.

Glad we could get together.