Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.

What do we do, as Christians, with our sorrow?

What do we do, as Christians, with our stress?

Those are, when all is said and done, two of the crucial questions of our personal faith experiences. Much as I like to emphasis the joys of daily prayer and service, and the conscious effort to recognize and measure and appreciate the blessings that surround us, still there are those moments and events that challenge us and our ability to cope with all that life throws at us.

Sorrow in the face of a death – be it physical or the death of a relationship or a dream or a career – brings us up short and forces us to face a sudden emptiness in our lives and to measure the meaning of our lives.

And stress unmanaged can drive us to poor choices and hurtful decisions and can leave us paralyzed with the fear of being wrong. The ripple effects of stress, on our health and our heads, can be devastating and – in the case of one friend of mine a few years ago – it can kill us.

And sorrow and stress form the backdrop of both of this morning’s lessons.

What Jesus had heard, the news that caused him to get in a boat and put some distance between himself and the crowds, was that John the Baptist, who had proclaimed his arrival and who had pointed to him as the one to follow, had been killed, executed by the legal authorities.

And Jesus wanted some time alone to grief, to reflect, to remember, and, I suspect, even to wonder how his own end would come. I know that feeling, don’t you?

Death hurts and the fact that it hurts is not a repudiation of our faith, quite the opposite, it is an affirmation that we believe so deeply in the God of life that we know death as being an offense to God’s creative powers. And so, when death comes to those whom we love we understand it to be a serious moment of evaluation and that hurts. We can see the pain in Jesus attempt to be alone with his emotions upon hearing of John’s death, it is the same serious attention paid to death when he receives the news of the death of his friend Lazarus and scripture tells us “Jesus wept.”

One of the things that critics of Christianity have never understood is that our faith is not one of wishy-washy, smile and everything will be OK denial of life’s realities.

No, when you read the Bible you find as realistic a picture – painfully so at times – of the human experience as you could ever find.

And you find sorrow.

Sorrow running – as we have known it - in deep channels of the soul.

Sorrow that could cause even the human presence of God in the world to cry and to need to be alone.

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.

And there is stress in scripture.

A few weeks ago, you may remember, we worked with the story of the two brothers, Esau and Jacob and we saw Esau’s disregard for his birthright, trading away his future for a bowl of stew in his belly one hungry day, and we saw Jacob’s covetous manipulation of his brother, and they were both revealed to be less than heroic.

Well today we are on the verge of the end of that story and Jacob is going home.

And he is going home because he is afraid to stay where he was, he has worn out his welcome, he is going home because he has no where else to go and he knows the truth that won’t find words for thousands of years: “Home is that place, that when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

So he goes home, just as we turn to those whom we love, just as we turn to God and his Church.

But even as Jacob heads for home, he is not sure what it is he is going home to, and so this man who has spent his entire life looking after himself, taking care of Number One, finally has the good sense and grace to care for others, making sure that his family is safe if Esau should seek revenge.

And he goes to the river alone.

And he knows the stress that we know, only too well.

The uncertainty of the future.

The fear that our past will catch up with us.

He feels trapped at the river by all of the mistakes he has made and all of the things he never put right and all of the people he hurt.

So what do we do with our stress?

What do we do with our sorrows?

Jacob wrestled with God.

He wrestled with God and so should we.

There are many – and I am occasionally among them – who want scripture to be clear and neat and easily applicable to my life.

And sometimes it is.

But if you and I are going to get God’s blessings, we need to be willing to wrestle with God, we need to be willing to grope and push and shove and offer our best and ultimately we will be overcome by God’s best.

That’s how we overcome stress, we take it to the mat with God, we read the stories and share the tales of women and men who have been there and done that and come out the other side battered and limping, as Jacob was, as all of us are at times when we are willing to mix it up with God, but the sun does rise on us and when we look at what we feared we discover blessings and graces that we neither imagined nor thought possible.

Jacob looked up and saw his brother Esau coming and rather than revenge Esau is seeking reconciliation, rather than anger Esau greets him with tears and kisses.

And as with so many of our stresses and fears they fade like the morning mist and we realize that we have wasted much of our lives on things that never came to be.

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.

But just wrestling with God doesn’t make everything better.

John the Baptist was still dead.

Jesus heart was still broken in sorrow for his cousin.

And so he seeks to be alone.

But the community won’t let him.

They follow and they have needs and the needs are great and in his sorrow he has compassion on them.

How many of us have had that same experience?

We just want to be left alone to mope and wallow in our sorrows, yet something tugs at our hearts, calling us.

And isn’t it true that we are most aware of the pain of others when we are most honest about our own pain?

And then we have that familiar story about the fish and the loaves and the feast that was as abundantly and excessively overstocked as was Esau’s love for, and forgiveness of, Jacob.

But I don’t want us to miss the remarkably accurate assessment of the situation by Jesus when the disciples try to send the crowds away because they don’t have enough food: "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."

In other words, you have what you need, for yourself and for those around you.

And I can’t help but wonder if Jesus was reflecting on his own sorrow, and the realization that he had what he needed to come to grips with John’s death and turn his own face, with increased intentionality, toward Jerusalem and God’s work.

You have what you need, and he did and it took him to the cross and it took him to the grave and it took him to the throne of heaven and it takes him into your heart and mind, bringing a serenity and peace that can never be explained, only experienced. And I can’t help but think about Jacob who had tried to cheat, steal and lie his way through life, finally being left alone without his possessions, without his family, with nothing but himself, to wrestle with God and face up to his past and his future.

You have what you need, and Jacob did and it brought him through a reunion that was wonderful and a life that would follow with abundance beyond measure, surrounded by love.

And I can’t help but think about us as we struggle with the sorrows and stresses of our lives, we have what we need.

We have the scriptures to wrestle with, we have the community that calls us out of the shadows of sorrow into the light of service, we have the sacrament which brings God to us in the most personal and intimate of ways, we have what we need to live lives full of love and joy and service to others, we have what we need to move from sorrow to celebration, from tears to bread and wine, from darkness to light.

And life will play out differently for each of us, for the gifts and challenges that God has placed before each of us are different, but for each of us the starting point – to which we need to return again and again – is the silent time spent alone, carrying our sorrows and our stresses with us, praying and wrestling with God and that will lead us to meals together and new celebrations and a peace that goes beyond what we can ever explain.

Don’t be afraid to cry, don’t be afraid to go off by yourself, don’t be afraid to wrestle with God, for in the tears and solitude and struggle God will show you that you have all that you need to share and celebrate and live.

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.