Resting in the Presence of Others

BMCC Sunday Sermon · 4 Oct 2026 · Speaker: Ted Yip

In October 2026, as the year enters its final quarter, many of us carry something we haven’t yet put into words — accumulated weight from work, from life, from relationships. On this Sunday, Ted Yip led the congregation of Blessed Ministry Community Church (BMCC) through Mark chapter 6, drawing from Jesus’s invitation to his weary disciples to retreat to a quiet place, and discovering there a profoundly human path for tired souls.

Mark 6:30–31 describes the disciples returning from a successful mission trip, brimming with reports of preaching, healing, and deliverance. But to read this passage well, we cannot ignore its immediate context: John the Baptist had just been beheaded by Herod. This was not just news — it was the death of someone the disciples deeply loved, a prophet, a mentor. Alongside this grief came shock, and the burnout that follows intensive ministry. On the surface, they had just triumphed. Within, they were carrying grief for a lost beloved, and the bone-deep weariness of having given everything. Ted observed that in today’s church culture, the instinctive response might be to “ride the momentum and move on to the next city.” But Jesus saw their exhaustion, and said: “Come away with me to a quiet place and rest a while.”

This invitation, Ted explained, is Jesus actively creating a retreat for his disciples. He unpacked four elements within this passage. First, retreat is not solitary — Jesus went away with a group of disciples. The heart of retreat is communal: journeying together, experiencing God’s presence among one another. Second, retreat is “private” — not a grand announcement, but a deliberate setting of boundaries. The relentless demands, the anxiety of messages, the noise of the world — these can be temporarily set aside in the quiet of this protected space. Third, retreat calls for a “deserted place” — Hong Kong has no literal wilderness, but it has quieter retreat sites, away from city noise and performance pressures. Fourth, and most essentially, retreat is about rest — about genuinely caring for body, soul, and spirit. Ted said it plainly and powerfully: “Rest is not a sin. Jesus himself modelled it.” In the wilderness, you don’t need to keep being a servant; you are simply God’s beloved child.

Here Ted paused and shared his own story. He admitted that sadness has always been his least familiar emotion. Those who have seen the animated film Inside Out (《玩轉腦朋友》) will recognise the colourful cast of emotions — anger, disgust, fear… and sadness. Sadness was the one Ted least knew how to be with. What we are unfamiliar with, we naturally avoid. A few years ago, many of Ted’s long-time church friends and fellow workers left Hong Kong. At the time, he told himself: “We weren’t that close. I’ll be fine.” Life was busy; there was no time to sit with feelings. And so, in the habit of “once it passes, it’ll be okay,” he pushed down the longing and the sorrow, again and again.

It wasn’t until last year’s church retreat that, in the relative quiet, those faces began to surface. Ted realised that the bonds had gone deeper than he’d thought — and that he had been avoiding the lesson of loss all along. Beneath the busyness, there was a quiet sadness that had never been properly acknowledged. He said that it was at the retreat that he finally cried for the people who had left. Those tears were not only sorrow; they were a kind of release — a place in his heart that had long been hardened beginning, gently, to soften.

Ted also shared what he observed within the BMCC staff community: each person carries heavy burdens — some are caring for chronically ill family members, bearing the physical and emotional toll; others are navigating the inevitable realities of ageing, illness, and loss. They press on, teeth gritted, continuing to care for others, but rarely finding a space where they themselves can lay the weight down and be accompanied in return. He confessed that in those sharing moments, he felt a deep call — not to offer a pat on the back and “just pray about it,” but to create something deeper: a space of genuine, unhurried companionship, where people could set down their brave faces and honestly meet the unresolved questions in their hearts.

This year’s BMCC retreat carries the theme 在 (“Being Present”) — resting in the presence of one another, facing life’s burdens together. Ted invited the congregation to consider: as 2026 enters its last three months, would you give yourself the space to stop — to gather up this year’s accumulated weight, and perhaps even those quiet unresolved questions deep within? A retreat is not an escape from reality. It is an act of honesty — choosing, in a safe community, to look at the ashes and thorns that obstruct our view of God. Because seeing God often comes after we have first acknowledged, honestly, what we are carrying.

Blessed Ministry Community Church (BMCC) is a home that welcomes everyone. Whatever you are carrying — grief over a farewell, the weight of caregiving, long-held anxiety, or a tiredness you cannot quite name — you do not have to face it alone. We hope you will come. Come to this community. Come into Jesus’s invitation — together, quietly, to step aside for a while and rest.