Holy Rest
Do you think rest is a good thing? Many people apparently don’t. We westerners are anxious, driven, compulsive producers. It is ridiculous how much we try to cram into a day, and how guilty we feel if we don’t get it all done. There is an old proverbial commentary on us: Americans worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship. The more you think about that, the truer it seems.
There are two sorts of rest. The one we are most familiar with is the rest that follows accomplishment. We rest when we finish with something. Whether it’s a building we have built, a meal we have cooked, a project we have completed, or an assignment we have finally turned in, we intuitively feel it’s time to rest now that we’re done. This sort of rest is wonderful. It refreshes and rejuvenates us based on work we have accomplished.
But there is another sort of rest—Sabbath rest. The Hebrew word Shabbat does not mean finishing something, but ceasing something, simply stopping. This is a much harder thing for us to do. And in fact, it was not even done with regularity in Israel of old, where God directly commanded it. He told them that they would be unique in the world by ceasing their normal labors on one whole day per week, from sundown on what we call Friday through sundown on what we call Saturday. This would be a rest not based on man’s accomplishment but on God’s. You might call it a rest of “faith rather than works.” And He did not base it in the human “need” for rest (though God created us with that need), but in the principle of faith in what God has done.
Sabbath finds its original grounding in God’s accomplishment. He finished the good work of creation and He “rested” (Gen.2:1-3). When he told Israel to keep Sabbath as an abiding aspect of their covenant with him (Ex.20:10-11) it was based on what God Himself had already completed—the creation. “…for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” The Sabbath Day Law (the 4th Commandment) has its rationale not in human obedience, but in divine achievement as a paradigm for understanding how eternal life works. It was an act of covenant loyalty to trust that God Himself had already accomplished what really needed doing. The obedience of the Sabbath was, paradoxically, a commanded reminder that reality does not rest on our production or obedience, but on God’s creative and redemptive work. And He literally forced them to face this. Failure to keep Sabbath carried the death penalty (Ex.31:12-18)! Is God serious about reminding us that His work is the resource for all that we do, and not the other way around?
It is true that we as Christians are not under Sabbath as Law (See Romans 14). On the other hand, is it not a form of anxious idolatry when we refuse to rest and worship? The Lord might not be calling you not to do another “big” thing, but to stop. Consider it.
Just a thought,
Pastor Rick
