Time to Rest
In a time scarce world, it is hard to find time to rest; however, Hebrews 4:1-11 tells us that is exactly what we need. Time to Rest for believers is the around-the-clock enjoyment of God. No need for working to earn his love. Yet plenty of desire for working to show our love. June 29, 2008.
We have developed an extraordinarily time conscious society. Airlines can confidently predict departures and arrivals at 6:47 a.m. or 11:13 p.m. Signs hanging over the interstate or GPS devices on dashboards inform us how many minutes it will take to drive to Ryan Road or Chicago. We’re constantly conscious of time, perhaps too conscious. I read that in some Native American cultures the smallest increment of time isn’t a minute or a second but the period between sunrise and sunset! A more natural and rhythmic flow of time that refuses to force smaller and smaller artificial divisions upon human life. Consequently, when Europeans arrived on this continent and tried to impose their culture, calendar, and clock on the Native American Indians, they frequently complained about how late the Indians always were for scheduled events. On the other hand, the Indians couldn’t figure out how the Anglos determined time for events without consulting the sun or moon but instead two little twigs spinning around on a dial.
The worship of that clock face (now replaced by the more precise digital read out) has enslaved us even more since those days so that time management has become a big deal. Google the term “time management” and you’ll get 120 million hits. Compare that to 29 million hits for “war in Iraq” and 1 million hits for “Summerfest.” Time management is a hot topic. And not just for Google, either. The Bible has plenty to say about time from its invention by God who designed a day as evening and morning to the timeless eternity we’ll spend with him in heaven, and every minute in between. In today’s portion of the book of Hebrews God tells us about his mercy that is ours all the time, our decisions about how we manage time as a gift and opportunity, and the importance of taking Time to Rest.
The seventh day
One way Americans are spending more time these days is cocooning. With today’s economy people say they need to stay home more because they can’t afford to spend as much money going out. Ironically, cocooning Americans are spending more money than ever remodeling our homes. So the time off we take to rejuvenate at home we frantically spend killing ourselves rejuvenating our home. Why is it so hard for us to take a break and relax? Why must we constantly finger the buttons and screens that transmit data? Why can’t we be more easily content with outdated cars, clothes, or computers that run well but aren’t quite hip anymore?
The Bible answers that even the most precious possession is “of no value” when we do not “combine it with faith.” Our lack of faith in what God says is true treasure and what God says is a significant way to spend time has recalibrated our values to the settings of a misguided world spinning out of control. “They shall never enter my rest,” God warns – in anger, as an oath – about anyone who does not live and decide and use minutes with faith.
So what, exactly, is God’s rest? Hebrews says, “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.” This was no flopping onto the sofa from the weariness of six days spent creating, nor was it an inactivity as if God stopped watching the sparrows. In today’s Psalm we sang that God never sleeps. The People’s Bible explains, “God’s rest on the seventh day was the rest that follows finished and holy work, a rest characterized by perfect contentment and infinite satisfaction. It is this rest, this eternal blessedness and total fulfillment, that he wants to share with his children” (Richard Lauersdorf, Hebrews, NPH: Milwaukee, WI, p. 35). Rest doesn’t necessarily mean doing nothing. God was doing a lot of enjoying and admiring on the seventh day. The world he made was very good. Since that time, God has made you. More than that, God has redeemed you in Christ and claimed you as his own. So when Hebrews states “the promise of entering his rest still stands” it reassures us that the satisfaction and blessedness of the seventh day of the world’s existence is still something God enjoys today in you. His “very good” is an assessment he still speaks today about you. He steps back to appreciate and enjoy his handiwork in you, as an object of his love he didn’t just find but he created. You don’t need to go anywhere or do anything and pay any invoice to the church to enter God’s rest, just enjoy God enjoying you! That’s rest.
The Sabbath Day
A.J. Jacobs, a writer who has made a name for himself chronicling year-long experiments like reading through the entire Encyclopedia Britainnica, read the entire Bible in four weeks and compiled a list of every rule, guideline, suggestion, and piece of advice. His list ran 72 pages. He then spent a year literally attempting to keep every one of them, including Old Testament regulations like not wearing clothing of mixed fibers in his clothes. The relief for Jacobs, a self-proclaimed agnostic who admittedly couldn’t keep all those commands, was that it should be okay to pick and choose which commands of God you want to keep. If that’s our idea of rest because living as a Christian has become so demanding, then we are the recipients of this warning from God pointing out the example of the Israelites who missed out on entering the promised land, “Those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience.”
Okay, did you catch that this threat from God has to do with disobeying the gospel? The gospel is God’s promise. Therefore, some Israelites were prohibited from entering the promised land not because they disobeyed God’s law, his commands. Even though they disobeyed some of God’s commands, that disobedience disappeared in the blood of forgiveness sacrificed in the animal offerings and ultimately in Jesus. But a greater disobedience cursed them. A hardening of their hearts against God’s gospel, not receiving God’s gospel promises with faith but rejecting them in unbelief. So A.J. Jacobs’ problem isn’t what he thinks it is. His problem isn’t that he couldn’t keep all the Bible’s commands. God will forgive that for those who repent. No, his problem is that he dismisses God and disobeys God’s gospel call for him to rest in the forgiveness of Jesus.
Because spiritual rest is such a blessing and God wants nobody to miss out on it, he designed a special day in Old Testament times as one day a week without work, a day that allowed believers to enjoy God not by working to keep 72 pages of commands but by resting in the grace and greatness of God. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.” You and I aren’t bound by the Old Testament Sabbath because it has been fulfilled in the spiritual rest won for us by Jesus Christ, but we still benefit from the blessing of rest it promoted. The promise of that rest remains for us to enjoy on any day, all day, as we rest from working to enjoy God and simply enjoy God through the wonderful blessings. Those blessings definitely become a bigger part of our lives when we read, hear, learn about, study, and celebrate them in our contact with God’s Word and our worship with other Christians. But in no way are those blessings limited to one day a week!
Today
Like relaxation when you’re on vacation doesn’t end until the vacation ends, God’s rest is ours to enjoy not just when we’re worshipping or praying at home or reading the Bible. We enjoy it constantly. “Therefore, God again set a certain day, calling it Today.” As opposed to the sign in the concession stand promising, “Tomorrow all popcorn is free,” so you come back the next day but the sign still says, “Tomorrow.” God’s rest is free today. Come to him tomorrow and it will be another “Today.” For you happy hour enthusiasts it’s the clock I saw on vacation on which each of the twelve numbers on the clock had been replaced with the happy hour number five. Time to Rest for believers is the around-the-clock enjoyment of God. No need for working to earn his love. Yet plenty of desire for working to show our love.
As a time conscious society it’s difficult for us to find Time to Rest. We’re so busy. We value the power of productivity. Yet here we are, enjoying God – while the blades of grass in the lawn grow taller by the minute, and the work project making no progress without attention, and the test messages and e-mails pile up unanswered. Here we are, enjoying God because we believe, we appreciate, that God is never too busy for us. Never late when we need his help, never out to lunch or napping so that he doesn’t notice our problems, always updated in his answers to our prayers, filling every minute, every sunrise and every sunset with his promises kept. God busies himself with us and that’s fulfilling for him. On Fathers’ Day two Sundays I spoke with a few fathers were going home from church not to nap on the sofa all day but to grill and prepare a meal for their family. For them grilling was rest. Fulfillment and satisfaction. Because rest doesn’t necessarily mean doing nothing. You know, we’re busy. But for believers who involve God in our busyness, spend our minutes with faith, and set aside special moments for special enjoyment of God – being busy is okay. God is in it with us and in him, through faith, we find Time to Rest even when we’re busy. So busy yourself with God and enjoy your rest. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on June 29, 2008
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