The Real Rest--May 20, 2021

The Real Rest--May 20, 2021

"For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day. So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God's rest also cease from their labors as God did from his.  Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs." [Hebrews 4:8-11]

There are times, like yesterday, when I'll come home from the daytime part of my work-day, in that pre-dinner-cooking part of the late afternoon before evening meetings, and I'll sit down in an armchair for a few minutes before gearing up for the next leg of the day's work.  And in that space of, oh, ten minutes or so, before helping with homework or unloading a dishwasher or setting a table or grilling some chicken or boiling spaghetti, I rest.

Well, kind of.

It's not usually a very restful rest, because even if I can actually shut my eyes sitting in the chair for a few minutes, my brain knows that I'm not really done for the day, and there is more work biding its time.  There will be food to cook, supper dishes to clean, often meetings to go to, and then an assortment of other tasks between home and work to-do lists that will need to be checked off before I can call it a day.  And, I've got to tell you, when my internal timer or the alarm on my phone tells me I need to get up out of the chair and get to those, somehow I never quite feel refreshed.  

At the end of the day, however, when my body and brain call it quits for the day, I can go to bed and sleep soundly--because I know this is the real rest I have needed.  At that point, I can unclench my mental grip from the list of worries.  I can let go of all the regrets or mistakes or worries of the day (they'll be there, ready to pick up again in the morning), and I know that it's safe to let myself sleep, because the work of the day is done.  My shift is over for the day, so to speak.  That's the real rest.

And although I don't usually sing the words at that point (usually everyone else in the house is sleeping and don't need to be awakened by the resident church nerd belting out a late-night hymn), I do often find myself thinking the words of one of my favorite evening hymns, whose first verse goes like this:

The day you gave us, Lord, has ended,
the darkness falls at your behest
To you our morning prayers ascended,
your praise shall hallow now our rest.

If you know that feeling of peace at the end of the day as you hand into God's care all the things left undone with a day, along with all the things you were satisfied with doing, then you are in the right frame of mind to understand the good news that these verses from Hebrews are offering us.  It's different from the "I'm just getting a few minutes to myself before another rush of busyness," kind of rest you try and get between meetings or chores.  It's the peace of knowing you can rest and the world is still in good hands--that even if everything isn't all right yet in the world, it is still in the good hands of the living God.  

It's something like the prayer supposedly offered up honestly every night by Pope John XXIII, who would end his days with these few words: "It's your Church, Lord; I'm going to bed."  What utter peace, what utter surrender, to be able to admit that everything isn't in our power or under our control, and instead of being upset about that, to be relieved to be able to let it go into God's hands.  That's the kind of rest that the writer of Hebrews is talking about.  And he says that, for all the times in life where we get a moment's rest here or a few minutes of a catnap there, only to have to get up and face the world again all too soon, there is a real rest promised for us.  

Our lives are not forever doomed to be an endless rat race, always scrambling on to the next task with no sense of completion and no relief or destination to look forward to.  Our lives are lived in God, and that God enable us to have real rest now, and to trust that all of creation is being drawn toward the peace of renewal.  There will come a day when we don't have to keep telling ourselves, "Just one more thing, and then I can take a break--just one more thing."  There will come a time when we will see clearly that all our lives have been held in God's hands, and that it was never all left up to us to get enough done.  And in the mean time, when we get to the end of a day that has been well spent, we can simply give it all back to God in trust that it is all God's world, and we can be at peace knowing God holds it all.  Even when everything in that world isn't OK yet.  

So I'm not going to scramble or fuss or demand more time in this life--I'm going to take the counsel of Hebrews and believe that there is yet a grand sabbath rest for the people of God, and I'm going to do my utmost to fill the days I get well, and to be ready to give them all back into God's hands when the time comes for that.  Maybe in that instant, I'll discover I was always already there. In God's hands.

Lord God, when it is time to give this day back into your hands, let us offer it up with satisfaction that we have used it well, and with peace knowing your hands are the best possible place to be.