Lenten Challenge Day 5

Post:
The Intentionality of Keeping Sabbath

Matthew 11: 28-30 – 28: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ (NRSV)
Having been inspired by Trey’s sermon this past Sunday, I wanted to raise this question: Do we rest alone or do we rest with God?

There is no doubt that resting is good for the mind and body in both the psychological and the biological.  Most of us can attest to the fact that running around all day with things to do is straining and can, in the long term, do violence (as Trey reminded us) to ourselves.

But theologically, the concept of resting is important to consider in light of the verse above and alongside the story we see in Mark 2:23-28, where Jesus declares himself Lord over the Sabbath as he and his disciples are in the process of breaking the Judaic law to rest.  The law was no longer ruler of all things, Jesus was, and so Sabbath was not a matter of finding rest through a set practice, but Jesus became the Sabbath.  “I will give you rest.”

I think taking time to chill out and forget all the millions of concerns is important.  I am about to go insane waiting for the weather to change so I can be outside and do that more often.  But in doing Sabbath, perhaps we should not be resting alone.  We rest in God, in Jesus.  It sounds cheesy as HECK to say “I’m going to jog for God!”, and I think the connotation there can be misleading and presumptuous, so I am not going to say that.  But hopefully you catch my drift.  There is a difference between running because you want to lose weight, and running to gain the space and clarity to connect with yourself and something bigger than yourself.  I hope moving in this manner will enrich the experience all the more, and we can claim God’s promise that we will find rest for our souls.

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Response: PERFECT timing for this post, as I write this while during some downtime of my choir tour. We've been going, going, and going, and we're all EXHAUSTED. We've had downtime, don't get us wrong, but then the amount of energy we have to muster up to nail our performances really takes it out of all us. In addition, I had to go to Urgent Care today to get my ear checked out for a potential ear infection. FUN. So, life has been a little high strung and slightly stressful these past few days. It will be nice to have some rest while at home (ha- maybe. I have quite the schedule planned for my few day reprieve.)

I'm guilty of not always taking time out for God...but rather for myself. I often get to the end of my day, and as I lay in bed about to fall asleep, I realize I haven't even thought of God that day, which always startles me. I'd like to think I'd take more time out for God, but I greedily take my free time for myself. But at the same time, taking time to myself is taking that reprieve that God allows. Those times that we do take time for ourselves, God allows by taking on the burdens so we don't have to deal with them temporarily. I've never thought of it in that regard, but it's true. He gives us the breaks we need every now and then, and we just have to trust in those moments. And enjoy them. He makes it so we don't go TOTALLY insane!