Joy. Through Rest.
Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
I continue to enjoy making my way each day through the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, and how they are fulfilled in the advent of Jesus the Messiah (Luke 24:44). As I said last week, reading while holding the larger vista before us allows us to see how unified God is in telling the story, and the themes he weaves throughout the tale.
For example, his gracious gift and desire for us, as humans, to rest.
And in and because of our rest, to experience joy.
Since this same God is also the Creator of all things, it should come as no surprise to us that he is himself the headwater of the kind of rest we need to sate our sapped souls. Hear the prophet…
Isaiah 40:28-31, Christian Standard Bible
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Yahweh is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the whole earth.
He never becomes faint or weary;
there is no limit to his understanding.
29 He gives strength to the faint
and strengthens the powerless.
30 Youths may become faint and weary,
and young men stumble and fall,
31 but those who trust in Yahweh
will renew their strength;
they will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not become weary,
they will walk and not faint.
Note —
Yahweh is the everlasting God. There is no end to him, he’ll never run out.
He never becomes faint or weary.
Therefore, he is absolutely, fully, eminently capable of giving strength to the faint and strengthening those who seem so strengthless as to be powerless.
And this is so sure and certain, that we may be confident it WILL happen.
We will renew our strength.
We will soar, in the same way we see a majestic eagle soar on broad wings through invisible currents.
We will run (and run, and run, and run) and not become weary.
We will walk — we’ll go, live, persevere, endure — and not be subject to fits of fainting.
And no wonder that Jesus would point us to the Psalms, for look what we find there about this everlasting, strength-providing, God.
Psalm 23, Christian Standard Bible
A Psalm of DavidYahweh is my shepherd;
I have what I need.
2 He lets me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside quiet waters.
3 He renews my life;
he leads me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even when I go through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of Yahweh
as long as I live.
The great reality that makes all these other rewards possible is renewal. The word means to bring back into original existence, use, position, or function. I can’t help but think that means the garden, the state of our original existence, present with God, all things as they should be, in perfect harmony and peace, in utter wholeness and completeness.
Shalom.
Working and keeping, but at the very same time — at rest. Because of who we were with, whose we were. And this shepherd intends to get us back to pastures and waters that will bring us back.
To renew us.
With tables full before us, anointing oil upon us, goodness and faithful love coming up behind us, with an ever-present God with us.
Is it any wonder that the incarnation of this God through Jesus the Son would have him proclaiming to fulfill this in a way never before seen since the very beginning?
Matthew 11:25-30, Christian Standard Bible
At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. 26 Yes, Father, because this was your good pleasure. 27 All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him.
28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
What a gentle invitation. How could we not accept this? Are we humble, weary, burdened, and tired enough to accept this? How could we not, when the promise of our moving just one small step closer to Jesus means that we “will find rest for [our] souls”?
And how remarkable that this wasn’t a one-time desire of the incarnate God who walked this earth with his disciples, just as he had with their forebears in the garden…
Mark 6:30-31, Christian Standard Bible
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and taught. 31 He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a remote place and rest for a while.” For many people were coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.
Have you ever had one of those days where you were so busy that you made it to the evening and realized you hadn’t even had time to stop and eat? I mean, so crushed you didn’t even think about it?
Apparently you’re not the first.
And here we discover what Jesus thinks about that, how our God feels about us when we’re in the midst of that — “Come away by yourself for a bit; c’mon now, rest for a while.”
I don’t know about you, but tears well up in my eyes at the stunning compassion of that kind of care. I truly find it difficult to comprehend the extent to which God loves us. So much that he sent his Son that he might get us, and all of creation, to a place of rest.
With him.
Forever.
World without end.
Revelation 14:13, Christian Standard Bible
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”
“Yes,” says the Spirit, “so they will rest from their labors, since their works follow them.”
Joy to the World, through rest, indeed.
