Rest

12 Gifts of Christmas / 7th Gift – Rest

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments

 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:29

Our plane had finished climbing to 30,000 feet and the pilot quietly announced that we were now free to move about the cabin, but my eyes were still tightly closed in prayer. No – I wasn’t just being religious – I was really terrified of flying! But on a six hour flight it is hard to pretend that you are sleeping for very long. When eventually, I opened my eyes, I noticed a young Chinese man seated across from me, gazing out his window in delight. We struck up a conversation and I learned that he was coming from Hong Kong to the United States and that this was his first time on a plane. The difference between His joy of watching the clouds and the scenery lay in stark contrast to my dark fears. Though I truly believed that if I died I would be with Jesus, I was still gripped by anxiety and my neighbor’s obvious joy made me feel ashamed.

He was enjoying the kind of rest that in our hurry towards Christmas, we all need to remember. Maybe we miss God’s purpose of rest because we feel that with any sort of inactivity we might be missing out. But God is at the controls of our lives and has given us complete freedom to move about the cabin and find rest as we delight in seeing where God is taking us on our journey.

We would be a lot more at ease if we remembered that Jesus patiently lingered nine unhurried months in the waiting room of Mary’s womb. Shepherds learned the Good News of great joy as they rested with their flocks. Even after Jesus was born, He rested in the place the Father had put Him while He was growing up in the tiny village of Nazareth.

In fact, Jesus had brothers and sisters with whom He had to share a straw mattress on the floor and eat the same simple family meals that Mary cooked. Never once does the Bible record a complaint, or reveal an attitude of impatience with him. Jesus simply waited for the day when His Father’s work would begin and He rested in the place where he was. Maybe it was there in Nazareth where He was taught to give thanks for bread and fish. While taking care of his chores He learned to wash feet for visitors, celebrate weddings and handle wood and nails. Then He patiently and painfully endured the cross for us, all the while resting in the thought that the end of hIS journey would be perfect. then before the resurrection Jesus rested three long days in the tomb. That same Jesus who could take a nap in a boat in a storm now invites us to also come, put our trust in Him and celebrate rest for our souls forever!

Resting at The Well

/ pastorpete51 / 4 Comments

Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” John 4:6-7

When we think of the story of the woman at the well most of us picture a bucolic scene by some quiet spot among the lovely hills of Samaria. But more likely the scene at the well was busy with people coming and going because water is something that everyone needs. Often the case is made that the well was deserted at noontime and the woman was alone but it could have been a scene more like the pool of Bethesda with people crowding around on every side. Yet in that busy place Jesus rested and waited for one woman to come.

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If our day seems cluttered and overcrowded with no place to rest. Jesus reminds us that our outward circumstances have nothing to do with our ability to rest and wait. It is not only possible but desperately necessary for us to rest at a well at what may seem to be the most inopportune times. While we push forward in our activities with another cup of coffee or another shot of our favorite energy drink, Jesus is calling us to come to rest both physically and spiritually. You will need to rest and to wait by the well because someone is passing by who needs a drink of water that only He can give but only you are holding the cup.

 

 

On Saturday He Rested

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From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised  Matthew 16:21 ESV

We all know what happened on that first day, that terrible and blessed day on the cross. On the third day it is very clear that Jesus rose from the dead. But in spite of many ideas and even elaborate tales no one truly knows just what occurred on Holy Saturday. So can we ask the question, “What if Jesus simply rested? What if when Jesus said, “It is finished!” and gave His spirit into his father’s hands He just rested – without sorrow, suffering or demands of any kind for that day. What if after three and a half years of ministry in which it was said that he had nowhere to lay his head and scarcely time to eat that Jesus chose to rest in His Father’s ability to do all that needed to be done for the day.

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What if Jesus rested because it was the Sabbath? What if the same day on which the creation of the heavens was completed Jesus just paused to see everything that was good in the new creation now begun? What if there are times in our own lives when there is nothing more holy to do than nothing? What if on this Holy Saturday we could quietly reflect and rest in the completed work of Jesus Christ. What would our lives be like if for even one day we simply trusted God to do all?