The LCA provides this sermon edited for lay-reading, with thanks to the original author.
Proper 9, Year A
Matthew 11:28
We humans need to spend about a third of our lives resting and sleeping. And while we sleep, God (who never sleeps) gets on with looking after the rest of the enormous creation. What a job!
Humans also occasionally need to take a break from other people and be alone. There were times when Jesus needed to be alone – he was human too. There was the time he received the gruesome news about John the Baptist. John the Baptist was the one who introduced Jesus to the people. He was also a first cousin to Jesus. John was popular with the crowds. When Jesus hears the gruesome news that John has been beheaded, Jesus goes off to be alone. He needs time to grieve alone. That is quite understandable.
In the original Greek the word for a rest is “pause”. When God finished the task of creation he took a pause on the seventh day. We need to pause and rest every day. Time for rest and sleep is important for our health. The Greek word for sleep is ‘hypnos’ – which is where we get our English word ‘hypnotised’. We can all too easily be hypnotised by a TV screen, or a computer or iPad, and then we might miss out on some of the best rest of all – a really good sleep!
We are like a battery that needs to be recharged, or we become run down, irritable and not much good to anyone. So every day there is a time when we lie down, and at some point sleep cuts in, and we enter a mysterious state of rest that is designed to recharge our mind and body. We wake up to a brand new day that we have never experienced before. To rest in sleep is a marvellous gift from God. Those who have no trouble sleeping tend to take it for granted!
Sleep deprivation is a form of torture that has been used in many cultures throughout history. The victims become disoriented, psychotic and can be brainwashed, and often in this form of suffering they will readily sign any paper put before them in the hope the torture will end and they can sleep. God has designed us to rest and sleep so we can stay healthy and do not become mentally disturbed and run down.
A bad conscience might deny us the healthy recharge that a good sleep brings. A bad conscience can nag away inside us and not let us rest and be recharged. A bad conscience might also eat away at our spiritual health. It can stop us from resting in God’s precious gift of forgiveness. We need times to sink down and rest in God’s deep grace. God loves us to rest in his forgiveness every day. Like our time for a good sleep, it is the time when Jesus takes over and provides for us the rest in the precious forgiveness we need.
Christians don’t need to get up in the morning to rush about putting together excuses for ourselves so we might be accepted by God. No. Jesus has prepared forgiveness for us because he knows we need it to live a healthy spiritual life. Each day the Holy Spirit wants us to rest in his promises of forgiveness. In Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9 the Scriptures assure us:
“For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it.”
Christians have the joy of resting in God’s forgiveness like one might rest in a nice hot bath, and the waters of baptism wash over us and soothe our aching souls. God wants us to enjoy a lifetime resting in the waters of baptism.
God has designed us to lie down and rest in a bed called faith, wrapped in the clean white sheets of Easter, and safe under the blankets of God’s promises of forgiveness.
As surely as a good sleep will refresh a person for the new day ahead, so a good dose of faith gives one the new energy and ability to love unselfishly again, and have a heart for other people. The faith we Christians rest in is the source of an energetic love that reaches out to care for other people, even the unlovely people in our society just as Jesus did.
If one didn’t rest in faith in Jesus, one could become like a hypochondriac, always worrying about one’s self and trying to get attention. One could become quite oblivious to the needs of the other people God puts us next to, even the other members of our own family.
People need to be refreshed by their faith in Jesus. So do congregations. The key to new life for a congregation that is becoming old and tired can be to rest completely in God’s words of grace and forgiveness to each member – to one another. Then one will receive new strength to witness and share with others God’s goodness and grace.
There is no better place for a good rest and sleep than in one’s own bed. But sometimes it is hard for us to rest in faith in God’s promises. Living in this world can be like living in a motel. We are moving on from one motel to another. It is not our real home, nor our own bed. Jesus knows what it is like for us, so he has gone ahead of us to prepare a place of perfect rest for us in our real home.
Our real home is in the Father’s house where a permanent room has been set aside for each one of us by Jesus. Waking up on the Day of the Lord, we will enjoy the perfect rest from all the evil and selfishness that goes on in this world we live in now. There, we shall enjoy the perfect love of God. We get there after experiencing the deepest sleep of all.
For Jesus and his people, death comes like a refreshing sleep. We wake up on the other side to a perfect day that continues forever. We get a permanent rest from evil, sickness, hatred, suffering, sorrow, a bad conscience, and any weeping and despair.
The work of sin and evil will be finished. Jesus has paid its wage out in full. We will rest in the perfect day that Jesus has provided. The day with Jesus never ends. We will rest in God and enjoy a new dimension of life – where there is no need for sleep. To rest in God is to experience perfect peace and complete joy. It is to rest in perfect love, both for God, and for one another. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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