Jesus calls out to us, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

And so we come. Longing for relief, rescue and rest.

And as we come to him and walk with him, we find ourselves slowly wondering what exactly he means by “rest.” For like Jeremiah we often feel as though we’ve been tricked for the ways in which Jesus leads us through our various and often conflicting circumstances seem, well, not quite right, not exactly “to the point.” How in the world, for example, does dying to ourselves produce the fruit of joy and flourishing peace in our home, in our work, in our neighborhood. “Dying” is not exactly what I understood “rest” to mean.

But, it seems, it is exactly what Jesus understood himself to be meaning:
“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes [all the would-be movers and shakers in the city of God, we should note], and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” So, he said, “If anyone would come after me [on this journey], let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
For he knows what we do not know; he knows what we do not WANT to know; he knows that we are deeply saturated and shaped, bound and burdened by our world of death. It is only as we crucify in Christ the values, desires, priorities of the world which we so love and crave; it is only as we are daily crucified with Christ that we are raised to the new life of relief, rescue, and rest which he has secured for us and promised to us. Real Joy in our day-to-day real life, the Real Rest in the Peace of Christ for real, day-to-day living is in having our most basic beliefs, values, desires, and priorities transformed by the crucifixion, resurrection, and present-day reign of Jesus by his Spirit.

That he may continue that good work which he has begun in us, then, let us come together with rejoicing to be saturated and shaped by the glory of God through the worship of Jesus, his promised Messiah that we and our world may taste and see the goodness and gentleness, grace and mercy, rescue and rest of God secured for his world in Jesus.

service-08-09-09