Jesus Says Relax
I'd like you to imagine that you have three years left to live. I guess you'd have a few things that you wanted to do with that time. I'd also like you to imagine that one of the things you wanted to do with that time was to change the world. I think you'd probably be pretty busy. You'd want to use all the time you had available. Three years is not a long time to change the whole world! Maybe you would cut down on sleep, to make more time in the day. Maybe you would plan out what you would do every day. Maybe you would cut out holidays and work every day.
I come from a very busy family. When I call my mother, we ask each other ``What have you been doing this week?'' And the answer is usually ``Oh, nothing really''... and then a big long list of what's been going on. Maybe because of that I find it difficult to take time off. I'm very bad at it. Even when I'm working by myself, I always worry that I am not doing enough work. And so when I have a day off, actually I usually end up doing something else instead - a different kind of work. Because of this I usually end up getting a lot of things done. I am very productive, because I never stop! But even then I still feel like I should be doing more.
In English we have a saying ``a change is as good as a rest''. It means that if we do different work instead of our normal work, that can feel like a rest. Recently when I have had ``days off'', it just means I have not been writing sermons, but I have been writing computer programmes for WEC instead! It was a change, and it felt like a rest. But it was still work. This week I had a ``holiday'' in Shiga-cho. But my ``holiday'' was just time to be quiet and do some more work.
This is not a Biblical view of rest. I have to change my attitude, because this is not the attitude that Jesus had. Jesus had three years left to change the world. But he was not always working. He knew when it was right to stop working and rest. And in this passage, when the disciples come back from a mission trip, he tells them that they need to rest. They were so busy that they had forgotten to eat! That is not what Jesus wants for them. Jesus says in Matthew 11 ``Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.'' I think this is a very important message for Japan; Jesus gives this busy society an opportunity to rest. But this is not just a message for non-Christians. It is also a message to Christians. We need to learn to come aside with Jesus and rest.
It is too easy to see rest as a time to recharge our batteries - to get ready for the next piece of work we have to do. But again that is not how the Bible sees rest. In the Bible, rest itself is an important thing to do. When God finished created the world, He rested. It is so important that the Bible says it twice! ``By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.'' (Gen 2:2-3)
God did not rest because He had to get back to work! He did not rest to make himself more efficient! God rested because rest is an authentic part of life. And He commanded his people to rest as well: ``Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work.'' (Ex 20:9-10) The word ``Sabbath'' literally means ``stop''. It's not just a temporary break in work. It's a complete stop from working altogether. Jesus and the Pharisees had many arguments about the Sabbath. They expected people to do absolutely nothing on the Sabbath, because the Sabbath is holy. But Jesus said that it was OK to do good on the Sabbath. Again Jesus turns upside down people's understanding of what it means to be holy. Jesus wanted people to do right, not just to be right. And so when he needs to stop work and rest, he will rest, and he will tell his disciples to do so too.
Jesus does not want us to work ourselves to death for him - I think I'm preaching to myself here - but he cares for his people. One of my favourite stories of Jesus is the resurrection in John's gospel (John 21). The disciples are very depressed - their master had just been killed. They go back to their old jobs. Peter says ``I'm going fishing'' and the others say ``We'll go with you''. It feels like ``Well, we don't have anything else to do any more.'' And then Jesus appears to them, and what does he say? He's just died and come back to life, and what does he say to his disciples? ``Have you had breakfast? Come and have breakfast.'' He cares about his people. He wants them to be well, well rested and well fed. Mark's Gospel talks twice about the disciples not having enough time to eat, and each time, Jesus takes them away and has a meal with them.
We can try to impress Jesus will all the things we are prepared to do for him; if we come from a busy background, we can busy in our Christian lives as well. But Jesus was never busy in his ministry. He worked at exactly the right pace. He took time to rest. He says ``go out into the whole world'' but he also says ``Come with me and get some rest''. I know that's his message for me this week. Maybe it's his message for you as well.